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Your support makes all the difference. Read more Portrait of the young man as an artist
by Martin Newell
In overcoat and looking harsh
With most of Ian Beale's moustache
The tyre-mark of a beard below
Begs Shave Me Off Before You Go-go
The image more mature somehow
Asks, "Daddy, can I come down now?"
It's serious and that's what shocks
The look that says, "I Want Your Sox".
The Georgian house which Michael built
Austere without its early gilt
As moany Sony sets him free
For forty million transfer fee
Is this the face Teen-Heaven sent
So like a Russian dissident
Now singing "Jesus to a Child"?
Or is it Croesus-U-Restyled?
Martin Newell's third volume of poetry, The Illegible Bachelor, is published by Festival Books through Password. Or mail order from Festival Books, Lit Department, Essex University, Colchester CO4 3SQ
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