Sick-Room  Matinėes

Winter afternoons off work
with a temperature
up in the Den shielded
with newspaper under the lino
from some of the landlady's TV noise
watching my own black and white:

gangster sagas in true-life Rochdale of the late '50s
with Dora Bryan as a tart

Googie Withers out on the moors tending sheep

George Montgomery in Westerns so old they were
authentic in spite of themselves.

Didn’t I there see Bogie, doubtless smelling
of tobacco and talc, as 'Gloves' Donahue?

Little George Raft authentically
uncompromising, a menacing dancer?

Ward Bond
claiming a possibly bogus Irishness
those beside the Liffey
would surely have rooted for?

                       On a lazy eyeball
                       the daydreams of
                       generations enacted.

Jack Warner too, pre-Dixon,
fat-gutted, fat-arsed,
pulling it off
as your
favourite
uncle.