David Perman
There’s a group of them on the path in front –
five maybe six, it’s difficult to tell.
They are larking about – jostling, daring, pushing.
I’m worried: will I get past or have to go between?
They’re Asian, so they may have been radicalised –
there’s a lot about that in the papers.
Perhaps they’ll attack a poor, lone white man.
At least make him walk near the canal’s edge.
They stand back to let me pass.
‘All right, then, Governor?’ ‘He’s not
your governor; you should call him Sir.’
‘I’m not a Sir or a Governor.’
‘All right then, Mister?’ We all laugh.
I walk on, relieved and more than a bit ashamed.
The sun comes out from behind a cloud,
the Asians resume their jostling.
At their age our group from the Grammar
used to lark about in the park,
snatching each other’s satchels and throwing them
in a circle. We made a great deal of noise and got
rebuked. I think we said ‘Sorry, Mister or Missus.’
Maybe Sir, but never Governor. The best bit
was the silent laughter afterwards as the old geezer
walked off. ‘All right then, Mister?’
from Focus for Readers 1
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David Perman spent most of his working life as a journalist, first in newspapers then in the BBC World Service. He has written two biographies of poets. Scott of Amwell: Dr Johnson’s Quaker Critic came out of research into the eighteenth-century poet and social reformer, John Scott. More recently he has written the life of a German-born refugee from Hitler –Stranger in a borrowed land: the life and writing of Lotte Moos. Publication of his own poetry began in 1997 with The Buildings(dealing mainly with his Islington childhood) from Acumen Publications and branched out into A Wasp on the Stair, from Rockingham (2004). His latest publication is Scrap-iron Words from Acumen Publications (2014).
www.rockingham1.webspace.virginmedia.com