I liked Peepo.
This poem was sad
The Boy Without a Name
I remember him clearly
And it was thirty years ago or more:
A boy without a name.
A friendless, silent boy,
His face blotched red and flaking raw,
His expression, infinitely sad.
Some kind of eczema
It was, I now suppose,
The rusty iron mask he wore.
But in those days we confidently swore
It was from playing near dustbins
And handling broken eggshells.
His hands, of course, and knees
Were similarly scabbed and cracked and dry.
The rest of him we never saw.
They said it wasn’t catching: still, we knew
And strained away from him along the corridor,
Sharing a ruler only under protest
I remember the others: Brian Evans,
Trevor Darby, Dorothy Cutler.
And the teachers: Mrs Palmer, Mr Waugh.
I remember Albert, who collected buttons,
And Amos, frothing his milk up with a straw.
But his name, no, for it was never used.
I need a time-machine.
I must get back to nineteen fifty-four
And play with him, or talk, at least.
For now I often wake to see
His ordinary, haunting face, his flaw.
I hope his mother loved him.
Oh, children, don’t be crueller than you need.
The faces that you spit on or ignore
Will get you in the end