Danny Chaucer (1)

Having posted some children’s poems from my two solo collections I thought maybe I'd post some poems from my other book – this one is for teenagers. It’s called The Journal of Danny Chaucer (Poet). The poems form a narrative. The narrative is based my own teenage years - the seemingly hopeless quest for a girlfriend and the band that I started with some mates. I've hopefully disabled comments on parts 2, 3 and 4 and so any comments should all be together, below. I've also put a link after part four. Please excuse this blatant consumerism. But a poet cannot live by rhyme alone...

Alarums Stage Left

Why does the firebell ring?
When Jenny and I
Are halfway through
An experiment to determine
(if she fancies me, really,
deep down)
The coefficient of expansion
Of various metals that
(she has a lovely figure
all curves
and light-brown hair
so soft
I can hardly keep from
running my hands through...)
Ringringringringringringringring
Ringringringringringringringring
Ringringringringringringringring
Mr Paine yells
K-E-E-P C-A-L-M
It’s probably just a practice.
Leave your coats and bags and...
His voice is drowned
In the noisy tide of Special Needs
Sweeping past like excited elks
In the corridor.
I hope it’s a real fire, I say to Jenny.
Of course you don’t!
People would get hurt.
Smoke. Suffocation...
We join the flood of students
And I lose her in the jostle
And noisy chatter
We go Down the Up stairs
(Which in these circumstances
We’re allowed to do)
But then I remember Tommy.
Where is he?
He’d never manage the crowd
With his leg in plaster.
And what if it’s not a practice?
What if it’s real?

I wait at the bottom of the stairs
Until the crowds have gone
And suddenly all is eerily deserted
And is it my imagination
Or can I smell smoke?
No sign of Tommy.
I rush up the stairs
Along the corridor.
I’m sure I can smell smoke.
And in to the classroom.
Empty - just a slew of bags
And coats.
No Tommy!
I rush back down the stairs
And out on to the playground.
My class see me and they all cheer.
Mrs Taggert tut tuts.
And there’s Tommy, grinning.
I went back for you, I yell,
In case it was a real fire.
I thought you’d need help!
It’s okay, he says,
We went down the other stairs.
Jenny lent me
A hand.