Street Games II

I
asleep
in the corner of a lavatory

standing in wretchedness,
hat in hand;
sagging like ancient flesh
adjoining the body.

II
an army of refugees
whose wounds are
their own weaknesses;

parasites
who look like
humans

III
they can’t understand
why Christ died for them.


24 May 1977
 
 

This one first appeared in Sepia #10 along with ‘Street Games’ and ‘The Venereologist’ in October 1979. I’ve no special memories attached to it but since it follows ‘England Expects…’ and ‘Yesterday’ I can see a melding of influences here. And, again, the odd punctuation which I’m going to attribute to E.E. Cummings since he was another American I’d recently become familiar with. Eleven months separate ‘Street Games’ and ‘Street Games (Part II)’ as I originally entitled it. I’ve changed it here because it’s not really a continuation, more of a second look at like Larkin’s ‘Toad’s Revisited’.

I’d originally shown the first ‘Street Games’ to my dad. I only remember one thing he said about it—poetry really wasn’t his thing—and that was, “Life’s not a game.” I knew what he meant but I also felt he’d missed the point. I didn’t show him this poem. I’m not actually sure I showed him any poems again.

When I think of the man asleep in the Gents an image comes to mind but not one I can locate online probably because it doesn’t exist, a sculpture by George Segal—the artist, not the actor. I don’t see the man as have chosen that spot to beg. What I imagined was his having used the facilities like anyone else and then dozed off leaning against a wall still holding his cap in his hand as if it’s intended purpose, to keep his head warm, had been lost to him. Had I been crueller—and braver—I might’ve had him fall asleep at the urinal with his dick in one hand and his cap in the other. Perhaps that’s still implied.