Candid View (CTG)

[ChrisGeorge]

Candid View

Captured in black and white by brother Michael,
Liverpool lad picking guitar in his back garden,
on the precipice of fame, offbeat, caught through
Mum’s swaying net, naive below a line of washing;
Scouse washday, Dolly Blue, girls make dollies
out of clothes pegs, la da da, la da da, la dee dee.

Still living with Dad; the curtains hid the pain
of Ma dead with breast cancer six years before.
Wash hanging in the cold snap of Mersey yards,
the snot on a neighbor's blanket; humming a tune,
lad who vaulted over creosoted fences on Booker
to deliver the evening Echo to my Uncle Bill,
who yelled out at "our kid" from the corpy estate.
Strum a tune, pick a tune, strike a blues rhythm,
mmm, la da da da, la da da da, la da da dee dee.

Christopher T. George

In the Backyard:

[Kev]

I recongnise that fellow.....

[ChrisGeorge]

Here's another Beatles-related one:

No More Footie at Strawberry Field

The Sally Gas are to close the home.
The strip of grass where I played footie
outside the Beaconsfield Road mansion
beyond the red iron gates with leaves
of strawberries and strawberry flowers,
where me mates and I played footie,
where Johnny played footie before us--

Seven and a bit years before I saw the light
of day in Oxford Street Maternity Hospital,
John Winston Lennon, born there in an air
raid, his Aunt Mimi said, me to dour ration-
book England, the war won, not much fun--

Bomb sites in Liverpool, broken glass, shell
of the Customs House in Canning Place,
the Victoria Monument islanded by bombs,
so we kids played footie on bomb sites.
Now, no more footie at Strawberry Fields.

Christopher T. George

[lindylou]

Fantastic Chris.

[ChrisGeorge]

Thank you, Linda. Or, er, ta very much I suppose I should say.

Chris