A Valentine's Raga

                           for three kindly women

      Mrs. Foster   Mrs. Ainsworth    Mrs. Doris O'Neill

          That frosty winter day one February

          two months too early to see what Shelley saw

          when one spring he sauntered there with William

          Godwin's daughter   Mary   who brought him there

          to see the famous Camberwell Beauty soar

          two hundred years too late for love like that

          Donnelly   

                         grandson of Donnelly

                                                           strode in

          to that selfsame park   called   Myatt's Fields

          along a tree lined path

          towards a plinth

          where he climbed on stage

          loosed a lyric

          of Dylan's

          "when I was a windy boy and a bit

           and the black spit of the chapel fold"

                 could even Richard Burton

                 say the lines better

           grasses bent before the wind

           delicate petals clung on

           Donnelly heeded a gaunt oak tree

           whose biggest bough waved a baton

                 The Pied Piper of Hamelin

                 was of Donnelly's stock

                 sparrows and blackbirds

                 began to flock

           When I was but just a five year old   and bad

                 he said 

            imitating a low-voiced welsh actor's drawl

            I stole away an unclaimed box

            of chocolates when the headmistress asked

            if any of us sitting there on the hard

            wooden floor  if any of us owned   own up

            she said with emphatic upper class diction

            do any of you own this box of chocolates?

            well of course I said   I did   they are mine

            as I stole away that box of chocolates

            each one individually wrapped

            in shiny golden paper   so I owned up to

            owning those chocolates

            unwrapped them all

            keeping the wrappers

            ate them each one  

            so that 
            in the fullness of time

            Donnelly said   to the sparrow and blackbirds

            puffing his chest and strutting the stage

            I was taken to the bathroom and soundly

            strapped by Dad

            You are far too softly spanking that brat

            my mother said  you're much too soft with him

            I'll have you please go strap him again

            I want you to strap him again and again

            she said and old Mrs. Foster heard about it 
            because

            why else was she so nice so kind

            she brought me books

            heavy tomes I carried home

            from Primary School

            one by one until I had a full set

            an encyclopedia with pictures each page

           When I was but just eight years old   and ill

            Donnelly said drawing himself upright

            from the land of unpleasant memories

            I was seventeen weeks in hospital

            he said  with nephritis  in the kidneys

            Mrs. Ainsworth brought me schoolwork to do

            something to look forward to inbetween pills

            when I was not watching nurses

            Donnelly said    

                           I was in love with a night nurse

            a beautiful night nurse

            I watched from my bed in the darkened ward

            while she sat in front of the fireplace

            reading

           with a lamp on her desk lighting her face

           her freckled face fringed by curly fair hair

           until one night there was a commotion

           in the chimney    a pigeon appeared  

           bold as brass   strutting around on the floor

           in front of the fireplace

           scaring us   me and the nurse

           but it was only a pigeon

           so a porter came and opened a window   

           and out it flew    free as a bird

           When I was still just nine year's old   and sad

           my father died   Donnelly said   he died

           and no longer would I walk beside him

           keeping to his left side where he watched me

           with his one good eye not the glass eye

           he wore in his right eye socket

           from being blown up in the war

            and before too long  Donnelly said

            to the birds    where are the bees and the           butterflies?

            my mother took  a lover    Mr. O'Neill

            Bill would come to our front door

            ring the bell

            we would let him inside 

            he'd go to the lounge

           where they would close the door on us kids

            the curtains were closed where she waited outside  

            Mrs. O'Neill   who lived at No. 1 Calais Gate

            she waited outside the windows where we lived

            outside No. 9 to see where could she see them 

            through cracks in the curtains

            carrying on inside

            When I was but fifteen years old   and glad

            Donnelly declaimed  glad to be grown

            playing a man

            Mrs. O'Neil came to see me play Raleigh

                   in Journey’s End

            my mother couldn’t spare the time  she said

            Donnelly said sadly   to see me play young

            Lieutenant Raleigh in the school play 

              where

            in the very last scene   

            as the lights go down

            I died in the end 

            of that first world war play

            So I want to say that I love you all three

            Donnelly said  

            Mrs. Foster    Mrs. Ainsworth    

            I love you both still   I'll always remember you

            and also Doris   that adulterer's wife  

            Mrs. O'Neill who nurtured me

            came to see me play Raleigh where I died in the end

            where I die at the end of the very last act

            up on the stage of a deserted bandstand

            a plinth in the park at Myatt's Fields

                       copyright © Dick Russell, 2014