English Poems Fromgasmask

Missing: inspired by George Segal's plaster casts ‘Bus Riders' In January, the 6.30am bus Was full each Friday, early morning shift Then one was missing, elderly, South African, With a laugh like bubbling chocolate Over the months grown stiffer, but always smiling In February, two more absentees Polish/Russian, Lithuanian? (we guessed that they were Eastern European) With Brexit, there might be more empty spaces In March, the odd one wasn't standing waiting Harmless, he talked to shadows, dressed in kilts Looked like a Jacobite, in lycra leggings Not seen on the street: safe in a ward? Each month or so another disappearance Spirited off: they are the nameless missing The blanks were quickly filled by new arrivals Tillypronie's Bunny A version of the logo of Hugh Hefner's magazine, a 300foot bunnywith ears and bow tie, stamped on Tillypronie's braes, was said to be seen from outer space. Philip Astor ordered the thing to be done And Sandy McConnachie did it Cocking a snoot at feminists Who'd rather preferred he hid it A fire in the hills has scorched its ears Its bow tie's fried and frizzled Unlike Hugh Hefner'swaitresses Who served up drinks and sizzled The Gas Mask in the Glory Hole I learned that 38 million gas masks Had been handed out, superfluous to requirements A baby boomer, I missed the war by two years Too young to know what rationing was about The gas mask in the glory hole looked like a Martian A creature from space, or a nightmare Bug eyes set in stinking black rubber In the back lane, little boys sang a song Left over from wartime. I thought they meant the rubber kind for bouncing Hitler, he only had one ball, Goering, he had two but they were small, Himmler had something sim'ler, But poor old Goebbels had no balls at all. Beside the gas mask, a first aid dressing box Containing the following: manual on first aid, Sterilized dressings, packets of cotton wool, Alcoholic solution of iodine, Smelling salts, eye drops, splints, Adhesive plaster, tourniquet, roller and triangular bandages, Safety pins and an electric torch For a horror that never happened The granite walls of my home Were strafed with shrapnel As if a horrid beast had raiked its claws along the stone The glory hole held father's gun and golf clubs His fishing rod and a solid metal safe With important family papers, And several thousand pounds Against a run on the bank My father left nothing to chance The gas mask outlived him Shrivelling with the decades Unburied terror Ticking Bomb A virus is a ticking bomb A lottery A game of Russian Roulette When typhoid came to my city I was one of the chosen The only one in the family It struck down Quarantined for weeks in the fever hospital I learned how panic spread like a dark stain Businesses crumbled Trust and mercy withered on the bough My father lost his job…one repercussion The milkman left our milk on the bottom step At school they burned my paintings, drawings, books Now, who would want to wear corona's crown?