Here’s another couple of poems from way back directly
inspired by
the drawings below. The artist was then eleven.
From the drawing by Sam Proud
Wrong John Peg-leg.
“Yo ho ho and a bottle of blood!
Wrong John Peg-leg will cutlass you!
With me shimmerin’ blade I’ve chopped
the seas. I lost me leg at Waterloo:
and left an eye at Charing Cross.
I’ve sunk more ships than Francis Drake
I’ve carved me name on the Albatross.
‘Ow many currants in a Christmas Cake? Treble it!
That’s ‘ow many treasure chests I’ve got.
Richer than an oil-sheikh that’s me!
Of all the pirate pests I’m best!
But I always fail me driving test!”
London. ‘82. (Soho Clarion: Issue 47).
URIAH………….
I’m Uriah with the right handed heart.
My home can be found at the top of the chart.
I live in the mountains with ibex and yak
where the snow-eagles fly
with the sun at their back.
With my dark sunglasses protecting my eyes
and my abominable limbs of disproportionate size
I welcome my friends above old Kathmandu
drinking the tea that the Tibetan monks do.
If you’re lucky you’ll see me way up in the blue
tracking the Yeti called Betty –
she’s a friend too.
The air is so rare in the places I live
that I use an unusual umbilical sieve
for breathing, instead of your orthodox modes
there by avoiding your colds in the nose.
My object is life is simple God knows:
to teach Betty the Yeti
how consciousness grows.
It wouldn’t surprise me, the way knowledge goes
if she teaches me more – it’s possible I s’pose!
Soho ‘83
