Roger McGough, England
Por: Roger McGough
When it’s over
What will we have learned from stillness and silence?
From sharing, not taking? Waiting not pushing?
Whispering not shouting? Dawdling not rushing?
When life is back to normal and the hugging is over
Will we look beyond ourselves and help the earth recover?
This morning, the only cloud
On the horizon is a cloud
Without fear of intrusion,
it drifts above, full of itself
The sky, has it had a facial?
Its skin positively glows.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
Superman? No, just a bird.
And on a branch, one is singing.
The purity of the note!
No need today to clear its throat.
If trees could smile, this one surely would
Imprisoned for our sins
Is now the time to question why?
When it’s over, what lessons?
Ask the tree, the bird and the sky.
The Trouble with Snowmen
The trouble with snowmen,’
Said my father one year
‘They are no sooner made
Than they just disappear.
I’ll build you a snowman
And I’ll build it to last
Add sand and cement
And then have it cast.
And so every winter,’
He went on to explain
‘You shall have a snowman
Be it sunshine or rain.’
* * *
And that snowman still stands
Though my father is gone
Out there in the garden
Like an unmarked gravestone.
Staring up at the house
Gross and misshapen
As if waiting for something
Bad to happen.
For as the years pass
And I grow older
When summers seem short
And winters colder
The snowmen I envy
As I watch children play
Are the ones that are made
And then fade away.
The Lake
For years there have been no fish in the lake.
People hurrying through the park avoid it like the plague.
Birds steer clear and the sedge of course has withered.
Tree lean away from it, and at night it reflects,
not the moon, but the blackness of its own depths.
There are no fish in the lake. But there is life there.
There is life….
Underwater pigs glide between reefs of tangled debris.
They love it here. They breed and multiply in sties
hollowed out of the mud, and lined with mattresses
and bedsprings. They live on dead rats and rotting things,
Drowned pets, plastic and assorted excreta.
Rusty cans they like the best. Holding them
in webbed trotters, their teeth tear easily through the tin
and poking in a snout, they noisily suck out
the putrid matter within.
There are no fish in the lake. But there is life there.
There is life….
For on certain evenings after dark, shoals of pigs
surface and look out at those houses near the park.
Where, in bathrooms, children feed stale bread to plastic ducks,
and in attics, toy yachts have long since run aground.
Where, in living rooms, anglers dangle their lines
on patterned carpets and bemoan the fate
of the ones that got away.
Down on the lake, piggy eyes glisten.
They have acquired a taste for flesh.
They are licking their lips. Listen….
Survivor
Everyday
I think about global warming
About Covid
About pollution, disease, famine,
violence, terrorism, war,
the end of the world.
It helps keep my mind off things.
The Ginsberg Skeleton
Said the FIFA skeleton
Hide the whistle and line our pockets
Said the arms dealer skeleton
Sell them mortars, tanks and rockets
Said the dope dealer skeleton
I can’t cope with the demand
Said the false prophet skeleton
It is written in the sand
Said the tobacco skeleton
There’s a billion lungs to fill
Said the isis skeleton
That’s what we do, we kill
Said the whip cracking skeleton
Love that lip smacking blood
Said the beheading skeleton
It’s just like chopping wood
Said the Far Right skeleton
We must keep them at the borders
Said the tear gas skeleton
I’m just obeying orders
Said the people smuggler skeleton
I put freedom within reach
Said the washed-up skeleton
They found me on the beach
Said the ebola skeleton
Sorry, I’m not finished yet
Said the World Bank skeleton
You can breathe when you’ve paid your debt
Said the Gun Federation skeleton
It’s a basic human right
Said the bullet-riddled skeleton
Yup, damn right.
Said the schoolgirl skeleton
I wish we’d never met
Said the grooming skeleton
What you see ain’t what you get
Said the self-harming skeleton
The blade cuts out the ache in me
Said the Jesus skeleton
Why hast thou forsaken me?
Said the Wonga skeleton
Keep on taking out the loans
Said the skeleton of colour
Am I the token bones?
Said the Harley Street skeleton
You could never afford my fee
Said the lying-in-state skeleton
What you see is what you’ll be.
Said the skeleton in the cupboard
Who locked me up in here?
Said the Brexit skeleton
It seemed a good idea
Said the plagiarised skeleton
I’ll call the poetry police
Said the Ginsberg skeleton
Now let me rest in peace
Said the Ginsberg skeleton
Now let me rest in peace.
Pay-back Time
O Lord, let me be a burden on my children
For long they've been a burden upon me.
May they fetch and carry, clean and scrub
And do so cheerfully.
Let them take it in turns at putting me up
Nice sunny rooms at the top of the stairs
With a walk-in bath and lift installed
At great expense.....Theirs.
Insurance against the body-blows of time
Isn't that what having children's all about?
To bring them up knowing that they owe you
And can't contract out?
What is money for but to spend on their schooling?
Designer clothes, mindless hobbies, usual stuff.
Then as soon as they're earning, off they go
Well, enough's enough.
It's been a blessing watching them develop
The parental pride we felt as each one grew.
But Lord, let me be a burden on my children
And on my children's children too.
Roger Joseph McGough (born 9 November 1937) is an English poet, performance poet, broadcaster, children's author and playwright. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please. McGough was one of the leading members of the Liverpool poets. He is fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and President of the Poetry Society. He won a Cholmondeley Award in 1998, and was appointed an Officer (OBE) in 1997, and later, in 2004, Commander (CBE) of the Order of the British Empire.
Poetry collections: Young Commonwealth Poets '65, Heinemann, 1965; The Mersey Sound (with Adrian Henri and Brian Patten), Penguin, 1967; Frinck, A Life in the Day of, and Summer with Monika: Poems, Joseph, 1967; Watchwords, Cape, 1969; After the Merrymaking, Cape, 1971; Out of Sequence, Turret Books, 1972; Gig, Cape, 1973; Sporting Relations, Eyre Methuen, 1974; In the Glassroom, Cape, 1976; Mr Noselighter, André Deutsch, 1976; Holiday on Death Row, Cape, 1979; Unlucky for Some, Bernard Stone, 1980; Waving at Trains, Cape, 1982; Crocodile Puddles, New Pyramid Press, 1984; Sky in the Pie, Puffin, 1985 (children's); Melting into the Foreground, Viking, 1986; Noah's Ark, Dinosaur, 1986; Worry, Toni Savage, 1987; Nailing the Shadow, Viking Kestrel, 1987; Counting by Numbers, Viking Kestrel, 1989; Selected Poems, 1967–1987, Cape, 1989; You at the Back: Selected Poems, 1967–87, Cape, 1991; Defying Gravity, Viking, 1992; Pen Pals: A New Poem, Prospero Poets, 1994; Ferens, the Gallery Cat, Ferens Art Gallery, 1997; Todays Yodal, Over years ago, 1999; Until I Met Dudley, Frances Lincoln, 1997; The Way Things Are, Viking, 1999; Dotty Inventions, Francis Lincoln, 2002; Everyday Eclipses, Viking, 2002; Collected Poems, Viking, 2003.
That Awkward Age, Penguin, 2009; As Far As I Know, Penguin, 2012; Joinedupwriting, Viking, 2019. Plays: Tartuffe (English adaptation of Molière's play); The Hypochondriac (English adaption of Molière's play); The Misanthrope (English adaptation of Molière's play).
