Bluebird Matchbox

[[ A transformation of an actual childhood visit to relatives in Dundee and Perth. The long wait for adults to finish visiting grows to an evolutionary scale. The Bluebird Matchbox (actually a Corgi, says the internet) was produced to keep me or my brother or both of us busy while adults talked for the last time. ]]

In childhood I am guided in

to meet the ancient Britons known

to other ancient Britons then

as Helen, Bunty, Joe. All gone.

They are all shades of vein and chalk

and pebbledash and cardigan

and close-cut grass and gravel walk

and kindly smiles all wired in.

I play while they discover fire 

and pour a drink to warm their skins,

and ages pass while they admire  

how fingers grow where once were fins.

Snakehips vs the Nazis

Verse 1:
It was nineteen forty one

We lived under an English sun

And our aeroplanes roared through the blue sky over our land
When the London sun went down

The Smart Set went to town

We were safe in a basement where Snakehips led the band.

Chorus:
We were only you and me
At the Cafe de Paris.
It was oh, Johnny, oh,
Then a flash of light.
It was Snakehips vs the Nazis,
Snakehips in the Blitz,
Snakehips, king of the night,
of the brilliant night.

Verse 2:

There was music in the air,

When the bombs came down the stair

And we only lived to tell through the purest chance

People died without a trace

Of the violence on their face

Sitting up in their chairs as if they still waited to dance

Coda:
They found Snakehips lying still
With a flower in his lapel

[[ Ken "Snakehips" Johnson (10 September 1914 – 8 March 1941)   Some versions of this story say Snakehips lost his head, but other versions say otherwise. ]]