BERNADETTE FROM BLACKHEATH

I remember my very first girlfriend

Bernadette O’Flahety was her name

She was ever so slightly unattractive

But she was my girlfriend all the same

 

She was considered quite the looker

Where she was born in Blackheath

Despite the very large warty nose

With the ginger moustache beneath

 

She did have a face like a smashed crab

Or perhaps like a bag full of spanners

She had tufts of red hair under her arms

Like a pair of nesting ginger hamsters

 

They say that beauty is only skin deep

So, she must have had hers on inside out

She’d a funny eye so that one looked

At you and the other seeked you out

 

She was best viewed in a dimmed light

Preferably from distance to be unkind

It was best not to see her naked form

But tackle her in the dark from behind

 

She had hairy legs and even hairy nipples

Her shape wasn’t curves so much as sags

She carried at least three spare tyres

And had breasts like roof tiler's nail bags

 

Bernadette's complexion resembled

Two-week-old cold lumpy porridge

She had Denis Healy bushy eyebrows

Accentuating the prominent ridge

 

She was older than me by a little bit

And she had been around the block

And it would be more than fair to say

She had too many miles on the clock

 

Bernadette was a bit of an old banger

You could say in more way than one

But on a those long cold dark nights

She was also a real bundle of fun

 

My brother said unkindly, the poor girl

Must have fallen from the ugly tree

And making matters worse she had hit

On the way down a branch or three

 

The excessive cellulite on her thighs

Made them look and feel like tripe

She had a number of boils and sores

And her skin was of the greasy type

 

And yes, it’s true that she did have a face

Like a well smacked arse bless her

Or a bulldog chewing a wasp but then

I was no oil painting or Adonis either

 

And perhaps she was not what a mother

Would want to choose for her son

But Bernadette was quite acceptable

For a shy young man to practice on