A SERIES OF SHORTS 1.  BROKEN BISCUITS 

(Digging up a past again) 

 

 

Two sick bags later an hour and a half white-knuckled  

journey, the aeroplane fell like a time machine  

and taxied to a halt on the runway. A rush of blood 

surged through the young boys' veins. He watched 

the countryside disappear along with the stories  

of his mother's romantic Ireland, the taxi fell  

through civilisation shops schools people.  

 

As they travelled a main road, he watched 

 the grey clouds of depression follow them. 

He heard is father say that boy needs good kick  

in the ass, you molly-coddle him, this town will  

sort him out, can't you see he was frightened.  

The boy turned and said go-toss-off fast so no  

one knew what he said in his mind he called  

him a cunt what you on about boy and he said  

it again, his father turned 

 

As the car turned at a mill, into the olde part  

of town like going into another century, that’s  

where your aunt Sarah works said his father like  

a tour guide passing a schools double spiked gate,  

he said there’s your school, it stood empty alone  

surrounded by a red brick wall topped with rusted  

barbed wire. The car turned right onto cobbled  

street, it thumped up past a group of rough looking  

boys playing football on the street while girls swung 

On ropes around gas lights converted to electricity,  

the year was nineteen sixty-seven. 

 

The car pulled up and his father rapped  

a blood-red door. A mousy haired woman  

in a drab apron stood, her and the street  

kids eyed them over like a family of animals.  

All nine in a two up two down, they huddled  

around the fire listening to Sarah who lost  

three fingers at the mill spin stories of banshees.  

 

That night his mother tucked the little boy into  

a mattress on the lino floor. The boy was  

afraid to use the outside toilet after hearing  

tales of banshees, his mum said she would 

get a pot. When she left he stood tearing  

the flea bites on his flesh 

 

 

He stood there in his brothers  

hand me down pyjamas rolled up he tore  

at his flesh, on the wall above his bed was  

the picture of a man in a crown of thorns  

drenched in blood. 

 

He pulled the curtain aside to see a full moon 

Light up the street like it was high definition. 

His mother came in with the bedpan, he asked  

what is this evil place where people tell  

stories of banshees and death, she tucked him in  

again, don’t worry she said we will have our own  

place soon.  

 

He tore at his flesh looking out the window  

Thinking the other side of the street was only  

yards away. A man ran and stumbled on  

the cobbled street from the alley chased  

by police, their numbers flashed in the moon- 

light, they truncheoned him down kicked  

him into the gutter one jumped into the air  

and opened his head like a rotten tomato.  

He saw anything as horrific as this  

he was only six years old. 

 

The boy stepped back from the street screen 

That looked like a cinema screen, a silent 

Movie, he threw up and retched as peas 

Rolled on the lino floor. The next morning  

he was sent for broken biscuits to the green- 

grocers at the end of the street it smelt of earth  

on potatoes and dulce. He checked the gutter  

on the way back to make sure he wasn’t  

Just dreaming what he saw the blood  

was bleached white. 

 

That would be the norm for thirty years.