Basil

My Saturday job pays six and six down

A copy boy at the Chronicle

Five cigarettes and two silver half crowns

Meeting Vince at Mark Toney’s in town

Boy, do we get around

Basil sits there on the table for subs

But not a part of the Bri-nylon club

Ancient blue sweater, too old for the job

Bored out of his mind

With the Colins and Bobs

I’m a jack and a lad

And I’m up for the world

And I’ve kissed a Gateshead girl

He calls for a copy boy, grumpy as hell

Poets have to eat as well

What he wouldn’t give just to walk out today

To have time to think about time

And young love thrown away

I’m a jack and a lad

And I’m up for the world

And I’ve kissed a Gateshead girl

Starlings swarming

A cloud over Grainger Street

Over the black church

Over the Black Gate

And the shadowy Keep

He peers through his wire rims

At the fish and chip words

He’s supposed to dish up and forget

His drudgery now has become slightly blurred

By one of his Players untipped cigarettes

Bury all joy

Put the poems in sacks

And bury me here with the hacks

In the summer the fair

Will stretch over the Moor

Lovers will lie and make out in the park

Basil puts on his old duffel and scarf

And goes out into the dark