Face Like an Anus. A Poem to Match.

Once upon a time, I had a substitute teacher. It was quite a sad state of affairs, because the substitute was actually worse at teaching us than the normal teacher. That might not sound bad, but if you'd been taught by the normal teacher, you would understand. I have just one word to say about her. 'Pancake'. (Oh, I'd love to see what connotations have come up in your twisted little minds...)

Anyway, this man turned out to be Cheshire's Poet Laureate. How lucky we were to have him there! So, we rushed off, thinking, "He might not be able to teach us much about 'A Streetcar Named Desire', but who cares, the play is depressing and pointless and the man is a highly regarded poet!'. Once home we remembered the name and scoured high and low for his work. (Ok, so in actuality, my mate Chris happened to find an Anthology of his in a bookshop and couldn't resist) Imagine our delight when we read this:

Mummy
by Harry Owen.

Note the eyes like broken bricks,
coarse, rough-edged. Damaged.
A face like graphite.
Note the mouth like an anus
pinched, vindictive,
duffel-bag drawstring tight as wire,
all feeling cold as ash, as flint.

Mummy. This is Mummy.

While her boyfriend, partner,
cared for the little one,
systematically extinguishing
a five-year-old life
over months of red rages,
crushing ribs, breaking skulls
in orgies of savage gratification,

she knew, colluded, stood back.

Mummy. This is Mummy.

Jury - you may retire.

What?

Seriously, this is one of the poems from the anthology. Note the line 'face like an anus'. I'm sorry, but the only person who has a face like an anus is the one that shit out this poem. And since when has an anus been called 'vindictive'? Oh yes, I know that my arse is a right vindictive little git. Won't let me sit down sometimes, just out of spite. Harry Owen sure is a wizard of desctription. I'd hate to see a picture of this mother, because aparently she looks like this:

Picture curtesy of Christopher Barrow ©

This man is supposed to be Poet Laureate of Cheshire? Wow, now I knew that there were parts of Cheshire that could be fairly be renamed Cheshite as they are cultural voids, (*cough* Crewe *cough*) but I thought we had a bit more artistic merit that that. To prove this, me and my companion will both submit a poem in the coming weeks in the style of our poetic hero, Harry Owen. And they will be better than Harry Owens.

'Mummy. This is Mummy' the line intended to tug on the heartstrings. Well, I say:

Bollocks. This is Bollocks.

Bobbikk