Timothy Winters       Charles Causley

Timothy Winters comes to school
With eyes as wide as a football pool,
Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters:
A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.His belly is white, his neck is dark,
And his hair is an exclamation mark.
His clothes are enough to scare a crow
And through his britches the blue winds blow.

When teacher talks he won’t hear a word
And he shoots down dead the arithmetic-bird,
He licks the patterns off his plate
And he’s not even heard of the Welfare State.

Timothy Winters has bloody feet
And he lives in a house on Suez Street,
He sleeps in a sack on the kitchen floor
And they say there aren’t boys like him any more.

Old man Winters likes his beer
And his missus ran off with a bombardier.
Grandma sits in the grate with a gin
And Timothy’s dosed with an aspirin.

The Welfare Worker lies awake
But the law’s as tricky as a ten-foot snake,
So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
And slowly goes on growing up.

At Morning Prayers the Master helves
For children less fortunate than ourselves,
And the loudest response in the room is when
Timothy Winters roars “Amen!”

So come one angel, come on ten:
Timothy Winters says “Amen
Amen amen amen amen.”
Timothy Winters, Lord.
Amen!

hear it read

Timothy Winters” by Charles Causley (read by Tom O’Bedlam …

▶ 1:51

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ-sNpaD-r4

Table     Edip Cansever               Apologies, no room on the actual wall for all the lines

A man filled with the gladness of living

Put his keys on the table,

Put flowers in a copper bowl there.

He put his eggs and milk on the table.

He put there the light that came in through the window,

Sound of a bicycle, sound of a spinning wheel.

The softness of bread and weather he put there.

On the table the man put

Things that happened in his mind.

What he wanted to do in life,

He put that there.

Those he loved, those he didn’t love,

The man put them on the table too.

Three times three make nine:

The man put nine on the table.

He was next to the window next to the sky;

He reached out and placed on the table endlessness.

So many days he had wanted to drink a beer!

He put on the table the pouring of that beer.

He placed there his sleep and his wakefulness;

His hunger and his fullness he put there.

Now that’s what I call a table!

It didn’t complain at all about the load.

It wobbled once or twice, then stood firm.

The man kept piling things on.

Translated from the Turkish by Julia Clare Tillinghast and Richard Tillinghast

Are YOU filled with the gladness of living?

What if this road, that has held no surprises

these many years, decided not to go

home after all; what if it could turn

left or right with no more ado

than a kite-tail? What if its tarry skin

were like a long, supple bolt of cloth,

that is shaken and rolled out, and takes

a new shape from the contours beneath?

And if it chose to lay itself down

in a new way; around a blind corner,

across hills you must climb without knowing

what’s on the other side; who would not hanker

to be going, at all risks? Who wants to know

a story’s end or where a road will go?

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

100 years afterwards we remember the Battle of Passchendale

Memorial Tablet – Poem by Siegfried Sassoon

Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight,
(Under Lord Derby’s Scheme). I died in hell—
(They called it Passchendaele). My wound was slight,
And I was hobbling back; and then a shell
Burst slick upon the duck-boards: so I fell
Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light.

At sermon-time, while Squire is in his pew,
He gives my gilded name a thoughtful stare:
For, though low down upon the list, I’m there;
‘In proud and glorious memory’ … that’s my due.
Two bleeding years I fought in France, for Squire:
I suffered anguish that he’s never guessed.
Once I came home on leave: and then went west…
What greater glory could a man desire?

Siegfried Sassoon

The ‘wall’ was carried off five months ago. I have a smaller one now and hope to carry on.

Hijab Scene#7                          Mohja Kahf

No, I’m not bald under the scarf

No, I’m not from that country

Where women can’t drive cars

No, I would not like to defect

I’m already American

But thank you for offering

What else do you need to know

Relevant to my buying insurance,

Opening a bank account,

Reserving a seat on a flight?

Yes, I speak English

Yes, I carry explosives

They’re called words

And if you don’t get up

Off your assumptions,

They’re going to blow you away

.

Prayer                                 Carol Ann Duffy

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer

utters itself. So, a woman will lift

her head from the sieve of her hands and stare

at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth

enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;

then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth

in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales

console the lodger looking out across

a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls

a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer –

Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

You need to practise the ‘ch’ sound here.

SCOTTISH NAMES      Raymond Vettese

I love the names o Scotland;

Ecclefechan, Auchenblae,

Fordoun, Gourdon, Forfar, Kirkcudbright,

Dunnichen, Echt, Panadram, Drumtochty,

And wha could ignore Auchtermuchty?

I love the names o Scotland:

Hoo they dirl thro me, the stounds

O consonants, nieves o soonds

That dunt on the map; ilka ane redoonds

Wi stickit pride:these are my boonds!

I love the names o Scotland:

Friockheim, Fettes, Pittenweem, Pitcaithly,

Dunnottar, Dunfermline, Aberdower, Invertay,

Catterline, Corstorphine, Craigmillar, Cruden Bay,

And wha could ignore Clachnaharry?

I love the names o Scotland:

hoo e’en the prosaic is owerset

intil a ferlie ye canna forget,

tho it’s aiblins but a place whaur burns aince met

or a wee wuid fort wis, and is yet,

but only in the name. Oor past’s

chairted for us, oor history’s here,

in Balmaha, Birnam, Dunblane, Ardersier;

the names clash oot, tirl on the ear,

and wha could ignore  braw Durisideer?

I love the names o Scotland,

The names that are oors, and tho Wounded Knee

Is fine and fair and sad, it’s no Fyvie,

And gin Montrose, whaun I dee, winna hae me:

Bury my hairt in the cricket-pitch o Freuchie!