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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Ruth Hobson

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A merry Christmas to all our customers

Except Ursula Wilson. Last night
Something happened here - was it red wig askew,
Glass broken,
Or did she, with dreadful look, drain
The crowd of all its expectations, like empty pints?

Salt is on the tail of the sluggish gods;
The amazing millennium flower has sprung (roll up!)
And strange stars are starring.
Children look up, like winter suns
They know, but most will lose it.

Or break it. Except those who wear
Illuminated antlers in church
And bring their dogs,
Who dress the brave candles in extravagant bows
And sing with the invisible traveller.

The grey squirrel thinks he’s something;
And doesn’t know he’s one of seven thousand
And six
City squirrels. He likes it. He doesn’t wish
He was giant, or bilingual, or red.

She was a Jezebel, a counter-prophet;
She put grit and stones in souls
As kind and round
As snowballs. The night she slunk into

Was a collage of faeces and syringes.

But the ghost of the old cockatoo
(Dead at 117) He knew a thing or two
And found her.
He was wise, he had been on the front page
Of the Evening Post. He told her something she didn’t know,

Something I keep forgetting. But
This morning is like a parchment unrolling,
Lit up, reminding,
And demanding. For those who are farthest and nearest,
Soundless bells are daily ringing.

You asked if I’d seen her. Well.
Shed gathered her rags around her
Like a queen,
And was heading for Mansfield. She wavered
At the gallows, but kept on walking.



Untitled illustration


Page(s) 63-64

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