As promised, and in honour of Ian McMillan Yorkshire Poet Laureate, a small sample of my poetry the subject matter being Dave Green, a club singer of my fathers aquaintence and promotion…
Its not easy being green
Sang little Dave Green
His hand all withered and bent
I sing my song
To them all night long
Until homeward once more I am sent
I’m a singer by trade
And a living I’ve made
In these working mens clubs in the north
And good friends I have found
If I buy them a round
Otherwise I’m told to “go forth” (and multiply)
But a true friend is rare
A man who won’t stare
At my perished hand and short stature
Who harkens my song
For hours a-long
And acts as my official flak-catcher
Frank is his name
He promotes my fame
In his job as club sec-re-tary
He tells them to clap
Even when I am crap
As they dance in his club and make merry
They leap and they dance
And jig, jump and prance
And they cheer me to the echo
Tell me I’m the new Dean Martin
To which I am heartened
Even though he looks like a gecko
Frank tells them I’m good
And they believe him, they should
They know he wouldn’t tell lies
He’s their club boss you see
And for a modest fee
He’ll book turns all night long, “sighs” (hero)
But I like my drink
Like a fish I can sink
A-many a bottle of rum
It makes me go drunk
Makes my singing a-junk
Make better noise out of my bum
They’ll boo and they’ll hiss
Shout out I am pissed
And I can’t deny, it is true
Captain Morgan has won
So I sing from my bum
And my farts win them back through and through
The farting Dave Green
On my posters is seen
My arse is more famous than me
“Rotherhams Le Petomane“
Is my new claim to fame
It breaks my heart, you can see
From Dean Martin to poop
In one huge fell swoop
I have fallen from grace like a clown
As I stand on this stage
Silently seething with rage
Face the crowds with pants pulled right down
For this is my fate
But at least my pay rate
Has gone up by a huge measure
For they prefer a good poo
To Dean Martin, its true
Its my arse thats a national treasure
.
Dave Green was a short man and indeed he had a withered hand which the gods had fortuitously withered into exactly the correct shape to insert a microphone, thus was born Dave Greens career from a very early age. I can just see the scene in the Green household when the new baby was brought home from the hospital, its parents disappointed by the revelation that their new kinder had a hand of severely withered appearance until the grandfather had a long think and then disappeared upstairs to return with a hairbrush to declare, “Wait, all is not lost, see how the hairbrush fits perfectly in his crippled hand, this boy will become a great singer, you mark my words…”
My father adopted Dave Green after he booked him one night at his club, from that night on he would spread the word of this remarkable dwarf-man of Rotherham who could woo audiences simply by crooning and the small man’s diary was soon filled from one year to the next.
He did like a drink though but here is where my poem and the truth part company for Dave Green unfortunately did not make a living on the clubs as The English Le Petomane, rather that when performing in Leeds he would often come back to our house to sleep off the booze before driving home, sleep in one of our armchairs whilst his bottom sang on in our house to the ever-lasting amusement of Ned and myself, indeed, we still speak and write poems of it…
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