Short of luck on Short Street by Chris Hardy

1
In a little room at the top of the stairs

I was taken to see my grandfather.

Only his head was visible

framed by thin white hair,

a white beard flared over the sheet.

The head croaked like a worn-out frog



and then it stopped.

He'd only been sick a short time.

One day he was in the pub

the next he was standing over the fire-place

holding onto the mantle-piece

and shaking one leg after the other



swearing he'd mek t' buggers work.

A woman from next door called

to see if there was anything she could do.

Aye there is an' all,

bring a bottle o' gin

an' get in 'ere wi' me.



2

With their lungs full of coal dust colliers

cocked their toes like egg-timers

filled with slag not sand.



They and their women burned

with fevers keeled over with

the pip were stopped in their tracks



by colick went dotty lost sleep

through piles hunger pyorrhoea

bed-bugs canker broken bones



ringworm bunions chilblains

eczma carbuncles rickets

lice lock-jaw and sometimes



knocked sideways by the whole

sodding business

did away with themselves.

3

Look at our old man Harry

straight from lying on his belly

hacking coal,

home at four-o-clock

like a miniature slag-heap on legs.

Right away he strips to the waist



bends over the sink

and sluices water over his front

while our mother Harriet

scrubs his back.

His lower half got washed

once a week.



Harriet wished she'd had as many pounds

as the number of times

she'd straightened out poor sods

who'd snuffed it at the end of a rope.

She'd come home, make a pot of tea,

sit down at the table and tell us.



They found 'im 'angin' under t' stairs,

poor sod 'is neck lewked all crooked an' all,

but we soon 'ad 'im stripped and washed

and straightened out, stuffed 'is tongue back in

as far as it'd go and after we shaved 'im

well 'e looked a treat.



'Is eyeballs are stickin' out tew far

for us to get the pennies in

but we'll 'ave another go in t' mornin'.

We got a clean shirt on 'im an' wi' a bit o' trouble

got 'is arms crossed in a fashion, any road up

'e'll do.





4

I was a nobody born to nobodies.

A few somebodies lived in Sutton,

we came across them

when they hired and fired us,

lanced our boils,

pulled our teeth,



turfed us out,

declared us consumptive,

fit for the San,

dubbed us indigent

and intoned to their Gods

over our corpses.



We wore neither underwear

nor sleeping garments.

We tucked our shirt-tails

between our legs

and turned in wearing the shirt

we wore all week.



At the end of the yard

stood a brick shed.

If taken short in the night

you were allowed a candle

but you could just

follow your nose.



Having swept the seat of coal dust

or sometimes snow

you settled down over a hole

cut in rough sawn planks

above a big, two-handled

iron bucket.



You wiped your arse on newspaper.

I found this made for

therapeutic movements

if I discovered a royal likeness

or some other somebody

looking up at me.



Our teacher told us

we were lucky to be British

the race that ruled the world.

On Empire day I sang

and waved a flag

before a map covered in red.



One Friday when I came home

I found my mother lying low,

she thought I was the rent man

but it wasn't fear of him

that made her weep

it was being short of luck

and broke on Short Street

with seven more days to go.

http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/chrishardypage.html