Vernon Scannell
At the Grave of Henry Hall
The rain dithered before our eyes,
Grizzled the November afternoon,
Soaked turf and longer grass and sighed
As the coffin went down.
It looked too small to contain the man,
Not that Henry was of any great size;
It suited him though, anonymous and plain:
The kind of thing that he himself might choose.
Henry was not the ‘thirties broadcaster
But a specialist in failure. He taught Latin
At a dismal preparatory school, even there
Under notice of dismissal, and with reason.
His appetites were for alcohol and boys,
The booze compensation for the taunting
Temptations of the boy-filled days
And lack of any kind of loving.
He died at stool, choked to death
On his own vomit in a spasm of coughing.
The rain, cold and pitiless as truth,
Cancelled pretence of real mourning.
Four of us were there to see Henry called home:
Frank, myself, an unremarkable brother
From Leeds and the landlady of the ‘Horse and Groom’.
The ceremony was soon over.
In the pub that evening Frank said,
‘Poor Henry, out there in the cold, alone’.
His slate was wiped clean. The landlady sighed.
The takings tonight were going to be down.
Vernon Scannell’s latest publications are The Black and White Days (1996), Collected Poems 1950-1993 (1994) and a prose autobiographical book Drums of Morning (1992), all published by Robson Books Ltd. He lives in Otley, West Yorksire.
Page(s) 93-94
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