poem, poetry, punk, 60s, 70s, Britain, neo-Nazis, Thatcher, neo-liberalism, exile, identity

RECTANGULAR

Suddenly my head
feels Oh so rectangular

the Romantic poets
of my youth

gone
for good

and that Britain whose
shores my family shunned
when I was eleven

fades into the distance:
a freshly post-
imperial strange,
sad memory

just in time
to miss out on the Stones
and the Beatles
and every dear English
Summer of Love

but did
return for
the dour seventies and
punk deconstruction
my mastering
of Manchester in
my own
inimitably cock-
eyed way

and ducking out as
Mrs T swept
herself into power

our true
English Aphrodite motor
boating in with
new neo-liberal tide

and end
of society

wonder how that went
(smells even at this distance
so distinctly
born-again Nazi

can only imagine
how torturously writhing
poor Orwell in his grave).