CHURCH’LL

(The Hundred-Year-Old Woman)

 

she smoked a pipe

 

 

Aye, I knew Church’ll

 

(puff)

 

I was ’is mistress

 

We picnicked on the beaches, we

picnicked i’ the groves

an’ when ’e felt frolicsome

(often, too often), ’e

dogged me up the ’ills - o

terrorfied e’d slip

poly like a boulder

split the army ten-pins

’Itler stickin’ ’is tongue out victory-like

hisssss

 

But it was all kiss-kiss

no business

 

(puff)

 

Didn’ enjoy’t, really

for ’e sprayed when ’e talked

(an ’e talked)

like an ’ydrant

like sea-whips

like an ’oppin’ frothy dog

 

(puff)

 

Naught to gawk at, neither -

somethin’ like a squeezed ’alf-asleep frog

Rolli

Barnwood poetry magazine