TOLCHOK 79

TOLCHOK 79

got clockworked by a plod
me and my droogs we did

basically copped us
soon as we tumbled out
to play
ball in the street
just round the corner
from the Maine Road stadium

and he
ruffled our feathers, may.have
been a fat fuck
but was
really
up for it

and there we were
just out for fun
have a bil of
a kickabout
(nothing too
revolutionary)

thought
      being close to
an old bomb site, would
not be
worrying
nobody

the sky sky blue
but three of us reds
and the fourth
of us
for Arsenal

good
   that he

want to protect
this neighborhood from us
but
   we all in the shadow,
of the SS-20s

and him
desperate to take us down
cart us off
down to the station
in his tiny car

but we
      gave him the look
and a
few choice words

spelling out how that
would not
have been

a good
idea

this on the eve
of the Thatcher election
about
   to kill

that Britain of old, finally,
definitively

once
and for all

got clockworked by a plod
we did
   came so close
to a brutal tolchokking
purely
    in self-defence Your
Honour
(that Peterloo mindset
hard
   to forget)

as you sow
so shall you reap
(maxim valid
for the police and
State
      dystopia displacing
all hope of
dreamscape)

only
   wanted to
play football, national sport,
favourite pastime,
that bottle
    in blue, par
for the course
misreading wholesale,
P.O.V. skewed
completely

thought
    we were going Alex
Delarge

about to turn punk
proletarian evil

in this city
     where Marx and
Engels

saw
    the machinery of
power and profit
in what
they saw.


COFFEE WITH PERCY

COFFEE WITH PERCY

Percy B
grabbing a coffee
with me
precious few moments
in that exalted,
dangerous company

both of agreeing, of one mind,
deeply disturbed that
V for Vendetta
now looks so prescient,
has aged so well

man of Ozymandias
and the Peterloo cavalry charge

sharing my
conviction that
massacre be
the fascist sublime

poem
     being my poor
little despised counterweight,
heresy of choice
     

CHILD’S PLAY

CHILD’S PLAY

like a child:
but did not mean
infantile

did not mean
psychotic

did not mean
projectile vomit
all over that globe spinning
in the living room

did not mean
    you blood-painting
yourself
into a corner

all the while selling us
your  story that you
are
    responding to
Tik Tok and text message

direct
   from above

BEYOND (YOUR) EMBRACE

BEYOND (YOUR) EMBRACE no melding tonite your mind closing like an anxious wound infection, infiltration, metaphors of sickness seep still into the body politic have done so, I am afraid, since the beginning of time but the risk, you tell me, the danger sheer danger of reaching out whatever the payoff, whatever heaven in that yield risk run (you calculate) is catastrophic better to err on the side of hate

GHOST STORY

GHOST STORY

a perfect storm

winds from the East
winds from the South
converge

tearing through the streets
making a nonsense of your hopes
of a full
Mediterranean side-
walk café life

sipping a latte, sitting in the Sun
reading Proust or Sartre

nothing in those books
talk about
how the ghosts, the sins,
have caught
up
with you
(at least none
that you do read
none that you can see)

MAMBA METAPHOR

MAMBA METAPHOR

you called me
animal

   thought to
myself “that’s
a metaphor”

think I must be
an animal there just
to be stamped on
crushed, einsatzed and
gas chambered

and it is there in the script
in your vision of, and
for reality

         what you see
                      must become,
must be
even if you have to
slaughter all the children
animal children
of the rest of humanity
                     animal humanity

but my pen
       is black inked and
silver grey on the outside

its nib
     poised like a fang

ergo
    this poem, writhing and
striking
         exacting an absolute
price
from being
forced into this corner,
put in this posture
    
is a black mamba
it is my
      totem for the day
       my creature of choice

******

you called me
animal

   thought to
myself “that’s
a metaphor”

throwing linguistic
Phosphorous  in
your general direction

sticking you
     with enough drops of
neurotoxin
to kill half
         your army

I see
     you still have issues, your
anger rising

                      anger born of fear
fear clinging to
survival

that evolution is about, all about
about only
              the crushing of the weak
the triumph of the strong

so
    whilst you still can
whilst the venom is with
horrible curiosity
feeding
                    into your system
pressing
        every wrong button

throwing every wrong switch
disabling every
            vital lever

finding out
            what makes you tick
then smashing the clock

whilst we wait just a few minutes
for the demonic chemistry to work
      behind this deconstructive
procedure

just
     pass the torch on
you
     will no longer
carry

slide into prayer and
plea for vengeance from
   
                 your slick
wooden god

*****

you called me
animal

   thought to
myself “that’s
a metaphor”

       sometimes they
are wild, unpredictable

                       can cross
into reality

this in
          their nature to
follow their shadow, unleash
the dark program

remain dangerously true
to both
          species and brand

ULTIMATE ULTIMATION

ULTIMATE ULTIMATION

here they are
you raw meat
paid for
attack dogs

here
at the tribunal
to lay down
the law
ram down
our throats
your ultimate ultimation

not for the truth
not for humanity
but for the lobby, desperate
for survival, desperate
for salvation

shame your
weapon of mass coercion

you should yourselves
be ashamed of

if you had
an ounce of subtlety
of integrity, a gram