Six Poems by Cliff Wedgbury

 

my love sold revolutionary newspapers

i once loved a girl

who sold revolutionary newspapers

in charing cross road

 

her red

nipple-tight tee-shirt

sang the praises

of che-guevara

as we linked arms

and marched with thousands

on grosvenor square

 

she was fearless when the stones flew

brave when the police charged

valiant among the legs of galloping horses

 

they fined me twenty pounds

for disturbing the peace

and the only peace i wished to disturb

was hers

 

“i’m going to cuba!” she said

 

but ended up in catford

with a bangladeshi bus conductor

and a tenth-floor balcony

full of nappies

 

my love

 

who sold revolutionary newspapers

blind date

we met

under the station clock

 

she was slightly plump

and wore glasses

 

i was slightly skinny

and wore a partial denture

 

walking through wet streets

to the basement jazz club

we both wore

disappointed expressions

 

the pianist played like george shearing

wore velvet and smoked black cigarettes

 

dancing cheek to cheek in a dark corner

she held me to her green floral dress

beneath which i felt a bony corset

 

after a couple of gin and tonics

she giggled at my hand on her hip

 

disappointment fading

to a sort of blind friendship

french kissing

she cornered me

in the stationary cupboard

christmas eve

just before six

she was full of bacardi

and i was full of lust

an anaemic office boy

with pimples full of pus

 

but in the darkness

she didn’t seem to mind

even when

i held her behind

in my sweaty hands

that only came in for some foolscap

 

“you’re in my little trap”

said janet

breathless between kisses

french and wet

though i knew

i’d never get

any further than my tongue

between her teeth

which was really

rather a relief

with her fiancé

waiting at reception

and him a twelve-stone lighterman from tilbury

with a forest of hair

growing from his ears

and me

an underweight asthmatic little chap

who only went looking

for a ream of foolscap

 

ant

 

i step on him by mistake

not hearing

the shell-like body crunch

 

i feel remorse

that such a busy little fellow

should be snubbed out so quickly

on his way to a hard day’s work

 

i look up at the sky guiltily

awaiting the meteorite to fall

remembering my father’s death

running for the london train

and his unexpected call

kiss

would you believe

that the first girl i kissed

couldn’t even read or write?

 

mind you

we were only three at the time

 

the second girl

a dictaphone typist

was fifty-five

 

i was called

granny snatcher

 

perhaps that’s why i love

second-hand bookshops

 

the old bindings are exquisite

the musty perfume mysterious

 

they’ve been around

 

i love original dust jackets

even the odd stain of tear

can’t wait to take them off

to touch what lingers there

 

if i’m in a strange city

and i see an antiquarian sign

my mind goes into overdrive

what will i find this time?

 

perhaps some ancient little treasure

is hiding just for me

as i caress all those naked spines

lusting after antiquity

waving with molly

a sunday evening in tankerton

cucumber sandwiches eaten

celery dipped into pyramids of salt

fruit salad with evaporated milk

 

we ran to the bottom of a neat garden

crossed a five-bar gate

then a one-acre field of grazing cattle

to wave at the london-bound train

steaming to the west on its high embankment

 

the driver waved back

blew a high-pitched whistle

as molly screamed with delight

while we listened to that lonesome sound

fading into the bat-filled night

Cliff Wedgbury is a Cork-based  poet, born in London in 1946. His formative years were spent in the folk clubs, jazz clubs and second-hand bookshops of the Charing Cross Road area in London. He began writing during these years and a selection of his work appeared at this time in an anthology published by the Greenwich Poetry Society.