NUMBER 22

I dreamed I took you home to Thebes to meet my Mum.
Another mecca for our pigrims, Piggles,
Pigrims (sic) that is.
I see them stepping from the 80 bus,
Some sick some not so sick,
And queueing up at number 22,
Their scallop shells of quiet in their hands.
I dreamed my home but strangers live there now.
I dreamed my Mum but she’s long dead and gone.
Come in, she said, and wipe your muddy feet.
It’s nice to see you Tony. My! and you
Saint Tony these days, bless and save us!!
Our Toe a saint! My! Fancy that!
Just like that Paul McCartney. He’s done well!
No Mum, I said, He is a sir, I said.
He is a sir and not a saint. It’s not the same.
But is it better, Tony? asked my Mum.
Not better, only different. I said.
I whipped your poke off so my Mum could see.
Who’s this then?
This is Piggles. She’s a pig
From Nubia, Mum. Mum stroked your pretty head.
Good name for a pig, Tony.
You blinked and saw the greasy, tacky, smelly,
hutch of a kitchen. It confirmed
Your idea of Theban Life.
I’m glad that you’ve found someone after all
These years. I told your Dad you would.
Said my dead Mum.

FEVER

You had ignored me.
After all that I had told you about gnawing
Slugs and scorpions and planarian worms
Off the cave floor.
And now you had fever. You had a real ailment.
You had eaten a baddie.
You lay helpless and a little bit lazy
With the fever. You squeaked for Nubia,
But no-one came.
I bustled about and fetched some Benghazi bananas
Was this to be your Nubian dessert?
And lowered them,
One by one, into your piggy maw.
I wiped your tear-ruined snout
And wondered if
You might be,
Might just be,
Taking me for a ride.
Your piggy-eyes were inscrutable.
You did not let me know.
You said nothing,
Which was what I expected
Of you.

Meanwhile,
The good saint fetched loads of bananas.
The fat pigling lay on its back and scoffed the lot.

GNAWING

Gnawing calmed you.
Your snippy snappy snout
Was like a garden shredder. Objects
suffered, not least my rope soled sandals.
You ignored nothing
And gnawed the lot:
Slugs, bugs, planarian worms,
Whatever the cave offered.
I sat near you, barefoot,
Eating my quotidian supper,
Drinking your concentrated calm
And a quart or two of Guinness,
Fearing for my toes,
Watching your pretty pink sinuosities
Quiver with delight
While you gnashed turnips from Tripoli
And bananas from Benidorm,
No, not Benidorm exactly,
…Ben something?
Benghazi?
Right!
Benghazi.

MOONWALK

I walked beside you
Beneath the fat round
Of moon. What is moon?
I tried to tell you it was
Not your Mummy
That it would not sit on your head.
You were the Piggy-wig from the Land where the Bong-tree grows,
Unwilling to sell your ring
And your squeaks
Were like bits of beetles and spiders
Spat out by cats or owls
No, probably not cats
Come to think of it.
And when the moon-shadow of a mangy
Desert-dog scared you silly.
How could I share with you
The butcher’s block you saw,
The saw you foresaw.
My! How you squeaked under the unpolarised light!
Some fine moonlit night, I thought, you might turn poet,
My little fat pigling with your François Boucher bum.
My pretty odalisque Piggles, a pig poet
Who squeaks to the goddess.
How wrong I was!
But then, tell me!
Who needs pig poems?

YOU HATED SPADES

Spades frightened you. Spades,
By which, of course, Piggles,
I dont mean Nubians,
But spades with blades,
Spades with which to dig
Crap holes in the sand.
I can take them. But not you!
George, a saint, bless her!, came by to say Hi!
Stout legs in ammunition shorts,
Butch, but no butcher of piglings,
Dragons maybe,
Swinging her khaki spade.
No saint I know like Captain George
For calling a spade an entrenching-tool!
She was on her way to the desert,
For a Cappadocian crap.
Boy! Did you panic! You vomited with fear,
Hope you don’t mind
My mentioning your vomit.
Your Mummy had not taught you
To keep your muesli behind your Nubian snout.
You were not yet ready for spades.
You were only just learning
What a bloody-awful, wretched, woebegone, comfortless,
Forlorn, godforsaken, miserable
And, in your case,
Quite literally sickening
World this is.