You gave me Books
Heidi was a big girl’s book
You gave it to me
When I was nine-years-old.
Small writing; no pictures
Blind Grandmother loved soft white rolls
I can never look at soft white rolls
Without thinking of her.
Alpine pastures were Heidi’s classroom
Peter the goatherd her school mate
The evil Fraulein Rottenmeier
Gets her comeuppance
And that made me happy.
The four orphaned Cavalier
Children of the New Forest
Edward, Humphrey, Alice and Edith
Left to fend for themselves.
On the run from the
Evil Roundheads.
They foraged until they found
Wild onions to eat
Just like you foraged
For those books in town.
I can never chop an onion
Without thinking about those children.
I hopelessly sought out
Shiny round helmets
On our many forest walks.
Sole surviving Swiss Family Robinson
Reclaim the contents of a ship
To recreate a home up a tree
In the Elysian Fields of a
Deserted tropical island.
‘Wow!’ I said, just like Batman
At tea time on a Saturday
‘Holy Cow!’ I said,
Just like his sidekick Robin.
This Utopia had everything a child could want
Ingeniously fashioned
From flotsam and jetsam
With God-fearing Swiss precision
I especially wanted a hammock
I favoured
The lazy and intelligent Ernest.
I fell asleep looking at the finely pointed stars
Through a hole in the roof
On the fuzzy, sultry island
That lay beneath the eiderdown
Watched through a veil
On a 1960s black and white telly
Robin Hood’s Anglo-Saxon strike
Against the nefarious Normans
Puts him in a different class
To any Irish heroes
I learn about.
I get more of this
Between the hardbound covers
Of Ivanhoe when I am ten-years-old.
In a great tournament
Ivanhoe slays his Templar foe
With the help of the Black Knight.
The evil Prince John
Wants Ivanhoe’s beautiful Rowena.
I am stuck to the sofa
In fervent expectation.
Little Women sent little tears
Rolling down my little fat cheeks
And of course
An Enid Blyton
Was always thrown in.
I read Hollow Tree House
On Christmas afternoon of 1969.
Midnight feasts and Lacross matches
At Saint Clairs
Summer terms and upper fifths
Were compelling.
Plucky Darrlell Rivers
And spoilt, pouty Gwendoline
The archetypal schoolgirls
In Malory Towers
How exotic it all was.
You always brought home wonders
On the 16 bus
You gave me books
Thanks Mom!
Copyright Berni Dwan 2014
Heidi was a big girl’s book
You gave it to me
When I was nine-years-old.
Small writing; no pictures
Blind Grandmother loved soft white rolls
I can never look at soft white rolls
Without thinking of her.
Alpine pastures were Heidi’s classroom
Peter the goatherd her school mate
The evil Fraulein Rottenmeier
Gets her comeuppance
And that made me happy.
The four orphaned Cavalier
Children of the New Forest
Edward, Humphrey, Alice and Edith
Left to fend for themselves.
On the run from the
Evil Roundheads.
They foraged until they found
Wild onions to eat
Just like you foraged
For those books in town.
I can never chop an onion
Without thinking about those children.
I hopelessly sought out
Shiny round helmets
On our many forest walks.
Sole surviving Swiss Family Robinson
Reclaim the contents of a ship
To recreate a home up a tree
In the Elysian Fields of a
Deserted tropical island.
‘Wow!’ I said, just like Batman
At tea time on a Saturday
‘Holy Cow!’ I said,
Just like his sidekick Robin.
This Utopia had everything a child could want
Ingeniously fashioned
From flotsam and jetsam
With God-fearing Swiss precision
I especially wanted a hammock
I favoured
The lazy and intelligent Ernest.
I fell asleep looking at the finely pointed stars
Through a hole in the roof
On the fuzzy, sultry island
That lay beneath the eiderdown
Watched through a veil
On a 1960s black and white telly
Robin Hood’s Anglo-Saxon strike
Against the nefarious Normans
Puts him in a different class
To any Irish heroes
I learn about.
I get more of this
Between the hardbound covers
Of Ivanhoe when I am ten-years-old.
In a great tournament
Ivanhoe slays his Templar foe
With the help of the Black Knight.
The evil Prince John
Wants Ivanhoe’s beautiful Rowena.
I am stuck to the sofa
In fervent expectation.
Little Women sent little tears
Rolling down my little fat cheeks
And of course
An Enid Blyton
Was always thrown in.
I read Hollow Tree House
On Christmas afternoon of 1969.
Midnight feasts and Lacross matches
At Saint Clairs
Summer terms and upper fifths
Were compelling.
Plucky Darrlell Rivers
And spoilt, pouty Gwendoline
The archetypal schoolgirls
In Malory Towers
How exotic it all was.
You always brought home wonders
On the 16 bus
You gave me books
Thanks Mom!
Copyright Berni Dwan 2014
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