Green Glass Beads Read online

  A wee holiday some place nice. Some place far.

  I’d tell my mum about my Brendon Gallacher

  How his mum drank and his daddy was a cat burglar.

  And she’d say, ‘Why not have him round to dinner?’

  No, no, I’d say, he’s got big holes in his trousers.

  I like meeting him by the burn in the open air.

  Then one day after we’d been friends two years,

  One day when it was pouring and I was indoors,

  My mum says to me, ‘I was talking to Mrs Moir

  Who lives next door to your Brendon Gallacher

  Didn’t you say his address was 24 Novar?

  She says there are no Gallachers at 24 Novar

  There never have been any Gallachers next door.’

  And he died then, my Brendon Gallacher,

  Flat out on my bedroom floor, his spiky hair,

  His impish grin, his funny flapping ear.

  Oh Brendon. Oh my Brendon Gallacher.

  Jackie Kay

  If No One Ever Marries Me

  If no one ever marries me, –

  And I don’t see why they should,

  For nurse says I’m not pretty,

  And I’m seldom very good –

  If no one ever marries me

  I shan’t mind very much;

  I shall buy a squirrel in a cage,

  And a little rabbit-hutch:

  I shall have a cottage near a wood,

  And a pony all my own,

  And a little lamb, quite clean and tame,

  That I can take to town:

  And when I’m getting really old, –

  At twenty-eight or nine –

  I shall buy a little orphan girl

  And bring her up as mine.

  Laurence Alma-Tadema

  Colouring In

  And staying inside the lines

  Is fine, but . . .

  I like it when stuff leaks –

  When the blue bird and the blue sky

  Are just one blur of blue blue flying,

  And the feeling of the feathers in the air

  And the wind along the blade of wing

  Is a long gash of smudgy colour.

  I like it when the flowers and the sunshine

  Puddle red and yellow into orange,

  The way the hot sun on my back

  Lulls me – muddles me – sleepy

  In the scented garden,

  Makes me part of the picture . . .

  Part of the place.

  Jan Dean

  Amanda!

  Don’t bite your nails, Amanda!

  Don’t hunch your shoulders, Amanda!

  Stop that slouching and sit up straight,

  Amanda!

  (There is a languid, emerald sea,

  where the sole inhabitant is me –

  a mermaid, drifting blissfully.)

  Did you finish your homework, Amanda?

  Did you tidy your room, Amanda?

  I thought I told you to clean your shoes,

  Amanda!

  (I am an orphan, roaming the street.

  I pattern soft dust with my hushed, bare feet.

  The silence is golden, the freedom is sweet.)

  Don’t eat that chocolate, Amanda!

  Remember your acne, Amanda!

  Will you please look at me when I’m speaking to you,

  Amanda!

  (I am Rapunzel, I have not a care;

  life in a tower is tranquil and rare;

  I’ll certainly never let down my bright hair!)

  Stop that sulking at once, Amanda!

  You’re always so moody, Amanda!

  Anyone would think that I nagged at you,

  Amanda!

  Robin Klein

  Halo

  I was as good as gold, an angel, said ta very much, no thanks,

  yes please, smiled politely

  when I said hello, helped out, tried;

  so it came to pass I awoke

  and there in the bed

  next to my head on the pillow

  a halo glowed, a hoop-la of gold.

  I didn’t faint or scream

  or wake up and find it was only a dream,

  but went to the mirror

  and stared at the icon of me –

  acne, bad hair, pyjamas, sticky-out ears, halo.

  On the way to school

  I swished the halo along with a stick

  up the road, down the hill, round the bend

  where I frisbeed it to my good friend Dominic Gill,

  who caught it, said What’s this then, mate?

  A halo, chum, I’m a saint.

  No, you ain’t.

  Delicate, quaint, the halo settled itself

  at the back of my head,

  shining and bright,

  shedding its numinous light all through Maths,

  double English, RK, PE, lunch, History, silent reading.

  The teachers stared

  but left me alone,

  and I kept my eyes on the numbers, the verbs,

  the prophets, the dates, the poem,

  till the bell rang, then legged it for home.

  But some big kids snatched my halo

  as I ran through the park;

  tossed it between them, kicked it, flicked it,

  lobbed it,

  far too high for me,

  into the outstretched branches of a tree.

  Then dusk lapped at my feet

  and the navy-blue sea of the sky

  floated the moon

  as I watched the light of my halo dissolve

  to the pinprick glow of a worm,

  and heard the loudening shout of a voice

  calling, calling my human name.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Good Girls

  Good girls

  will always go like clockwork

  home from school,

  through the iron gates

  where clambering boys

  whisper and pull,

  past houses

  where curtains twitch

  and a fingery witch beckons,

  by the graveyard

  where stone angels stir,

  itching their wings,

  past tunnelled woods

  where forgotten wolves wait

  for prey,

  past dens

  and caves and darknesses

  they go like clockwork;

  and when they come

  to school again

  their homework’s done.

  Irene Rawnsley

  WOMEN

  Minnie and Winnie

  Minnie and Winnie

  Slept in a shell.

  Sleep, little ladies!

  And they slept well.

  Pink was the shell within,

  Silver without;

  Sounds of the great sea

  Wandered about.

  Sleep, little ladies,

  Wake not soon!

  Echo on echo

  Dies to the moon.

  Two bright stars

  Peeped into the shell.

  ‘What are they dreaming of?

  Who can tell?’

  Started a green linnet

  Out of the croft;

  Wake, little ladies,

  The sun is aloft!

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  Tarantella

  Do you remember an Inn,

  Miranda?

  Do you remember an Inn?

  And the tedding and the spreading

  Of the straw for a bedding,

  And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,

  And the wine that tasted of the tar?

  And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers

  (Under the vine of the dark verandah)?

  Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,

  Do you remember an Inn?

  And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers