Gonks: remember them?
stuffed baize effigies, hand size
Felted arms, legs, hands
Little humpty-dumpties
Head on the body
Jumper pulled over head
Secret policemen
Cook’s Wisty Armageddon
Cheap mister-mannish
dolls born in an oil crisis;
industrial strife
times when lights went off at ten
Mine was called Paulus,
A little gnome who welcomed
You to his home in
Densest Pogle’s Wood
It disintegrated
After various drubbings
in the old twin tub
with a sadistic streak
Gonks became old hat
Space Hoppers were the next fad
Never had one, still drives me mad.
One o’clock post-kip
Alarm!
Instigates
a comedy of coffee;
a droop-eyed facile post;
a headful of Cape Cod radio snow,
and then the dogs, the raucous curs,
yelping all night long, warning off,
repelling stalking predators, slumber,
stray sleep-walking creditors.
Then some sleep,
but just itchy, tetchy bits and pieces, tosses and turns.
And the waiting. The waiting for the barks to resume.
Now comes the
car doors, the revving of early birds
off to the Smoke to do the night thing.
Obey.
…changed into a pair of deckchairs &
a faded purple clout having toed the line
between night & day, summoned (you guessed)
by dogs.
A stumbling, humbling, grumbling
shower at glumrise,
heavy lead heavens above –
the best place for heavens,
I find.
On the Whole