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
