Felix edited 2013

Old Felix came and went  
His business combs and buttons  
Ones for nits, the others brass and cotton  
To be squashed by wooden roll.  
How big his feet in sagging shoes  
How bowed his coat, herring bone and worn  
A heavy coat, a winter coat . . . .  
In blazing June.!  
A poor man, a good man,  
With eyes so blue and frank,.  
He was a tramp.  
  
He pushed a childless pram, without a hood  
Left it in the street,  
Card-board case opened at the door  
With things to sell to Mam,  
And sometimes Dad was there.  
Had a little book of poems  
One was on a card,  
Was it his? He said it was  
No need to disbelieve  
Those eyes so blue and frank,  
His coat... so long and worn.  
  
Slept outside, he said,  
The sweating coat in June!
Oh!...Yes!...the little book.  
Was it blue?  
Or....did those eyes?  
Yes, what did they do?  
Did he smell?  
Stood without the porch, could not tell,  
Did not want to know.  
It was those eyes  
So blue so frank  
Above that coat so worn.  
  
The war was on, buttons scarce as gold  
Felix got his from a Walmgate store,  
A corner store beside St.Deny's Church  
We passed it every week,  
But always bought from Felix.  
Lent me the book.  
Or was it given me?  
I gave it back, I wished I'd not  
He wanted me to have it.  
Dead now Felix and your book  
Lost beneath a tree,  
But not the memory of those eyes  
So blue so frank  
That heavy coat in June  
And hands that asked for friendship,  
With a book.  
  
What was in that book,  
The blue book with grubby back?  
Poems beyond my years,  
A little boy from Sunday School.  
The card began...............  
Yes, I remember now  
"My mother taught me,  
Mathew, Mark and Luke and John"  
The rest is gone, something under a tree,  
Had he sat beneath a tree to write?  
But on the card the lines were print,  
Not licked and leaden pencil.  
Kept for years, the card now gone,  
The book, I gave it back.  
Worried months in-case you did not come  
Gave it back....a great mistake,  
To those reluctant hands  
With saddened eyes  
So blue and frank  
And older coat,  
Its back more bent.  
  
Away he walked  
In shuffle-shoe, and stooping coat  
Card-board case in tatters  
The sleeves seemed longer  
Fancy frills............  
The herring bone had worn  
To show the lining,  
No leather edge like mine.  
Buttons there were none, but  
Stooped and arched  
The open cloth became a porch  
Against the snow and rain  
And sweating summer sun.  
I never looked to see the pram  
As empty as before?  
Soundless turned the wall,  
Proud along the path  
Its London Pride and bricks.  
  
"Who were you,?  
Your hair was long uncombed,  
You came down Constantine  
Like Jesus Christ at Sunday school  
Christ in Constantine I thought  
(I was that age).......  
Had trod those pavements I despised  
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild  
Looked upon a little child  
Turned........................  
And walked away.  
  
I wonder where he went?  
He must be there by now,  
Left behind the pram,  
Thrown away the case  
The book and pencil and the card,  
Left behind the memories  
Of a man who left no mark.  
Sufficient was the day....  
He had no morrow...  
Just today...............  
  
And that old coat.