Skip to main content

A Puppy Called Puberty

I heard this last night on radio 4, read by Andrew Marr. It amused me.
It was like keeping a puppy in your underpants
A secret puppy you weren’t allowed to show to anyone
Not even your best friend or your worst enemy

You wanted to pat him, stroke him, cuddle him
All the time you weren’t supposed to touch him.

He only slept for five minutes at a time
Then he’d suddenly perk up his head
In the middle of school medical inspection
And always on bus rides.

So you had to climb down from the upper deck
All bent double to smuggle the puppy off the bus
Without the buxon conductress spotting
Your wicked and ticketless stowaway.

Jumping up, wet-nosed, eagerly wagging-
He only stopped being a nuisance
When you were alone together
Pretending to be doing your homework
But really gazing at each other
Through hot and laxy daydreams.

Of those beautiful schoolgirls on the bus
With kittens bouncing in their sweaters.
By Adrian Mitchell
Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous8/11/2009 7:37 pm

    Merci, merci! Oh I love you, thanks so much for this! I read this poem ages ago and lost my copy of it so I have been going around for years looking for this. I had forgotten the title and poet, and could only remember the kittens bouncing in sweaters! Thanks so much for putting this on!

    p/s: You're not weird, nor do you post weird things!

    -Maia-

    ReplyDelete
  2. zefrog8/11/2009 8:01 pm

    you are very welcome.

    ReplyDelete
  3. LiAnE.NiCoLe2/08/2011 11:24 pm

    it would be great to make a literal analysis of this poem

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Please leave your comment here. Note that comments are moderated and only those in French or in English will be published. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and to leave a thought.

Popular posts from this blog

A Short History of the Elephant and Castle and Its Name

Last night I attended a lecture by local historian Stephen Humphrey who discussed the general history of the Elephant & Castle, focussing more particularly on what he called its heyday (between 1850 and 1940). This is part of a week-long art project ( The Elephant Project ) hosted in an empty unit on the first floor of the infamous shopping centre, aiming to chart some of the changes currently happening to the area. When an historian starts talking about the Elephant and Castle, there is one subject he can not possibly avoid, even if he wanted to. Indeed my unsuspecting announcement on Facebook that I was attending such talk prompted a few people to ask the dreaded question: Where does the name of the area come from, for realz? Panoramic view of the Elephant and Castle around 1960/61. Those of us less badly informed than the rest have long discarded the theory that the name comes from the linguistic deformation of "Infanta de Castille", a name which would have become at
19 comments
Read more

Liam Messam and Tamati Ellison Swap Jerseys

I am having a bit of a vacuous evening looking at images of pretty rugby players. Addidas, with its latest viral campaign, Jersey Swap , seems to be squarely aiming at the gay market with a selection of five antipodean rugby players, visitor to the website can select and see take their tops off and... well... swap jersey (those interested can create posters too). My favorites of the bunch are Liam Messam and Tamati Ellison . The pictures of their pretty faces and bulging naked torsos (excuse me while I sit down for a second!) included to this post should tell you why. A job well done for Addidas. This will go round the Internet for a while, I think.
2 comments
Read more

pink sauce | life, with a pink seasoning

As of tonight, my blog Aimless Ramblings of Zefrog , that "place where I can vent my frustration, express ideas and generally open my big gob without bothering too many people" which will be 6 in a couple of months, becomes Pink Sauce . While the URLs zefrog.blogspot.com and www.zefrog.eu are still valid to access this page, the main URL now becomes www.pinksauce.co.uk. There is a vague plan to create a proper website for www.zefrog.eu to which the blog would be linked. Why Pink Sauce , you may ask. It is both simple and complicated. For several years, I have grown out of love for the name of the blog. It felt a bit cumbersome and clumsy. That said, I never really looked into changing it, seriously. Tonight, for dinner, I had pasta with a special pink sauce of my concoction ; single cream and ketchup. I know most people while feel nauseous at the very though of the mixture but trust me, it's gorgeous. Don't knock it till you've tried it. After having had my platte
4 comments
Read more