This poem is for Mrs Beaton who was my S2 English teacher, Firrhill High School, Edinburgh:
BEATON.
As a young child
I learned to write backwards
and could sleep
standing up!
For these skills
I was backwardly celebrated!
As a wee lad
I could see and feel
what others could not.
This sensitivity I kept to myself.
I didn’t want the world to get me wrong!
Only later on in life
did I realise I had
Ziggy stardust-like abilities!
Now a retired man
I still think backwards!
But I can no longer sleep –
not even when recumbent!
In the night sky
flying comets occasionally blaze by:
Wow, the brilliance of stardust!
Mayflies, page 208, by Andrew O’Hagan:
