Dannie Abse is a celebrated poet, dramatist and novelist from Cardiff. His Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve has become a classic piece of Welsh fiction. His books include White Coat, Purple Coat, A Poet in the Family, A Strong Dose of Myself and There Was A Young Man From Cardiff. A Figure of 8 In Mr. Theophilus’s jail of the sun-striped classroom the boy half listens to a story of royalty-loving Christopher Robin. Then, after musical scales, his friend, Fatty Jones, is scolded (Fatty Jones is sobbing) sings, ‘Let the prairie echo, God bless the Prince of Wales.’ Free, at last, arms horizontal, he jet-roars out of school into a vigorous sunset, soars between the Hs of the Millenium Stadium, loops the loop, flies to Africa to see naked women (whom gently he caresses); turns left at Albany Road, farts H2 Ss. The evening’s shot down in flames butchers’ reds in the clouds are dark, smoke is rising from the drains, someone has bombem the park.. Both the swings are on fire, the empty see-saw is charred; the enemy is a brute, the enemy must be foiled; blood is streaming down the chute, the wooden horses are running wild. There’s a furnace in the churchyard (a sorcerer has cast his spell) the mandrake’s screaming and the yew, the graves are sinking down to hell. Unseen, a spaceship from another world flees the heights, drags a spooky trace. Below the pond is poisoned and the dew. Safely the boy comes home to base. There beneath the night’s first star, observed by his patient cat, he chalks across the garden shed FUCK WINNIE THE POOH. Then adds for luck and Fatty Jones FUCK MR THEOPHILUS TOO. Flowers                 To my doubting father, the hymns of bluebells, companionable.       What greater silences than these? Nothing better could be his tutor.       To my pious mother, blithe daffodils from beneath the trees,       emblems of sighing Spring. What else could I do? Bitter, she was dying.       For my elder daughter, a fortune-telling chain of daisies.       Demure flirts, unbuttoned and bold, so fresh with the dew of the garden.       For my younger daughter, a buttercup with its golden ray       turned on, to hold beneath the chin. What good husband will give her butter?       For my little son enthralled, a dandelion clock to run with,       to pursue, to puff at, puff at, like Ariel to blow it all away.       For my wife white freesias, her favoured flowers, long-stemmed, timid.       Closed, they keep their perfumed secrets only loving couples can construe.       But this morning, in a vase installed, quick their frightened shadows flew       to the serenity of a blank wall when the fitful sun barged in, came through.