Green Glass Beads Read online

  She was a Junior County Tennis Champion.

  How could that happen?

  How could I accidentally

  Make friends with a tennis champion?

  How could a tennis champion

  Make friends with me?

  She wasn’t stupid. She read books.

  She had never been mean to me

  For being bad at games.

  I decided to forgive

  Her unfortunate past.

  Sporty people can be OK –

  Of course they can.

  Later on, I met poets

  Who played football. It’s still hard

  To get my head round that.

  Wendy Cope

  Prior Knowledge

  Prior Knowledge was a strange boy.

  He had sad green eyes.

  He always seemed to know when I was telling lies.

  We were friends for a summer.

  Prior got out his knife

  and mixed our bloods so we’d be brothers for life.

  You’ll be rich, he said, and famous;

  but I must die.

  Then brave, clever Prior began to cry.

  He knew so much.

  He knew the day before

  I’d drop a jam jar full of frogspawn on the kitchen floor.

  He knew there were wasps

  in the gardening gloves.

  He knew the name of the girl I’d grow up to love.

  The day he died

  he knew there would be

  a wind shaking conkers from the horse chestnut tree;

  and an aimless child

  singing down Prior’s street,

  with bright red sandals on her skipping feet.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Sassenachs

  Me and my best pal (well, she was

  till a minute ago) are off to London.

  First trip on an intercity alone.

  When we got on we were the same

  kind of excited – jigging on our seats,

  staring at everyone. But then,

  I remembered I had to be sophisticated.

  So when Jenny started shouting,

  ‘Look at that, the land’s flat already,’

  when we were just outside Glasgow

  (Motherwell actually) I’d feel myself flush.

  Or even worse, ‘Sassenach country!

  Wey Hey Hey.’ The tartan tammy

  sitting proudly on top of her pony;

  the tartan scarf swinging like a tail.

  The nose pressed to the window.

  ‘England’s not so beautiful, is it?’

  And we haven’t even crossed the border!

  And the train’s jazzy beat joins her:

  Sassenachs Sassenachs here we come.

  Sassenachs Sassenachs Rum Tum Tum

  Sassenachs Sassenachs How do you do.

  Sassenachs Sassenachs WE’LL GET YOU.

  Then she loses momentum, so out come

  the egg mayonnaise sandwiches and

  the big bottle of Bru. ‘My ma’s done us proud,’

  says Jenny, digging in, munching loud.

  The whole train is an egg and I’m inside it.

  I try to remain calm; Jenny starts it again,

  Sassenachs Sassenachs Rum Tum Tum.

  Finally we get there: London, Euston;

  and the first person on the platform

  gets asked – ‘Are you a genuine Sassenach?’

  I want to die, but instead I say, ‘Jenny!’

  He replies in that English way –

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ and Jenny screams

  ‘Did you hear that Voice?’

  And we both die laughing, clutching

  our stomachs at Euston.

  Jackie Kay

  It Is a Puzzle

  My friend

  Is not my friend any more.

  She has secrets from me

  And goes about with Tracy Hackett.

  I would

  Like to get her back,

  Only do not want to say so.

  So I pretend

  To have secrets from her

  And go about with Alice Banks.

  But what bothers me is,

  Maybe she is pretending

  And would like me back,

  Only does not want to say so.

  In which case

  Maybe it bothers her

  That I am pretending.

  But if we are both pretending,

  Then really we are friends

  And do not know it.

  On the other hand,

  How can we be friends

  And have secrets from each other

  And go about with other people?

  My friend

  Is not my friend any more,

  Unless she is pretending.

  I cannot think what to do.

  It is a puzzle.

  Allan Ahlberg

  Summer Romance

  I was best friends with Sabah

  the whole long summer;

  I admired her handwriting,

  the way she smiled into

  the summer evening,

  her voice, melted butter.

  The way her chin shone

  under a buttercup.

  Everyone let Sabah

  go first in a long

  hot summer queue.

  The way she always looked

  fancy, the way

  she said ‘Fandango’,

  and plucked her banjo;

  her big purple bangle

  banged at her wrist;

  her face lit by the angle

  poise lamp in her room,

  her hair all a tangle,

  damp from the summer heat,

  Sabah’s eyes sparkled all summer.

  But when the summer was gone

  and the winter came,

  in walked Big Heather Murphy.

  Sabah turned her lovely head

  towards her. I nearly died.

  Summer holidays burn with lies.

  Jackie Kay

  I’m Nobody! Who Are You?

  I’m nobody! Who are you?

  Are you nobody, too?

  Then there’s a pair of us – don’t tell!

  They’d banish us, you know.

  How dreary to be somebody!

  How public, like a frog

  To tell your name the livelong day

  To an admiring bog!

  Emily Dickinson

  FAMILY

  Sleep, Baby, Sleep

  Sleep, baby, sleep

  Your father tends the sheep

  Your mother shakes the dreamland tree

  And from it fall sweet dreams for thee

  Sleep, baby, sleep

  Anon.

  New Baby

  My baby brother makes so much noise

  that the Rottweiler next door

  phoned up to complain.

  My baby brother makes so much noise

  that all the big green frogs

  came out the drains.

  My baby brother makes so much noise

  that the rats and the mice

  wore headphones.

  My baby brother makes so much noise

  that I can’t ask my mum a question,

  so much noise that sometimes

  I think of sitting the cat on top of him

  in his pretty little cot with all his teddies.

  But even the cat is terrified of his cries.

  So I have devised a plan. A soundproof room.

  A telephone to talk to my mum.

  A small lift to receive food and toys.

  Thing is, it will cost a fortune.

  The other thing is, the frogs have gone.

  It’s not bad now. Not that I like him or anything.

  Jackie Kay

  My Baby Brother’s Secrets

  When my baby brother

  wants to tell me a secret,

  he comes right up close.

  But inste
ad of putting his lips

  against my ear,

  he presses his ear

  tightly against my ear.

  Then, he whispers so softly

  that I can’t hear

  a word he is saying.

  My baby brother’s secrets

  are safe with me.

  John Foster

  Balloons

  Since Christmas they have lived with us,

  Guileless and clear,

  Oval soul-animals,

  Taking up half the space,

  Moving and rubbing on the silk

  Invisible air drifts,

  Giving a shriek and pop

  When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.

  Yellow cathead, blue fish –

  Such queer moons we live with

  Instead of dead furniture!

  Straw mats, white walls

  And these travelling

  Globes of thin air, red, green,

  Delighting

  The heart like wishes or free

  Peacocks blessing

  Old ground with a feather

  Beaten in starry metals.

  Your small

  Brother is making

  His balloon squeak like a cat.

  Seeming to see

  A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,

  He bites,

  Then sits

  Back, fat jug

  Contemplating a world clear as water,

  A red

  Shred in his little fist.

  Sylvia Plath

  Sister in a Whale

  You live in the hollow of a stranded whale

  lying on top of our house.

  My father was embarrassed by this

  so a roof was put up as camouflage.

  On the ribs you have hung plants

  and a miniature replica of a whale

  to remind you where you are.

  The stomach lining is plastered with posters

  and your Snoopy for President buttons

  are stuck to a piece of blubber beside your bed.

  Through the spout you observe cloud formations.

  It isn’t as orderly as a regular room:

  its more like a shipwreck of notebooks,

  school projects, shirts, paper bags,

  coke cans, photographs and magazines

  that has been washed up with the tide.

  You beachcomb every morning for something to wear;

  then it’s down the corkscrew

  to the real world.

  Julie O’Callaghan

  Human Affection

  Mother, I love you so.

  Said the child, I love you more than I know.

  She laid her head on her mother’s arm,

  And the love between them kept them warm.

  Stevie Smith

  The Housemaid’s Letter

  Dear Mum,

  My life is very fine here

  Far from the village

  And the smells of home.

  I have a room in the roof

  Painted blue as a blackbird’s egg,

  And a whole bed to myself,

  Which is lonely

  But so clean

  The sheets crackle like morning frost.

  And I have tried

  Truly

  To make you proud of me, Mum.

  I work hard all day,

  Cleaning and polishing this great house

  Till it sparkles as brightly

  As a butterfly’s wing.

  Then I disappear down the Servants’ Stair

  Like a small, sweaty

  Fairy Godmother,

  Unseen and unknown

  By the golden ones above.

  And I am happy enough, Mum.

  The food is good

  Though swallowed in silence.

  The other girls smile

  At my clumsy ways

  And Cook can be kind

  If the milk is sweet

  And the butter cool.

  But sometimes,

  When the Sunday bells are ringing,

  I still miss the warmth of the little ones

  Curled beside me in the tumbled darkness,

  And I hunger to hear

  The homely peal

  Of your lost laughter,

  Mum.

  Clare Bevan

  Sidcup, 1940

  I was writing my doll’s name on the back of her neck

  when Mummy caught fire – a noisy distraction.

  She was wearing a loose blue flowered smock

  (an old maternity smock, I now deduce,

  from her pregnancy with my sister four years earlier,

  being used as an overall, not to waste it);

  the hem flapped over the hearth she was sweeping,

  and caught on a live coal from last night’s fire.

  I tore myself away from writing ‘Margaret’

  to save her life. ‘Lie down, Mummy!’ I said,

  and helped to smother her flames in the hearthrug.

  So much is memory. The rest was praise:

  What a good girl, how sensible, how calm!

  But ‘how well-taught’ is what they should have said.

  She saved her own life, really. She’d made sure

  we knew fire travels upwards, and needs air.

  After all, this was the ‘phoney war’ –

  she was waiting for all of England to catch fire.

  Fleur Adcock

  Sensing Mother

  Dad keeps Mum’s favourite dress

  deep in the bottom of the ottoman.

  Sometimes, when he is at work

  I stand listening to the tick of the clock

  then go upstairs.

  And propping up

  the squeaky wooden lid, I dig through

  layers of rough, winter blankets

  feeling for that touch of silk.

  The blue whisper of it cool

  against my cheek.

  Other times – the school-test times,

  and Dad-gets-home-too-late-

  to-say-goodnight times –

  I wrap the arms of the dress around me,

  breathing in a smell, faint as dried flowers.

  I remember how she twirled around

  – like a swirl of sky.

  When I am old enough I will wear it.

  Pulling up the white zip,

  I’ll laugh and spin,

  calling out to my daughter:

  How do I look?

  Mandy Coe

  Daddy Fell into the Pond

  Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey.

  We had nothing to do and nothing to say.

  We were nearing the end of a dismal day.

  And there seemed to be nothing beyond,

  Then

  Daddy fell into the pond!

  And everyone’s face grew merry and bright,

  And Timothy danced for sheer delight.

  ‘Give me the camera, quick, oh quick!

  He’s crawling out of the duckweed!’ Click!

  Then the gardener suddenly slapped his knee,

  And doubled up, shaking silently,

  And the ducks all quacked as if they were daft,

  And it sounded as if the old drake laughed.

  Oh, there wasn’t a thing that didn’t respond

  When

  Daddy fell into the pond!

  Alfred Noyes

  Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

  Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen,

  Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.

  They do not fear the men beneath the tree;

  They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

  Aunt Jennifer’s fingers fluttering through her wool

  Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.

  The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band

  Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand.

  When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie


  Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.

  The tigers in the panel that she made

  Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

  Adrienne Rich

  Uncle Edward’s Affliction

  Uncle Edward was colour-blind;

  We grew accustomed to the fact.

  When he asked someone to hand him

  The green book from the window seat

  And we observed its bright red cover

  Either apathy or tact

  Stifled comment. We passed it over.

  Much later, I began to wonder

  What a curious world he wandered in,

  Down streets where pea-green pillar boxes

  Grinned at a fire engine as green;

  How Uncle Edward’s sky at dawn

  And sunset flooded marshy green.

  Did he ken John Peel with his coat so green

  And Robin Hood in Lincoln red?

  On country walks avoid being stung

  By nettles hot as a witch’s tongue?

  What meals he savoured with his eyes:

  Green strawberries and fresh red peas,

  Green beef and greener burgundy.

  All unscientific, so it seems:

  His world was not at all like that,

  So those who claim to know have said.

  Yet, I believe, in war-smashed France

  He must have crawled from neutral mud

  To lie in pastures dark and red

  And seen, appalled, on every blade

  The rain of innocent green blood.

  Vernon Scannell

  Grandmamma’s Birthday

  Dear Grandmamma, with what we give,

  We humbly pray that you may live

  For many, many happy years:

  Although you bore us all to tears.

  Hilaire Belloc

  Indifference

  When Grandmamma fell off the boat,

  And couldn’t swim (and wouldn’t float),

  Matilda just stood by and smiled.

  I almost could have slapped the child.

  Harry Graham