AERONAUTICA

AERONAUTICA

The air is full
of living languages
I don’t understand.

In the shapes of things
as they appear today

mutant evolution, the end
results of lingering
chaos causalities
(nearly wrote
casualties)

as if
   those butterflies in China
have grown dragon, perhaps
pterodactyl wings

and me trying on my old
battered Stetson hat of
Joe Cool casual cowboy

alone at my post, SS Totenkopf
or Das Reich division about
tiger tank over me
panzer
   right through me

will be my karma
a relief of sorts

the air
    full of sounds by no means
all of them Indo-European

my book
    of many colours closing;
enjoy your schadenfreude

SO MUCH

SO MUCH

So much regret in this poem
I know, Oh yes I know,
every year
I see you more clearly
remember things about
you I assumed I could
and could forget.

Until
   there is no more clearly
there is an
end to clarity

as far
as I am concerned

you always had so much clarity,
I hoped it was, back then
and still today,
this last day

clarity enough
for the both of us.

So much regret in this poem,
I knew I was going to regret
the pain of writing it.

WEEK TODAY FOR THAT

WEEK TODAY FOR THAT

today
Bysse Shelley
wrapping chips, and
of course fish

on the flatscreen
of the shop
ultimate evil of
Trump and Man City

meanwhile Milton
is frontman for
a death metal band
singing about
good versus
evil and
   how good somehow
managed to take
evil to
   extra time and
penalties and
nevertheless
lost

but Rimbaud, precious Arthur,
where would we be without you
constant as
the most constant
thing in
Shakespeare

still running guns, no
change here, alleluia for that

CORACLE

CORACLE

am out on a coracle
in the Umgeni

being videoed for
some arts project, now
here on a sandbank reading
my poetry

maybe some water molecules
in that river
   mathematically certain
to have flowed in that
small river
   flowed past my house
as a child
Southwest gathering its
strength out
into the
     Irish sea

and the music
backwash of that river there in all
those albums I
bought or
   my parents bought
for me

changing
      all inner landscapes, altering
the mindset

out into deep space grooved
into Witwatersrand gold

there to speak for
you
   speak for me

every arresting chord change, lyric that
    could not help itself from
imprinting everywhere,
everybody,
    every single thing

me in my coracle you in
your
     sudden technicolor sky
with diamonds
yellow submarine

TOLCHOK 79

TOLCHOK 79

got clockworked by a plod
me and my droogs we did

basically copped us
soon as we tumbled out
to play
ball in the street
just round the corner
from the Maine Road stadium

and he
ruffled our feathers, may.have
been a fat fuck
but was
really
up for it

and there we were
just out for fun
have a bil of
a kickabout
(nothing too
revolutionary)

thought
      being close to
an old bomb site, would
not be
worrying
nobody

the sky sky blue
but three of us reds
and the fourth
of us
for Arsenal

good
   that he

want to protect
this neighborhood from us
but
   we all in the shadow,
of the SS-20s

and him
desperate to take us down
cart us off
down to the station
in his tiny car

but we
      gave him the look
and a
few choice words

spelling out how that
would not
have been

a good
idea

this on the eve
of the Thatcher election
about
   to kill

that Britain of old, finally,
definitively

once
and for all

got clockworked by a plod
we did
   came so close
to a brutal tolchokking
purely
    in self-defence Your
Honour
(that Peterloo mindset
hard
   to forget)

as you sow
so shall you reap
(maxim valid
for the police and
State
      dystopia displacing
all hope of
dreamscape)

only
   wanted to
play football, national sport,
favourite pastime,
that bottle
    in blue, par
for the course
misreading wholesale,
P.O.V. skewed
completely

thought
    we were going Alex
Delarge

about to turn punk
proletarian evil

in this city
     where Marx and
Engels

saw
    the machinery of
power and profit
in what
they saw.


CITIZEN,

CITIZEN

I came across
Diogenes the philosopher
in the centre of Manchester

tight in
his barrel he sat, observing
everything,
cynically appraising
the escalation of vitriol
between the
cause of
the blue frauds versus
the red cartel as (to his
mind) it
grew ever nearer
to outright
civil
war

amused by the diatribes
and the impending
demise
    of football

nevertheless did not
wish
    to upset me by
further reminding

how much
he had
      taught me about
money and power

run
   away corruption

the curse
     of our
species

killing all
we love dear

I came across the philosopher
Diogenes
          paragon of wisdom

the Manchester Metropolitans
not yet
    got their
act together in
      moving him on.
   
   

THE AGUERO GOAL

THE AGUERO GOAL

The champagne was
almost in my mouth

when
you phoned to tell me
about the Aguero goal

four minutes into
time added on
that last
match of
the season

and me cursing and spluttering
we should have brought
that man
    brought that man

and now there is
a statue to him, and
now
   they have won everything

fairly or (yes)
very unfairly

they can whiteout
that moment in the books,
redact
     every painful
final second

but
burnt so
deep

try
as I might,
I will never forget

FREE TRADE HALL

FREE TRADE HALL

Still searching for the girl
with the kaleidoscope eyes.

Haven’t
scored for decades so I am
sure you are going
to assure me
there isn’t
much hope

and yet
I have faithfully followed
this river
running past my house
some serious miles
South West through
the cheese county
of Cheshire into
the heart of Manchester

before it
     flows past all the fab tour’s
houses to
empty itself in
the Irish Sea

and me
     my brain shaped
by their songs, as was
everybody’s

their ruffian rivals from
down South
    exercising their
undue
influence on
everything below

but here
I am now
     abject, forlorn
yet
   determinedly waiting

counting my blessings
soon to
     be feasting my soul

on theatre in
the round

or whatever
      be the delights in
the Free Trade Hall.