Fatima Mansions, The – Bertie’s Brochures

August the 20th: Yes, folks, it’s another cold, clammy day in England. A large crowd has gathered around the police station. Everybody–EVERYBODY–wishes to have contact with a certain little Irish writer within. Not to discuss his works, though the works are known to them; they’ve been published in the tabloid papers by the police under the heading “Barbaric Butcher’s Brochures”. No, they want to tear his very head from his body, for what it is alleged he did in the way of mortal damage to two soldiers in a nearby public lavatory. The night draws in. Nobody would say a word about him, except a fool like me [(and his skin)].

In rainy Ireland in the 50’s

There outside a pink farmhouse door

A small Bertie, playing at digging trenches,

asks, “Daddy, what’s the blowtorch for?”

He said, “The torch will cut the cars to turn them into sculpture

so I can express what I feel. The college men may laugh,

the farmers persecute me, but I do for myself. So should you.”

Come look at Bertie’s brochures

You’ll be enchanted, I am sure

The whole world’s in Bertie’s brochures:

All the wisdom, the smiles of dear friends

Through freakshow Britain, through the Eighties

Bertie works in labs, though his father’s aims still endure

though only at night does he do his real work

Learning, writing his brochures…

for he still believes that everyone’s a poet

and that all he has to do is to set it down

and so transform the milkman,

the waitress and the gunman into immortal ART!!

Now they’re laughing at Bertie’s brochures

Detectives with crowbars and skewers

They see things in Bertie’s brochures:

Their own hatred of all other races and their fear

Don’t laugh at Bertie’s brochures

He would not if they were yours

So what if your enemy is there?

Bertie’s an artist, so why should he care?

It’s the north European peasant experience