They might look like big cats from way up here,
Kings of the jungle, the lords of all they survey,
a roar so loud that it can be heard across five miles of open
scrubland and all who perch by the dwindling pool,
sucking up
precious water, live in fear of the noise that travels far
and in terror of what lurks beneath the stillness.
They are not Kings, lords, unless of misrule,
they are though beasts, savage and bloodthirsty
cock-sure and baying for the blood of an innocent,
I have in my family tree
only one person in five hundred years
who was born in Ireland, technically that makes me one
in five hundred and twelfth of the Emerald Isle.
Even then it was by default as he was born at his mother’s insistence
as she could no longer hold on to the pull of the umbilical cord
and would kill any man
with a face of black thunder who tried
to stop her getting rid
of her impetuous fairy like Cornish-Scottish hybrid load
and to history, who knows,
The empty buildings that surround the concrete, hole encrusted
patch of ground, reflect thought of just how poor
the area has become.
The first great depression of the twenty-first century
claims all in this northern town by the Mersey
and the Sunday car boot sale, a few stalls and a van with steaming
piles of bacon, has become the highlight of the week for many.
It is the chance to meet up and sell the remains of a home,
a fractured mess in which no-one talks of
Would I dare believe they would contemplate
this cul de sac once more?
That I would be looking over my shoulder and listening on edge
for the sound of an alarm
and fear the general panic
of a population gripped in ice stone terror
and wondering just who
they would protect and survive.
Of course the idea the propagated
of hiding under doors is absurd,
it was only a practical way of burying the dead
and now they want us to learn D.I.Y. again
If he is not yet dead
then perhaps he might be better off being so,
for the passage of time ticks slowly in his direction.
Comforting words as the fate of his future is decided
in crumbling office blocks and in the same dusty relics
of men who plot and call coup
in a world of insane potential
and irrational market forces deliverance.
These same market forces that made him God,
now turn and bite their master of illusion
hard and nip, drawing blood, it dribbles waywardly
If it helps you classify me, then by all means tie
an armband with a yellow star around my biceps
and shoot me down with a ravenous bully boy glee upon
your myopic thousand yard stare, which in reality matches the
colour of your eyes as they glaze over as I answer your questions
as I think of the day when I will forgive you.
It will burn you alive and if it helps in your suffering,
I shall wear armbands all the way down my naked torso
There’s cloud everywhere
It clings to everything
Like chewing gum in your hair
Or glue upon your skin
There’s cloud everywhere
And it gets in everything
Like advertisements in your dreams
Or sand inside machines
Chemical war has been declared
But none of us are aware
Because the chemicals that fill the air
Are slowly destroying our minds
So I spent some time destroying
Some things I had created
I don’t know if I felt better
But I guess I felt different
I introduced the young twenty something to myself at seventeen
and for good measure, them both to me at thirty.
At forty-four I sat back and watched them try to make
small talk, idle chit chat, but not the hint of interrogation
that should be imagined when stuck in a room with your future at sixty,
pompous, arrogant, full of fear and trepidation,
and your ten year old self, who acts pretty much the same.
The glaring glances and accusing stares from the seventeen year old
The Cuckoo sings as bright as any bird
and its forest chattering drawl
draws many mouths to smile
as the long awaited Spring peeks its head
from around Winter’s closely gathered shawl.
The odious nature of its parenting skills make the Cockroach
shiver with nerves pumping prehistoric blood
and alien indestructibility. It shakes its scale like protrusion
and it sniffs loudly and the Cuckoo hears from above the trees
soaring in search of a sucker to warm its eggs.
The marble eggs carefully laid by the sparrow, destroyed, turned over, damaged
I have never been a dedicated follower of fashion,
the committed hunter of trends or the seeker of the inner circle.
I couldn’t care less for style unless it’s of my own making
and the latest thing, the craze of Dutch Tulip, just passes me by.
I love my team but won’t buy into the ethos that sits there now,
I loved them when were so bad we were great and being against type
When others around me supported the local three teams,
and then later the likes of the team from Salford, Arsenal or the beautiful