Basil

My Saturday job pays six and six down A copy boy at the Chronicle Five cigarettes and two silver half crowns Meeting Vince at Mark Toney's in town Boy, do we get around Basil sits there on the table for subs But not a part of the Bri-nylon club Ancient blue sweater, too old for the job Bored out of his mind With the Colins and Bobs I'm a jack and a lad And I'm up for the world And I've kissed a Gateshead girl He calls for a copy boy, grumpy as hell Poets have to eat as well What he wouldn't give just to walk out today To have time to think about time And young love thrown away I'm a jack and a lad And I'm up for the world And I've kissed a Gateshead girl Starlings swarming A cloud over Grainger Street Over the black church Over the Black Gate And the shadowy Keep He peers through his wire rims At the fish and chip words He's supposed to dish up and forget His drudgery now has become slightly blurred By one of his Players untipped cigarettes Bury all joy Put the poems in sacks And bury me here with the hacks In the summer the fair Will stretch over the Moor Lovers will lie and make out in the park Basil puts on his old duffel and scarf And goes out into the dark