THE BEAUTIFUL GAME
You can piss
and crap
on the beautiful
game
trying to persuade
us you
are making
it more beautiful
that you are
pissing gold
and silver
and that your shit
is encrusted
with diamonds, and
every other kind
of precious
and semi-precious stone.
HITLER IN MANCHESTER
Hard to believe it
but Hitler is not in Manchester today
neither visiting the museums
nor watching the Manchester Derby.
He is in fact in Blackpool
recovering from the latest
amongst the host
of victory parades.
Tonight he will,
with few choice SS guards,
find himself
strolling the promenade
taking in the lights
thence
up the top of the tower
surveying the Irish sea.
The town
conscious it cannot
compete with Paris, but
is determined
to show its best face.
Seems he heard about Blackpool,
the Las Vegas of Lancashire
whilst munching on
his strudel whilst still
a young, maladjusted boy,
but now
the propaganda ministry
finds itself with
far too many
photo opportunities
that it knows
what to do with
but did get
an endearing clip shot
by Ms Riefenstahl
of the Fuhrer barefoot
testing the sand with
his toes,
paddling, sticking
his feet in the
freezing sea (impudent
frothy ripples washing
right over them)
smiling,
not just for the publicity,
but out of a growing inkling
that the conquered English
(or should he
say “British”) are
at last
beginning to warm to him
an encouraging sign, this
melting of hostility, he
tells himself
tiny wooden spoon
trying to dig out the last
morsel from
the bottom of the
tiny tub
of truly delicious, blackcurrant and vanilla Italian ice-cream.
SAUCE CODE
Zappa, in my ears
can taste
the satire
in my mouth
(heavenly,
demonic
like a celeste with fuzz
and wah-wah pedal)
something really salty, pillar
of salt
salt of the Earth
except
(thought to savour)
and discovering your capacity
to escape
cistern, be
fountain
be of February
the fixed Gannymede
easy to
throw my lot in
with you on
this issue
designate you
a truly credible source
unless when
you spoke I did happen,
to be Frank, to
mishear you
therefore when you said “source”
could have sworn you said “sauce”.
HOME
Thank you
members of Congress
for helping us achieve
what you were
voted in for
what we all so much
wanted to see
you have done your duty
helped us create the great
America we hitherto
could only dream of
a state so
safe and secure, which
could not be more decisive,
powerful protected
we cherish your devotion
without you we would
have been
unable to
achieve this
an armoured convoy
of militarized police
will do the honour
of escorting you home.
OR CONVERSELY, IF HOMER HAD
WRITTEN DONALD TRUMP
Sorry to say,
your text, though
possibly exceeding all
expectations
could not ascend to
the the whiter than reality
of driven snow
let him
be insufferable, insist
on correction, extractions
with a sharpie
(thing he wields as if
Achilles’ great spear)
meanwhile the critics
seem majorly underwhelmed
by what
the script has
shown them
believe Aesop, Aristophanes
might have contrived
a more believable plot.
meanwhile the great sagas
of your contributions
at Troy
are filtering through,
crossing the seas
to spite
Poseidon
of your
great fraternal connection
and military alliance
with the Cyclops
Polyphemus
your insistence
that the horse of infiltration
be
aircraft-
carriet large
already whispers of
these epic
achievements
reaching
the ears of young Penelope
(in our
rendition old
enough to
be your daughter)
every day
down
at the harbour
here in Ithaca
dreaming of, longing for,
dreading
your return
making her sacrifices
to Aphrodite
has a (had to have a)
secret life she daren’t (under
any circumstances)
tell you about.
SNAKE
Snake
knew he
had been duped
for what was, is,
Lucifer but
the template and
prototype
for your
common as muck
standard garden variety
cheating, lying politician
now, as then,
we desperately love
and cannot get enough of
so he
turned as he was
leaving, before
finally squiggling away
addressed
the fallen pair
even as their
joy was
set to
morph
into devastation
telling them
hope would remain
as long
as they swore
upon their now very
mortal lives to
never
get the poetry
wrong
which
if we had the capacity
to understand, were
on same deep
intellectual
level
might have
softened the nightmare
forever
right there
and then.
TOLCHOK 79
got clockworked by a plod
me and my droogs we did
just for
kicking a ball around
next to an old bomb site
around the corner
from
Maine Road
behind which, in the distance,
the brutalist concrete Sauron towers
of Moss Side
speak gloomily, epitomize every
class-driven mistake in social planning
(and now
we know for a contested fact
how easy these
vulgar monoliths have
the capacity
to burn)
and all of us
United fans
the five of us
living in
a tiny
terraced house
under the shadow
of the floodlights
just a stone’s throw
so we were
playing
celebrating
(me getting my Masters
droogs passing
their exams)
but then he arrived, breath of
freezing air,
stripped that street of all its
June sun warmth
instantly
shunting us once, twice, off
the street,
threatening with (absurd as it sounds)
jamming the four of us into
his tiny British Leyland plod vehicle
taking us down
to the cop shop, Star
Chamber, Guantanamo, Devil’s
Island
to a place beyond the stars, or down
in the basement cold storage locker
of the Overlook Hotel
face
pudgy, near featureless,
harbinger of whatever V of Vendetta
police state future
Thatcher revolution
waiting in the wings (waiting for
the killer pass
out on
the outside right
position)
back to the
future, no hope
of world cup revisiting
so
fat blue referee in
car far too
small for him
bundling himself out
shoving himself
up in our
faces
one fat dude with
thge power of State over
life and death
and yet
could see from his face
one step too far
knew
all on his own
this side of nowhere
tactically clueless
no cavalry
to call in
rush, a la, Big Horn,
a la Peterloo, Starmer Met-style
to his rescue
having
pushed his luck
exceeded his mandate,
torn the heart out of our moment,
killed our day
no more
intricate dribbling,
magical ball wizardry
for us to
attempt
imagine we
had mastery
just the trudge back home
chance for the
justice
of a people’s tolchok
gone
out of touch
fallen by the wayside
risked the red card
crazy courage
found wanting
guess like it is
for
everybody here
then
and now
closer by the day
the Britain I was born into
to fate of dystopian state
determined, as of old,
to close down everything, close
down spaces,
no space
to play, no
place to be free
got to
take to insane conclusion
the logic of enclosure
no space to write, no
space to be
and me
picked out from the gang of us
on account of my twangy
hybrid Mancunian
Souf Effrikan accent
marked for
interrogation, on
the spot cross question
explaining to him
who I am
what I am doing here
dissertation on satire, learning
my trade at the heart
of his fiefdom
bit by
bit
becoming
street smart about
finding a
special acumen,
learning the lethality
of every potential linguistic weapon
getting the
distinct hang of
how to dismantle everything
got
clockworked by the plod
once upon a time
me and my droogs
we did
TOLCHOK
got clockworked by a plod
me and my droogs we did
next to Maine Road
for playing street football
alongside a football ground
(none of us
even a
City supporter)
and pushed around by
the law severely human right
violated
and seriously affronted
aforementioned street
being empty
the thought
did cross our minds of
doing him in
(burying that fat
navy blue body beneath
the Kippax Stand)
and all of us
at Manchester Uni
me for
me Ph D
working on Swift’s excoriating
satire
most violent stuff
confined
to print
tolchock called down
on mostly everything
got
clockworked
but no orange
that
C-charged
most creative of
colours
Eden-juicy
most sustaining of fruits
LET THE SATIRISTS
Let the satirists arm themselves
with.357 magnums
and Khorammshahr missiles
using expanding hollow point
and cluster ammunition
time to
defend themselves
against gangsters
local and global
indigenous
and international
who have never
throughout all of history
taken criticism, mockery kindly
hence
the need to arm all satirists
if any exist these days.
STOP MOTION POEM
this is my
stop motion
animation poem
took thousands of shots
of the poem as it
unfolded in
the process
of writing it
stuck them all together
advancing them
frame
by frame
see how, magical it appears
ss if, before your very eyes,
the poem
is writing itself
cartoon mechanism revealing
serious
metaphysical meaning,
emotional truth
AMONGST THE EXPENDABLE
it is the small
swuidgy, rather
pathetic sins
of the poor
that outrage the gods,
elicit their contempt and fury
lead to punishment inflicted
consonant with all
you believe
in your dark theology
of a divine law supremely
vacuous in
its viciousness
not to be compared, or
mentioned in the same breath
of the immaculate sins
of great
heroes and leaders
the Greeks at Troy the.
patricians of Rome
the political elite utterly
at home
on Epstein island
whose infractions, at
first glance horrendous
are things
viewed from high
Olympus
divinity adores
confirming their trust
in these best
kinds of people
in no sense expendable
as with the lowest of the low
THE PAINT
the paint wore off
and with it a sense
of vibrant
ordinariness
and with it,
of course, the graffiti
spelling out the rich and
quite vicious
concerns of and life
in Rome
and where
the disjunctions arise
where voices
have their say, not
buying
into the myths entirely
see here, in this corner,
in the coarsest Latin imaginable
an up to date dossier
on the most
recent excapades clandestine
and extramarital
of none other than
the great
Julius Caesar himself?
IMPETATOR
and this is
the plain God’s truth
as to where
you
are now
what your history has
done to
change you
from what
you were
ending the democracy
for which
you were never
really, actuallt suited
gave
you your Imperator
so useless and stupid but
what you
were ready to
die for
finger on the button
about to
annihilate
humanity
that scum of
the Earth, beings
far less
exceptional
than you
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