Hawkers Copyright © Richard J Whiting

The stalls are up;
A camp site of commerce;
Their palette-box tarpaulins
Fill the Market Square
A greengrocer’s song
Four Bob a pound ‘a bananas
The fish stall, scale, ice
With a reek of the coast.

Wednesday Bury St Edmunds
Friday King’s Lynn.

It was the Hawkers I liked best;
Milk-crate mounted;
Street theatre, the show begins
The magician unveils his sheets
Ladies, Ladies, Ladies! Nothing keeps you warmer at night
Except, per’aps save me! Not ten bob, not eight, not even five! They’ll last your lifetime through
That’s a cast-iron guarantee.

The juggler with his crockery
Spins plates, shows a pattern
That can never be erased;
Ladies, Ladies, Ladies! Nothing can break ‘em
He hits one against his knee
He cracks it against his skull
The audience gasps
C’mon girls! Less than
The cost of a good night out!

The purses click
Notes and coins
Melt from finger to finger
And the laden hoards
Leave the show, far behind
Like ants they empty
The busy auditorium of
The Market Square.

I used to think
That they’d died with their art;
But they’re back;
Stars of the small screen.

I see a market square
Smashed to jigsaw mockery;
A window like a broken tooth
Flies a tattered white sheet
Of mock surrender
Fulfilling a promise
To outlive its owners.

Ladies, Ladies, Ladies
Ladies ply the rubble
For a lost generation
Buried before their time;
With an unbreakable hope
And a pattern forged in their eyes
That can never be erased.

Soap-Box mounted
Political theatre, his show begins
Not eight rockets,
Not nine,
Nor even ten
(The cost of a good night out)
The cost of a barrel of oil
He gives his platitudes
His cast-iron guarantees;
Blood seeps across the market square;
Wednesday Afghanistan
Friday the Middle East;
And he’s up there
Trying to sell me something
It’s just like the old days
He’s trying to sell me something
The crowd are gathered
He’s trying to take them in
Sheets and blood on babies faces;

It’s just like the old days
He’s trying to sell me something;

Something breakable,
Something soiled;

Only this time,

This time,

I’m not buying it.