Guy Fawkes' Night
Guy Fawkes' Night
By the middle of October the piles are growing.
English weather fails to dampen
childhood enterprise.
Gangs traverse the streets in forage
To drag, on broken prams, a hoard,
A booty of wardrobes, cupboards, easy chairs.
Mattresses and piles of junk -
Now treasure - with which to build the towering fire,
The tough kids claim the bomb site first for theirs,
A blemish in the landscape of the street.
Eight brothers of pernicious mien
Snotty toddler to Borstal boy,
Hob-nailed boots, no laces, florid knees,
Of visage pale, straw haired and thin.
Like robber barons, invincible, wild,
They guarded it by day and night.
We others, timid, watched from a distance.
One day, their sentry absent, ventured inside
their heap to see - a cave-like room: old sofa; sticky carpet;
broken table; a cosy space, almost habitable,
close refuge from domestic misery.
One brother found solace with a five-pack of Woodbines.
Smoked
And slept.
Their Bonfire was enormous that year.
As funeral pyre beside the Ganges stream.
Where smoke-bound spirits rise to astral planes.
A shame it started early
with no-one there to see -
- or help.
11/01/20
Contest Eight Word Challenge
Sponsor John Hamilton
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