Tag Archives: poem

STICK

STICK

stick to football Gary
and

over and above that
stick to your job
        (not down
the left
wing but
        finisher in
the middle) 

stop
    sticking it to
all those true
Britons, guardians
of the long
ball game

who never won
a sweaty sock or
dinged
    shin pad

no thought
of golden boots and
golden goals

won
against Beckenbauer’s
band, Maradona’s
mob
    serious rivals, experts
in dishing out
national
    humiliation

nor
are they ever
likely to, spending their
careers on the pitch
like demented ducks
lacking
    all
        sense of the game, worse
than headless
chickens

scoring goal after goal
after crazy own goal

from
every outrageous angle
and somehow
always what
is contrived to be

a totally illogical
offside position

WAS

WAS

was lecturing
on the logic
of poetry

when you
threw

a flower at
               me

lucky you sit
in the back
of the class

for if it had
reached me
if you
    had spiralled
it like
Tom Brady

might have
    bruised my
soul
     quite beautifully

AT APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE

AT APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE

proceedings were held up
because the burgers and cokes
had not arrived

then they
        stopped shirts, swopped swords

slavery remained the elephant in the room

it was either kiss and makeup
or unconditional surrender

Arnold Schwartzenegger was playing General Grant
the Rock (naturally)
was playing the ghost of Stonewall Jackson
Charlie Sheen
was totally miscast as Robert E Lee

he rolled ten singles in succession
and so Vicksburg fell
and Pickett’s charge was defeated

unfortunately this doesn’t mean shit
because the Japs and the Krauts
invaded on alternate history Netflix

they promised to
have a comnerative reunion meeting
when the time felt right

slavery remained the elephant in the room

(a room
      nobody bothered to, didn’t
even think to clean)

FROM THE SOUTH

FROM THE SOUTH

South gives you an
wrong-way-up perspective

right way up
as we
see it
    though

blood rushing
    to your head, helps
you think better

in the Tarot
      nobody clearer
in thought

more clued up
on the road to redemption, than
eye to the sky hanged
upside
      down man

and so
    I spoke to this soul
looking for liberation
and he
      told me what to
tell you

which I
do relay here:

          you are not
              free from
and will
never
be
    free from discrimination
(by the
sharpest of logical
definitions)

if you
do not
    free yourself from
the Liberty
to discriminate against.

NOTTOKNOW

NOTOKNOW

crash the cymbals
bang the gongs
trumpet the
chosen

for they
are multitude

you are
so holy
you are
so handy

are so
holy handy

you have crucified
more souls this month
than in its entire
history

   did the
little city of Rome

have slaughtered
so many
   seems you
were you
to go Genghis

given permission
from
    up high

and dig a hole
    big enough to bury
all of us

while we all shout “hosanna”
and raise nailed
         fists to the sky

SOFTLY

SOFTLY
(for Emily
Maitlis)

speak softly
when talking
truth to
power

walk
circuitously
and carry a small
yet not
too insignificant stick

above all
addressing
the voice that
        must
never
be addressed

don’t go for it
call
    sign
    Maverick
like a
shrieking naval jet
on a strafing run

however much
after-action satisfaction
however
      much top dollar

sheer
        redemptive fun

ROSE?

ROSE?

is that
a rose

or is it
a bullet hole?

red rose
red rose

so many of them
slaughtered in the snow
days of
    York and
Lancaster

tried to stitch those
wounds together

but blood still leaking
through that tapestry

carnage
    somehow still
in your
    poetry

freeze
    framed you thought
for all
of history

not forever displaced
from theme to theme

SHORTCUT

SHORTCUT

taking a shortcut
across the river
to the recruiting office

need to get there
before the apocalypse and
before closing time

running across the river
and through the rainforest
where
     I can die next
to the bombed-out Church
like Sergeant Elias

defending freedom and
Democracy, for
the salvation of humanity
need
    to put my
    life on the line

before
closing time

     cpuld have been dropped
by a purple haze bird with
voice
    of  a mini-gun

but my feet just
     brushed the surface and
much to my My Lai rapture
I had
   reached ths other side

about to enlist staightout
but they needed
   to first test
         my morality

wanted no Sergeant Pepper
dreamer imagining
        peace upon
the
world
    community in our time

all you needing

           number nine

and me
      heading for the station
but it closing
                vanishing from
                               me

like the thing just apocryphal
thing
  a complete mirage

and me
     passing cross after
cross and
pyre
      after pyre

no doubt in my mind
this the last battle, the finsl war

in the midst of fire and
death and blood

     something feels reborn