IN THE HOUSE

IN THE HOUSE OF NO LESS
THAN ENGELS HIMSELF

Big and bounteous
the Chirch of Capitalism
expanded its limits
threw out its long, craggy arms
became a
Cathedral

assumed the position
assumed the latest of
its greatest shapes

and
nothing there
entirely alien,
least of all to me, whose
Norman ancestors, newly
converted, set
immediately to work
building these things
eventually
stealing
the English crown in
the one they built
in England

but
I do digress
just to point out
the songs
remain
more or less the same
we all, having learnt
them all
by heart and
then force fed them
again by media

a hundred years
of continuous advertisement
so intrusive having become
we can
barely breathe

without a priest or pastor
pope or cardinal
if not
great market
theologian
of the faith

dragging us
by hook or
crook
right up to
the altar

more to consume
than ever commune

(and me
once having lived
along Oxford Road Manchester
plumb in
the sacred house
of no less than
Engels himself)