The day I found that ship wrecked

pound note, the eye of the Queen

giving me a warning glance or the drifting

smile of a woman I will never meet,

like the furtive teasing of a model

stripped down to the waist that adorned

the tossed away magazines and that got caught

in the branches of the Willow trees

that lined sentry still on display

on the banks of the River Rae,

on the dusty pavement

on the bridge

that separates Moor Green Lane

and Dad’s Lane…

I felt like a King.

 

Wednesdays were always the worst,

the inevitability of the boys in blue

losing their midweek game, the seventeen

unwinnable match streak adding to the woes

of a boy who detested the salad that was served

up as if a caterpillar had given up on life

and become a school dinner lady, decked out

in white and suspicious of anyone who asked for less

or even just a piece of stale bread, a glass of water

and some cress and I would like to be on my way please…

 

…all this the precursor

to the despair of the Wednesday night meal

in which liver and onions would scowl at me

and I would push it round the plate,

fork first,

veterinary surgeon second,

and the haunting words

of the head master as he spat embarrassment

into the cheeks of an nine year old

that make me cringe now as I remember retorting

with under ten year old bravado, “Well,

let them eat it then.”

 

On Wednesdays I would only

pick at the prison staffed

solitary piece of French stick

and an armful of grass shaped

cress.

 

On the day I felt like a King,

I somehow knew

that it would end that way as I rushed home

to change into my Cub uniform, freshly ironed,

shoes scuffed and unpolished, my job,

handkerchief in pocket,

mostly always forgotten,

point docked, still spent six months as Cub of the Month

despite the continuous absence

of the Cub Scout snot rag,

and beret clean, tidy, resplendent,

leading to a life-long love of hats,

the Trilby not yet Scout endorsed headwear…

 

…As if by providence my mother was already out,

having made her way up to the scout hall early

and my dear father convinced by my argument

that I really wasn’t hungry and that surely

my mother would need a hand as she in turn helped Akala,

his bewildered smile hiding inquisitiveness

as he reflected that perhaps the beautiful woman

who recently joined and whom had set me on the path

to life-long Atheism,

had perhaps stirred something else

as is the want of all young boys,

to be held in the arms of a rebel

wearing perfume

and long curly blonde hair,

the fixation of the cool

and yet not understanding why,

despite all the magazines that fluttered in the wind

on the Willow trees on the bank of the Rae.

 

I was fixated of course

but for the prospect of eating

behind my parents back

in the café at the end of Hobson

and Pershore Road and directly opposite the Scout Hall

where I would wrap my lips seductively around

a couple of bits of bacon, some toast and an egg

with a yolk so yellow that it blotted out the clouds

and the rain that began to hit the Birmingham streets.

 

I may have fallen in childish love

with the woman named Angela who sat me down

inside the Natural History Museum

and who explained evolution

in a kind way that meant I hardly saw

any of the exhibits that day, but for now

the taste of her perfume was forgotten,

the look in nine year old boys eyes

to a woman who smiled with bright red lipstick,

dismissed and the slow satisfaction

of something other than grass being eaten

as the heavy rain slashed down

and bounced and tumbled off the telephone box

over the road with greater agility than Olga Korbut

on a night out in Moscow,

as with empty plate I finished my thoughts

and the moment of regal riches

was gone.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015