Britain – poems 2 die for

CEMETERY ROAD

CEMETERY ROAD
“may not mean to/
but they do”

I’ve read that
this be the Larkin poem

by any metric
it’s a real shocker

give it its due
painfully spot on
must have
begun somewhere

with Adam and Eve
tragic trace elements
springing out
of the big
bang
catastrophic for
the happiness of our species
wherever they
happen to
eke
out their existence
East, West
North, South
of the Continental shelf

and so me
not yet teenage

about to be whisked, nay,
catapulted to Africa
and apartheid
South Africa
at that

far from this little British
cul-de-sac
joy there in the sweet
English place of
pastoral they
call
a pastoral

where my father dutifully
taught me how
to ride
a bicycle
along the tiny tarmac roads
that slither like
snake trails
(not
weave their way)
between the graves

not much interest in my
life this broken life

scheduled to crack somewherw
along the line
pre-
programned like watch with
Mother, heartache,
failure
sex sharp and sweet/bittersweet
vanilla, spiced, chocolate,
salted caranel
melting pot and
set
to repeat but
not quite
liks clockwork

before which
(and before
post cigarette or
thin after mints)

my father’s little dream
of upping
roots, defining
his Empire somehow not

translating

finding purchase, believers,
means of manufacture

will not
let this poem end as
dead at
point blank range
as (fuck him!)
Larkin’s does

hard to
top him for
negative inspiration

CEMETERY ROAD

cemetery road
ultimate
cul-de-
sac

for here
ages of souls
slumber
sleep

sounds of war in the distance
not too
far in
the distance

no one not
in that cemetery
can recall the
days the Nazis
brought their blitz
to Manchester
now under
the flag of St George
fascists of new kind
are fighting their way
into the city
Oxford Road and
all those universities
turned
I fear
into our British Stalingrad

oh, these ghosts,
do they see, sense
any of this
are they disturbed

on which side would
they fight
for which cause
would they fall

imagine themselves
dying once, twice,
thrice
many, many
times

since already dead
and my great war grandfather
what
would he
make of this

thing surely
beyond his comprehension

so
beyond yours
beyond mine
beyond all of
us

comrades, enemies
too divided here, now

to
share this poem
begin to talk

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).

RIGID

when British satire
became
(Oh, what’s the kerfuffle?)
self-
satire
(losing its old
job description)

and British comedy got
its priorities straight
putting its foot
right up its
mouth

when Goon and Python hilarity
cowed in the shadows
onset
of Orwell reality

the laughter of the gods
truly
deserted this place

left it to sink with
traditional flawed false graciousness
under the waves, get
swallowed by
ocean, reign of
old stuck-
up unconscious

spirit
of dead gravity much
bemoaned by Pope

in his assault on all things
vapid, and without
substance yet
weighed-
down by Dunce
rigidity

most righteous of true
rigidities such kingdom
could ever
know

AWAY

friendly fire kills
without any
bad intentions

its bullets and bombs
morally superior

but let us pause
for a moment here
for establishing shot
and then
extensive tracking

as we go for
metaphor and
superimposition

passing all those broken
riddled statues
of Mary
and the Christ

in search of a man
called Wilfred, dead now
but formerly a captain

machine-gunned within
sight of peace and an
end of the war

correction, apologies, end
of the war to end all wars

pity we are late
for he was the all-
time expert in battlefield elegy

thinking
of butchered aid workers
he would know
what to write

he would know
what words to kill the lie
sweep away
convenient narrative

a Britsh poet himself
already long-forgotten
the art of a true-blue
true-
blooded imperial culture
to sweep such things away

SOLDIERS

had a box
of toy
soldiers

all red

took them
into and lost
them in
the South African
bush

all (presumed) dead

they fought across
India, America, China,
the whole
of Africa
in Europe too

but my little men
got lost
in this bush

and their flag,
it disappeared too

CONFLATION

so much conflation
in this V For Vendetta parliament

it could well
lift off, fly away
like the Hindenburg
or the Montgolfier balloon

fly away
to a sunlit upland
nativist Britain

one science-fiction secured
against any alien threat

for how will these tentacled
monsters in their
mother ships coming
to genocide
and colonize us

in their leaky sinking
dingy boat
fleeing the anarchy
we created
wars we started

just like anyone would
(but being British, they
look hideous to us)

HOUSE RULES

there is no
poetry
about
this house

no fibre
in this room
to speak of

just so-so people
who
when the word
was elevate

when the word
was transform

were absent from school
dreaming the dreams
that children
of Empire dream

of securing power
of the ever so nicely
polite and
compliant backs

of the suffering mass
of the British people

HISTORY CHANNEL

HISTORY CHANNEL (KIND OF REMEMBER ME THAT SIEGFRIED SASSOON) watched a video on World War One who started it who finished it who went who stayed at home who came back like my Mother’s Dad big gong of a medal around his soft young neck which is just as well otherwise wouldn’t be here myself to waste your time as Siggie’s bishop himself didst poetically proclaim the ways of God being satirically strange watched a video on the channel on World War One same as the last one same people won

BLACKPOOL

BLACKPOOL
“how many holes it
takes to fill the Albert Hall”

I came to
Blackpool, Lancashire,
to be conceived
my soul already garbed
in tangerine

inland from the Irish Sea
I lived
our little river
up to something

revolution in music
to be remembered forever

there in that old, dead
slave port
swept up by voices, songs
steaming in
from a wilder West

brief Renaissance they
just had to
weed out

the fiction of Empire
in such dire need of it.

I came
to Blackpool to
get conceived

though sex, as Larkin said,
waiting for its establishment