Uncle

When I was a kid we would
Visit my uncle
He lived in a cul-de-sac
Under the moor
In a town that was blackened by
Soot from the chimneys
When cotton was King and when
England was more
He always had fancy cars
Nissans and Datsuns
With electric windows and a
Tape cassette player
And me and my brother would
Sit in the boot
Giving thumbs or our tongues to the
Cars to the rear
In the seventies this was okay
And the police didn't care

And every trip he would
Give us a comic book
Marvellous titles with
Spider sensation and
Adverts for weird stuff like
Web slingers, x-ray specs
Twinkie bars, pop tarts and
Dynamic tension and
How to avoid getting
Sand in your face from the
Thug on the beach who is
After your squeeze
This was our window on
Americana and
Back in the day we all
Desperately hankered to be

Steve Austin
Or Evil Knievel
They were exotic and
We were just people

Many years later I
Heard through the grapevine
My uncle had hung up his
Hat and retired
I went to his funeral
Back in that Northern town
Back to the smoke and the
Cruel church spires
After the wake we
Began to take stock of
The flotsam the dead leave
When they shuffle off
And cleaning his garage out
It became plain to see
Marvellous comics were
Not his main income stream
The garage was
Packed to the rafters with
Jazz Mags

And then I remembered when
I was a little lad
Sneaking outside to the garage
In search of Mad
Looking for X-Men
The Hulk or Avengers
I opened a magazine
No superheroes just
Pictures of ladies in
States of undress, but it
Stirred something strange in me
Who would have guessed?
And then I remember
A hand on my shoulder
A voice in my ear saying
Calmly to close it

This comic is not the one
That you require
Here have a Doctor Strange
Come outside

Well my mum
And my aunt
Put it all in black bags
And they
Burned
The
Fucking
Lot