Category Archives: 2678, satire

TOLCHOK 79

got clockworked by a plod
me and my droogs we did
 
just for
kicking a ball around
next to an old bomb site
around the corner
from
  Maine Road
 
behind which, in the distance,
the brutalist concrete Sauron towers
of Moss Side
speak gloomily, epitomize every
class-driven mistake in social planning
  (and now
we know for a contested fact
how easy these
vulgar monoliths have
the capacity
to burn)
 
 and all of us
United fans
the five of us
living in
a tiny
  terraced house
under the shadow
of the floodlights
just a stone’s throw
 
so we were
playing
celebrating
(me getting my Masters
droogs passing
their exams)
 
but then he arrived, breath of
freezing air,
  stripped that street of all its
June sun warmth
instantly
  shunting us once, twice, off
the street,
  threatening with (absurd as it sounds)
jamming the four of us into
his tiny British Leyland plod vehicle

taking us down
  to the cop shop, Star
Chamber, Guantanamo, Devil’s
Island
  to a place beyond the stars, or down
in the basement cold storage locker
of the Overlook Hotel
 
face
  pudgy, near featureless,

 harbinger of whatever V of Vendetta
police state future
  Thatcher revolution
waiting in the wings (waiting for
the killer pass
out on
  the outside right
position)
  back to the
future, no hope
of world cup revisiting
 
so
  fat blue referee in
car far too
small for him
 
bundling himself out
shoving himself
up in our
  faces
 
one fat dude with
thge power of State over
life and death
  and yet
 
could see from his face
 
one step too far
knew
 
all on his own
  this side of nowhere
tactically clueless
 
no cavalry
to call in
  rush, a la, Big Horn,
a la Peterloo, Starmer Met-style
to his rescue
 
having
pushed his luck
exceeded his mandate,
torn the heart out of our moment,
killed our day
 
no more
intricate dribbling,
magical ball wizardry
                     for us to
attempt
   imagine we
had mastery
 
just the trudge back home
  chance for the
justice
  of a people’s tolchok
 
gone
out of touch
fallen by the wayside
 
risked the red card
crazy courage
found wanting
 
guess like it is
for
everybody here
then
  and now
 
closer by the day
the Britain I was born into
to fate of dystopian state
 
  determined, as of old,
to close down everything, close
down spaces,
no space
  to play, no
place to be free
 
got to
  take to insane conclusion
the logic of enclosure
  no space to write, no
space to be
 
and me
 picked out from the gang of us
on account of my twangy
hybrid Mancunian
Souf Effrikan accent
 
marked for
interrogation, on
the spot cross question
 explaining to him

who I am
  what I am doing here
 
dissertation on satire, learning
my trade at the heart
of his fiefdom
 
bit by
bit

becoming
street smart about
finding a
special acumen,

learning the lethality
of every potential linguistic weapon
getting the
distinct hang of
how to dismantle everything
 
got
clockworked by the plod
once upon a time
me and my droogs
we did