AT LEAST
you tried
to write
a poem
but your
fat pen
slipped
sloshed
all over
the page
and me
when i
popped
in to
the poem
to have
a read
found
you drowning
in a torrent
of ink
and being
the saintly
figure that i am
leapt in
feet first
making
every effort
to save you
sadly, we
were not
entirely
successful
lost you
but managed
to salvage
fix your poem
some of it
at least
PAR
par for the course
par for the curse
mute the Wasteland
savage reduction of
noise
stanza
by
stanza
you feel it in your bones
tremors under the skin
your tectonic
plates shifting
specialists mailing in
their verdict
you on the verge
of breakdown
hanging by a thread
golden, astral silver
or maybe just
Manchester cotton
an industry booming
blackening the sky with it
suddenly
in the wash there
is blood
much red blood
humanity split, a house divided
par
for the course
echoes, allusions, vertigo
in the poetic factory,
foundational mythologies,
whatever
it takes to finesse vers libre
rich resources to be mined
be inevitably exhausted
see there
what scripture remembers
we should know,
it needs to
tell us
a door opening, first
thought springing
to mind
must be of awakening
so much out there
the picture freezing
in anticipation
of expected regret,
customary hesitation
step
by guarded step
par for the course
,
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)
BOGUS
so this skinny old
withered guy
splurted out that the skiers
who called into question
the current state
of American
should be unceremoniously
stripped of their
national ski uniforms
which
gets me, thinking
if this geezer is
so passionate about this
he should
travel to Milan
strip the offending
skiers himself
presuming
obviously that
he survive
the cold
manages to
not drown
in the snow
such fake, bogus contrived passion
stuck in a glacier
not going to melt anything
poor, skinny, old
withered man
older, more skinny, more
withered,
infinitely
more bogus,
than i am myself
SIR JIM
for a moment
when Sir Jim
came in
to fix us
we deluded ourselves
it would be
Camelot
but turned out
much more
managed by
Mordred and Morgana
than reborn
Manchester United
still
a key player short
and no free
bananas
no free lunches ever
as we stop-start climb
above fifteenth
we never expected you
Sir Jim to be
thin and sparse and
tin
man kind
of hollowed out
supposed
to unite us all
but here you
are breaking apart, fragmenting
a team of squares and
round holes
bits and pieces
no football logic, common
sense
so must be
profit in it
primarily, exclusively,
in
everything we do
SWITCHED ON
Switched on the TV
but it was the emergency
channel
sirens blaring
where I thought
Tony Soprano
would be
outside the sky
looked ordinary,
nothing special,
dull blue,
straggles of cloud
not the wondrously
horrific spectacle
I was convinced
our last ever sky
damn well ought to be.
THREE BOOKS
there are three books
any of the three will
provide you with a basis
for understanding everything
even though
they are so different
don’t say
the same things
at all
there are two books
(three minus
one
is two)
either of them will
provide you with a basis
for understanding everything
even though
they are so different
don’t say
the same things
at all
there is one book
(two minus one
is one)
even though
it is
so different
it will provide you
with the basis
for understanding everything
even though it doesn’t
say the same things at all
even if
no books
may just be better
than one
THREE BOOKS
there are three books
any of the three will
provide you with a basis
for understanding everything
even though
they are so different
don’t say
the same things
at all
there are two books
either of them will
provide you with a basis
for understanding everything
even though
they are so different
don’t say
the same things
at all
there is one book
even though
it is
so different
it will provide you
with the basis
for understanding everything
even though it doesn’t
say the same things at all
NOSEDIVE
we nosedived
fell on it
like predators
as soon
as we heard natural
selection, survival
of the fittest,
categorized ourselves
into different classes,
different species
and subsecies
predators and
prey
highest to the low
THE TEXT OF YOUR TEXT
you texted me to tell me
that i must be delusional
not to believe democracy
is doomed, on its
last legs
all that talk of
by and for the people
already well on
its way to becoming
laughably quaint
but
not so quaint or genteel
the armoured personnel
carriers full to the brim
with paramilitaries
screetching to a halt
pistols, automatic
rifles at
the ready
primed to debate
the finer points of political philosophy
poems 2 die for