Oscar
Listen to Carole reading her poem ...
When I was a girl of eleven or so,
could have been younger I really don’t know,
could have been older, maybe thirteen
before I queued for the seventeen
I’d always go to the pet-food shop
by Paragon Station next to my stop
and pay a shilling for a ticket through
to where the shop-keeper kept a zoo.
In a cage in the corner filled with gloom
was a woolly monkey who hated that room.
It was always the monkey I came to see,
though I doubt he even noticed me,
he’d lean his head against the bars
and I’d reach a finger to stroke his ears.
Little I knew of the land of his birth
but his eyes held every sadness on earth.
could have been younger I really don’t know,
could have been older, maybe thirteen
before I queued for the seventeen
I’d always go to the pet-food shop
by Paragon Station next to my stop
and pay a shilling for a ticket through
to where the shop-keeper kept a zoo.
In a cage in the corner filled with gloom
was a woolly monkey who hated that room.
It was always the monkey I came to see,
though I doubt he even noticed me,
he’d lean his head against the bars
and I’d reach a finger to stroke his ears.
Little I knew of the land of his birth
but his eyes held every sadness on earth.
This poem is copyright (©) Carole Bromley 2024
About the Writer
Carole Bromley
Carole has won the Caterpillar Prize and had poems in Tyger, Tyger, The Toy, Paper Lanterns, Paperbound, Little Thoughts Press and Northern Gravy as well as in her collection, Blast Off! and anthologies from MacMillan, Nosy Crow and Emma Press. She does readings and workshops at festivals and in schools and in 2024 is tutoring courses on writing poetry for children at the Garsdale Retreat and for the Writing School online.
