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prize-winner, Yorkshire Open Poetry
Competition, 2006
Children's Games
half
a coconut from the fair.
and
you had to swallow it or
wallop
a cat with a dead dogs bollocks.
And
then, and then, run past a mad nun and
Jimmy
the tramp and make it down to the
railway-lines
and leave your head on the line
until.
Someone
with ginger hair goes past and shouts
“Hey
Mad Mickey—get yourself
home,
your
tea’s on’t table.” And,
unless
your mam’s dead— in which
case it’s allright—
you
have to lock your best friend in the toilet and
never
ever let them out. But, when you do, ONLY do it
when
everyone else thinks they’re dead.
But,
if you’re really shit-scared, AND
the
cops come looking—
only
own up to the coconut.
(But,
that’s it, right ? )
Helen
Burke
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