The Toys

Cold Christmas nineteen fifty one

and the seven of us anchored

to the bottom of our luck

trippin over arms and legs

in the basement of a crumblin house

in a single dusty room

with no sunshine comin in

pullin the blankets tight around us

as ropes pull tight round tumblin men

for Tommy’s only bits and pieces,

here and there,

now and then.

Cold Christmas nineteen fifty one

and the children decide what the toys

their uncle carved from wood become.

Eddie’s woof-woof turns

into Jimmy’s rearin stallion

and when the two of them are gallivantin

Mary rides the desert on a camel.

The freckly yoke whose pointy nose

got blunted to a stub

will be doll-doll, trooper man,

and Pinocchio in turns.

Whose hands are glued to matchsticks

little drummer boy’s or little drummer girl’s,

or is it witch

or wizard stirring spells?

The square wheeled motorcar clunkin

’cross the table cloth— zoomin in the hot rod

or cruisin sunny avenues in Hollywood?

The choo-choo steamin through

the wildest wests

picks up a fly in Los Angeles

then later sails a letter to Australia,

delivers astronauts to Venus.

All the dreams

my little girls and boys

can pull

from painted wood!

He hadn’t a start for the whole of January.

Though we kept the flame as best we could,

we were perishin’ for the whole of that spiteful month.

Then we ran out of  coal,

we ran out of peat,

we ran out of logs,

we ran out of sticks and scraps and twigs.

St Brigid nearly froze our blood.

Do you know how it  feels

to be chopped down like a wintry  pine

to be lyin’ on a bed of icy needles goin numb

from your branch-tips to your heart?

Do you know what it’s  like

to be suddenly sick of your stiffenin life and wish

that hell

would burst

through the cracks in the floor

flare through the splits in the walls

and burn burn  burn

everythin

you ought to be able to love?

The toys were made of dreams and wood

and Oh

how  they burned.

I won’t forget

and how to forgive

is what I have not learned.