Night Howls

Radio Luxembourg, wafting in and out
on a faulty crystal set 1964,
ethereal reception, a night ghoul
rhythmic pulsing
a foggy heartbeat,
something evil breathing unseen
in the bedroom's dark.


Our two local village greasers,
scrawny boys, clinging on for dear life
to a wraith-like bastard Norton,
self-built, unpolished black
screaming and squealing past, late
heading to the Beehive Cafe,
a sticky end coming
them two, my mother would scowl.


With sleep close, a Jubilee class
clear three miles away,
a Banshee howling past the Weetabix,
the sweet cereal pong
hanging on a easterly breeze,
I never ate them after Gibbo started there
she always had a candle off her nose.


My father, head hard against the board
snoring on the in-breath,
beauteous music,
a bizarre unmanly angelic chorale
metronomic,
asking a question, who? Who?


Now they’ve all gone,
Crystal sets to DAB
Sep and Coxey dead
cleaned up in July 1965 on the A6,
Jubes to Diesels,
Weetabix to the Chinks
and my father to an embolism
aged just sixty-one.


All gone,
but the nights still howl.





© Graham Sherwood 05/2015