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Friday 22 March 2013

How to Make a F***ing Fortune


Wassee witt'ring on abou'?
Wees all leavin' in a term or two
so they all do keep 'arping on abou'
What employers want and what they're lookin'
for... what they expects...
YeH? What's
it gotta do with me, what they expects?
Don't want employers, do I? don't want
to be employed. Stuff their pensions.
Working for me ole man inn-I, eh?
I tells him that one lesson. Thought that'll settle it,
but then ee pipes up Wont allus
have yer dad there to rely on!
What
the hell's ee mean by that, I'd like to know.
Like me dad is gonna die or sumfink soon... well guess
he'll die sometime... So what? Thing is,
I leaves school. Then I goes to work for me ole man.
One day ee dies, let's say... And what does I do then?
Coz that is it boys, that is wot ee's on abou'!
Well, they all is gonna see then. See wot's wot
when I takes over dad's ole barrow
and I makes a f***ing fortune out of it --
more'n f***ing teachers get an' all!
More'n dad has made yet. Dad aint got the ruthless
touch, but now I got my Ellie too to think abou'!
We getting married soon for ten years, maybe more.
I did ask five, but she comes back with six
and then we plumps for ten. Big day, see!
Soon as I gets outa school and works off me probation.
Ten's enough she says to bring up kids -
or get'em on their way. She good wiv kids
but I'm not minding 'em. I told her that.
We boff wants a small house. Must 'ave a garden
an' carpets in the bedroom underneath the bed.


Written for Anna Elizabeth Graham's prompt at dVerse Poets where she asks us to write on Negative Capability in a persona poem from another's world view.

14 comments:

Janine Bollée said...

Hah - not quite the negative capability Keats had in mind I reckon, but very funny.
And a brilliant concept of the marriage contract, to be renewed at will.

Brian Miller said...

ha. very nice on the dialect...that was def a fun part of this for me...made me work a bit too...and certainly an easy way to make a fortune eh? ha....this was a trip dave....

Claudia said...

haha...love the bargain of marriage years...so cool..also cool details...the carpet underneath the bed made me smile

The Weaver of Grass said...

Oh yes Dave - this rings a bell with me and reminds me of quite a few of the lads I have taught.

Rachna Chhabria said...

Great poem.

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Anonymous said...

'ave you bin watchin Eastenners agin?

There are some really striking lines and ideas in here - bargaining about how long to be married for, getting off probation etc. Have you thought about script-writing for the soaps?

Scarlet said...

Dave, this was different, I had to read it out aloud ~ Good job on another persona and voice ~

Grace

Tommaso Gervasutti said...

Rough and vibrant. Life, I was thinking today how after all I feel a closeness between the dialect around me in Venice and these touches of another dialect,
that sense of practical immediacy we all must come to terms with.

Anonymous said...

I love the dialect - it's something I always struggle to capture, and I'm always impressed when I see it done so well.

Mary said...

A different voice for you, Dave. I enjoyed the style and the voice.

Elephant's Child said...

At least our protagonist doesn't plan to (or admit to planning to) send Ellie out to make a fortune f***ing. A young man of principle. And I also like the ten year marriage contract - longer than many last now.
Thanks Dave - big smiles.

Dave King said...

Aprille
Thanks aprille. The "elastic" marriage contract was new to me then. Since when, I've come across it on one other occasion.

Brian
Ah, glad the dialect bit didn't put you off. Thanks for saying.

Claudia
Mmm, the carpet going right under the bed was not so unusual back then, before fitted carpets became almost universal.

The Weaver of Grass
Ah, yes, life would have been less colourful without them!

Rachna
Much thanks.

Anonymous
Thanks for this. I don't know what happened. They left school and we lost contact.

rumoursofrhyme
Nay! Why you ask?
Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I can't say I have thought of doing so, no.

Heaven
Very heartening to hear this. Thanks.

Tommaso
Thanks Tommaso, such an interesting comment. Rough and vibrant would certainly describe my "laddie".

rowantaw
Much thanks for the compliment.

Mary
Thanks, very pleasing to hear.

Elephant's Child
Yeah, thinking of this couple, I do sometimes wonder if some of the marriage breakups we hear about, are simply coming to the end of their agreed terms!



Jim Murdoch said...

Delighted to see a poem in dialect, Dave. Not enough of these kicking around although I did discover a lovely one by a Black Country poet which I'll be including in a upcoming post. And I've just read a book by the Appalachian writer Ron Rash who also writes in dialect which really give his stories a nice flavour.