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the poet
Thomas McColl lives in London and has published two collections of poetry – Being With Me Will Help You Learn and Grenade Genie. He's read as a featured poet at many events in London and elsewhere, including Hearing Eye, Paper Tiger Poetry, Celine's Salon and The Quiet Compere. Thomas has also been featured on East London Radio, BBC Radio Kent, BBC Radio WM and TV's London Live.
the poems
Susan Sharp
Susan Sharp was what my first employer,
the local butcher,
called the knife he’d use to slice the meat.
By way of explanation,
he said he spent more time with Susan
than he ever did with his wife.
‘Tis pity she’s a knife,' he’d joke,
but most of the time
he was simply singing Susan’s praises –
saying how much he loved her serrated, lop-sided smile,
her blood-red lipstick, her lust for naked carcasses,
and the ease with which she’d split a heart in two,
yet always give in to his demands.
On my first day,
he threatened to slice off my hands
when I went to touch her.
‘There’s only one commandment in a butcher’s shop,’ he scowled.
‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s knife.’
Working at that butcher’s shop was my first job,
and I didn’t even manage to last a week
with that paranoid psycho freak,
and Susan Sharp, his knife,
who he’d fallen in love with
and spent more time with
than he ever did with his wife.
Look at That!
'Daddy – look at that!
a top hat on a tea pot,'
you shout,
as we stop just a little too close
to a china display in the shop
and, with a swipe of your hand,
you make a fat pot-headed Victorian gentleman
involuntarily doff his hat,
and a second later,
you realise why he doesn't do that –
even though he's Victorian
and you're a lady
(albeit a little madam) –
when his hat
(which, foolishly,
he'd had made
out of posh china
rather than plush silk)
smashes into pieces on the floor.
And while you sob and sulk at the realisation,
I pay the bill for the damage,
while keeping an eye out,
as I'm carrying you,
that you don't knock any
of the many
ornate objects
crowded round the till,
but instead your damned dinky destructive digit
starts prodding the top of my face,
and my invisible top hat
(which, foolishly,
I'd had made out of frayed nerves
rather than woven silk)
is once more pushed to the edge,
and once more
(just about)
remains in place.
Hard Tears
I often cried in front of you –
sometimes when you hit me,
once when,
as you were teaching me to ride a bike,
you let go of the handlebars
and losing control I fell off,
and once, when teaching me DIY,
you gave me a heavy claw hammer
to bang some nails into wood
and I proceeded to bang my thumb instead.
‘For Pete’s sake!’ you said, disgusted.
‘You’re thirteen. Don’t you think it’s about time
you managed to resist the urge to blub like a girl
every time you get hurt?’
Well, I never cried in front of you again –
not even years later at your funeral.
Though I was devastated,
the tears just wouldn’t come.
I wish you could have seen it.
You’d have been proud.
Publishing credits
Susan Sharp: Co-incidental 4 (The Black Light Engine Room)
Look at That!: Ink, Sweat & Tears
Hard Tears: Burning House Press