My Father Playing Needle Nugent
I would have been one years old
and he would have been fifty
when he played Needle Nugent
in Juno and the Paycock for the
Dramatic Society of University
College London, the Foundation
Play of 1960 — during the second
interval coffee was served in
the Lower Refectory according
to a programme which I still have
despite all attempts to bury it
under mounds of Bank Statements
and other trivia — according to
the programme the use of an Apron Stage
attempts to bring the Streets of Dublin,
as far as possible, into the audience -
there are adverts for Bunjie’s Coffee
House, 27 Litchfield Street, Cambridge
Circus, and Irish Linen, Ireland
for Varied Holidays, Olivier Tipped
Cigarettes, 3/4 for 20, 1/8 for 10,
and for Guiness, the Greatest
Disappearing Trick in the World,
performed 5 Million Times Daily -
Graduates looking for a good job
should contact the Staff Controller
of the North Thames Gas Board -
and all the time, while David Goldman
was producing and Victor Quayle
getting into character as the Second
IRA Man, you would be at home
with your third child, perhaps leaving
a distracted babysitter so you could
attend the first night, admire your
husband playing Needle Nugent
when he was fifty and I was one years old
(From the Programme of June and the Paycock by Sean O’Casey,
Foundation Play 1960
presented by University College London Dramatic Society)
~
Koson
in my Father’s House there are many Mansions
and in each one is a woodcut by Ohara Koson -
in this room it is a stork turned to the left,
rain driving down in streaks like woodgrain,
a single eye on a thin beak’s staring -
there are flowers decaying into the wash
and a grey background — severe, some critic snipes -
they move on quickly in my Father’s House,
seekers after Mansions who never notice
the woodcut by Koson that is in every room
(Ohara Koson 1877–1945)
~
Scar Tissue
on my Right Hand I have a Scar
which I forget from time to time -
I call it the Snake because
it crosses my Palm with Silver
and Hisses if you stare too long -
it was in Lynton that I ran
towards the Ice Cream of Original Sin,
tripped over the Milk Bottle of
God’s Command, lost my innocence
to a Hospital Visit when I was Four -
I was under fire before
we went to Ireland and the
Troubles all kicked off, before
my Grandmother’s Shortbread
and my first encounter with a Tank -
in Lynton I have one recollection:
a Bowl, those old, thin, plastic types
where the colour drains into scratch-marks,
my Blood, as I recall, not Red like
a bus, but Scarlet like Judas’s -
according to my wife, a tale
I never heard, my father took
me to the Hospital without
my mother knowing, so she turned
up at the Corner Shop, Key-less
and clues-less while I was stitched
in a Shadowy Waiting Room -
no ice creams were ever obtained -
it was a lot like that on Holidays -
on Britain Beach, in the Dublin Pale,
a Thorn, an Inch perhaps, lodged
in my sole — up in Newcastle
pushed the flesh in until he could
wrench the Bugger out — and how
I Screamed — you’d have Screamed too
like you’d been waiting for your Saviour -
for I was almost Redeemed by then -
people had been asking, you see,
if I’d come to the Lord — it’s good
to please, so I stood up and
Testified and they Prayed for me
and everyone was Happy and
I was hardly Troubled, hardly a
Fraud yet, hardly beginning to
Understand the lie that was
my Virtue -
now, when God and Serpent both
seem Unimportant, I have one thing
I can turn, the Scar on my Hand -
it’s fifty year’s old and more — I no
longer faint at Blood as I did, I no
longer faint at Needles as I once did,
or Sharp Knives — but when I say a Word
Awry it is like that first Falling
Over — and there is a Bucket of Blood -
I call it the Snake, you see, the Scar
on my Hand — it is no Stigmata, it is
healed over — Cold Remnant that will
be marvelled at during my Post Mortem
~
Gerald Kells is a poet and writer based in Walsall in the English Midlands. He reads poetry across the Midlands. He has won several slams and featured at the Freeverse Festival in Brownhills. He has had a number of poems published in anthologies and magazines, most recently haikus in Seashores and ‘Heather in Bloom’ in Panoply Magazine. He has self-published a short collection ‘LI — 51 Poems’. In 2018 he helped organise an Arts Poetry Reading at the internationally renowned Walsall Art Gallery and was involved in 2019 in the PoArtry Project in Stourbridge which led to publishing ‘Nine Etchings’ with artist, Fran Wilde. His story, ‘Something to his Left’, was published in Twisted Little Sister and ‘Stone Walls’ in Coffin Bell. His short plays have been performed around England. His full-length play, ‘The e‑mail history of Josef K, was long-listed for the Bruntwood Prize at the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre. He was also awarded Green Leader Status by Sustainability West Midlands for his work as a champion of environmental protection.