We stood aside
Raggedy all raggedy raggedy
Raggedy here they come
We stood aside in silence as they passed
The jostling, the slagging, the sucking of toffee stopped
And we stepped back off the pavement
Like watching a funeral cortege
Or a condemned man in hand-cuffs
We instinctively recoiled in primitive fear
From this alien spectacle
A pint-sized parade - from Auschwitz
The Home Babies, on their way to school
Two by two, pale face snotty noses
Little kids, their scabby heads shorn
No socks, no smiles, no chatter
The only sound scraping and clattering
Them ould hand-me-down boots clattering
Ill-fitting untied boots clattering down
The boots all clattering down
Uniform shapeless clothes
Some kind of dark petticoats
Sickly browny yellowy green sheen off of them
Holding hands and walking briskly
Looking straight ahead
They passed down
Raggedy all raggedy raggedy
Raggedy here they come
We resumed our boyhood as if nothing had happened.