Episodese
I used to bang on the floor
When I had a giddy fit
Which came from loneliness
Among BD many monumontaf of strests
And roofs and railings dark
Like those in cemeteries,
And the boy with the trembling arm
In the flat underneath
Would oall out, 'Teah?f"
And in his undertain voice
Alwaya Bo near to panic,
At home with his dirty piotures
In the grimness of the afternoon
In his cold, dark room
With cloude touching roof-tops outeide
And no hope walking abroad in the atreets,
No trace of freedom walking
By the roof-tops, in his unoértain voice
I squeewed out myr comfort,
Came baok to friendlens earth againe
I terrified him once
By telling him what the ooming war would be like,
And he trembled all over for a day,


And couldn't walk, untii his mother camé upstairs
And caid, 'Vhat's this your boy's
Beon telling mine?* Ho usod to eniff salt water
Up his nosey to get the phlegm down,
After dinnor, in the afternoont
And then take his reat.
Al1 day the rooms would lie silent and dark,
With the clang of a tram, in the distance.
Outside the window the streats
Would say nothing; never. offer coment
On. the brembling of 1ife
From day to day-
In silent roomse
When a rat-tat-tat
Came on the door it might be the Rent Man,
It might be the Çoal Han, or olse
The man from the School Board.
That sharp rat-tat-tat.
Gave you feathers in the. bellys
They were dark men and heavy men,
I nevor saw them, hiding upstairss
Thoy came for money, .or armed with law,
And made the street like a camp
Where people are shot. *
And their bodies left out
AB an example. That's all over now,
They sayt settled by the ware
Except that it imm'ts


It's all underneath nows the wagos are good,
The wallpaper's ohic and a car sits outside
And Saturdays are off;
But undernoath
The three grim men aro there,
And they're invisible, they're in the air;
They're everywheres
Sometimes my mother said *Ssaht'
When they knocked and stood very quiet
Where she was, ànd I had to etand there too,
With only the oracking of her shoe
As she breathed and awayed a little
In the silenod. And tho man would stamp
In the cold outaide, we night hear him eigh,
And then at lnast he'd turn away,
And be gone, and slowly the morning
Would revive again, and flowers would come out,
And the aky would blow again
And talk to the gardens as it had before.
The vinegar-man used to come on Friday nigh ts
After dark and make strange cries
At the baok of his throat, and his horse
Hed the same kind of face,
Deep and absorbed with glasses on, not given at all
To the street but always the strangor


Whose orios néver changed
But yet wera intimate. Ho would go round
The back of his cart where there were woodon tapa,
And fill people's bottles with vinogar, oil,
And inside the cart wais 1ike a woodan room
In the glow of a lamp with everything there
From matches to brushes. The horse
Was blinkered and had the same trick
Of never quite looking at anyone passing.
The street-lamps were silver, but the glow
In the oart was yellow and dims.
They stood together, and méant Friday nights
When my father came home. late
Vith parcels of food from the works
And my mother went shopping
And brought home treasures for the week,
And the fireplace crackled and blazed
Like a special tune to wéloome
The end of the week The street
Had a special Friday-night look
And smelled of the coming week-end;
Friday night was 1ight seen through leaves
And the shining of railings and trams
That wont past, and the quick step of feet
On the pavement outaide, going to Saturday.


The vinegar-man and his cart were neat
And all made of wood, and the horse
Had glasses on like the man; -
And the'grating sound of the wheels
And the clop. of the hoofé and tho gurgling sounds
Of the mân in the street below
Were like twinkling lights and a few little notes
Before the ourtain went up on Saturday morning.
Up tho hill where' oak-trees ware
Was always Christmas-timo;
The streets were now and etretched like stables
End to ond with golden 1ights
And had néw poople in them too
Sitting and smiling in the gold of their lights
While we sang Christmas carols outside
In the frost, and the streets
Were quiet like country there
Without the clang of a tram
But the rush of a train as it sped
Domnhill on its silver flight
Like an angel touohing the edge of the night
Where oak-trees wero't