I first came across Big Geoff through the Coventry alternative magazine The Broadgate Gnome c 1970/ 71. The Dustman's Blues (below) was published in the Broadgate Gnome. Later Geoff contributed a wad of poems to HOBO in 1973. A couple of short poems appeared in Hobo. Here's a small selection of Geoff's works from 1970.
DUSTMAN’S BLUES
(Or a Refuse Collector’s Tale of Woe)
Get in for
Half-past seven
Any later
You get sent
Back home
Give your name to the bloke
Then hop on the wagon
You’re off for a
Knackering time.
Grab hold of the handle
With your left hand
And heave the bin on to
Your right shoulder
Watch how you go
Off to the wagon
Empty the shot
Then put the bin back.
Eight and one half hours
You’re doing that
Well you are according to your time sheet
But in actual fact
You like a half hour for tea
In the morning
A whole hour for lunch
Instead of half
Then knock off
An hour before
You’re supposed to
Collecting a ten shilling tip
On the way.
At the end of the week
You gets your thirteen quid
If you’re lucky
But you gotta watch your step
Or they grab you by the neck
And throw you with the litter
In the gutter.
All in all
It’s not so bad
It’s a real gas at times
But like I said
Just watch your step
Or your Dustman’s blues
Are over.
1970
I reached the bottom before I reached the top – Big Geoff. (published in Hobo No2)
Dark grey
Dusty day
Mournful
Morning
Against
Afternoon
Evening
Even
Worse than
Morning
Sorrow
Spreads
Her wings
Around us
Happiness
Has flown
To a distant
Day
Long ago
Leaving us all
In this
1970 Big Geoff
In this poem Geoff identifies 'the other woman' - usually a car or a computer but in this case a spanner and working class sexism!
FOR MIDDLE-AGED MARRIED MECHANICS EVERYWHERE
I love a spanner
All shining and new
Chromium plated
Double ended too
A half-inch hexagonal
Socket at one end
Three quarter inch
Square
Everynight
I polish her
And replace her in her box
As the other ‘tool’ in the corner
Is quietly darning my socks.
............
Interesting that Geoff says in the poem that he wants his words set to a reggae beat. This was written in Coventry 6 years before Bob Marley and 9 years before Two Tone. However there was a Ska scene in Cov in the late 60's / early 70's.
Sitting in an armchair
Fingers on my chin
Looking at the ceiling
The lightbaulb wears a grin
People all around are smiling
Wondering why and where
Maybe also wondering
How and who.
But I don’t care
As the room is all bare
And the candle flickers
In the corner
And I’m writing this
For the sake of it
As I realise
It doesn’t make sense
So I’d better finish
But then again
How would it go,
To a reggae beat?
..................................
I look down on the rich man
Who hides his money away
There are those who’d gladly take it.
But others who’d give in return
Their withered hands
For sowing seeds,
For operating the factory machines
To help make the turnover better
For a meagre amount of pay
Do you wonder that they sit around
Waiting for a better day
While you’re sitting to your Sunday lunch
Of roast chicken veg and all
While they sit out on the roadside
Wondering where they’ll get
Their next meal
Will it be round some warm fireside
Or fish and chips out on the road
They may say they don’t want your money
But a portion of it they do
To set up somewhere for them to stay
And to sow the seeds towards
Their better day.
They don’t want the worry behind yur wealth
Just enough to survive
Till they’re over sixty five
Till the time they can wonder if they were
Glad to be alive
Or if they wish life had ended
When work began.
1970
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