Police baton raised in Barcelona streets
and a point raised
is shouted down in Madrid
with force, with a flowering
of violence,
a crashing down
on someone’s head,
falling down,
falling down,
Spain’s soul
is in an unhappy state,
the homage to Catalonia
is lost in time,
falling down,
raised tempers, words of disrespect,
falling down, down
as anger flares and firemen and police clash,
how long before the baton becomes the gun
becomes the wood becomes the bullet
fired in the air, into
Hillp, Jelli,
(bother)
Hello nate, mate,
Blinet, blimey, that’s geeat mews,
Nole, nipe, nope not seem your sitter around
recently, fidnt, didn’t knoe sheep was
going back to yni, I hope sheep
gets the reslut sheep deserbed, sheep
wad always a geeat, ham worlet, waker,
warker, worker.
Whem do yiu get jome from prosin,
P]risim, prisoin, (damn) when are yiu released?
Anyway, fat thumbs at the reast, teadt, ready, herr,
Don’t crew up your remaning dates, days,
wouldn’t want you blowing
your feesdom, freedsam, freedon, freedom,
The Lord of the Onion Rings
Master of the Hula Hoops
Cheesy crunchy Monster Munch
I am the Lord of the Onion Rings
Giant bag of Krips Crisps to crunch
Addicted to Cheese Cheddars
And original Ritz crackers
just can’t stop eating them!
The Tubular crisps
will clog my arteries
and place on the Porcelain
Kingdom of thrones
The Lord of the onion rings
will be on unexpected journey
to Bogtroll land once more!
John F. Hall
The night you were in town,
I could not get to see you,
was that planned,
was it just the latest
in a long line of inside
out misunderstandings,
that if I bumped into you,
if I should set my eyes
on your supposed beauty,
would I just crumble
into dust
or would I rise like a tiger
in the cage, mad, bad and dangerous
to approach trapped and with my own eyes
blazing, burning bright.
The night you came to town,
The Christmas seasonal jumper,
knitted who knows where,
on sale, colourful,
advertised on line,
a few happy smiling faces
no doubt, a few jokes
and dig in the rib expense
as photographs are shared
in the immediate world,
secretly hoping to make it big
as a meme;
a Christmas jumper,
be it still September,
and sharing space
with the devastation
and ruin that has torn
Puerto Rico apart.
But it is O.K., Christmas is here
always early.
How long since you were on the map for anything,
small hamlet off Dogpool Lane,
squeezed between Stirchley, Selly Oak
Edgbaston, Moseley, and the Bourneville dark,
it is hoped
that W.H Auden drifted and mused along
the once leafy roads as he conjured
a rhyme of two along the Pershore Road
or dreamt of ducks at the top
end of the old potato fields
where children would force the Rae
to go round a makeshift dam.
Chinese Burn in make shift
Playground and the illegally drunk
Men in white coats, Scientists of the mind
Coming to take me away
to be fully institutionalised
I’ll have my own padded cell
and Savile Row straightjacket
liquid cosh to keep me Quiet
They will arrive in a non descript
Laundry van to disguise their activities
hidden in plain sight, denial plausibility
extremely clandestine covert plan
The Men from U.C.L.A.!
John F. Hall 2017
I know it is in the mind,
these long dragged out
moments of disrepair, of broken
down machine inside fragile skin,
but that doesn’t help,
for those thoughts
of neglect, of bottomless
Universal humour
are always willing and able
to give me the broken eye socket,
the bleeding eye and bruises;
I know that, but still
the blows keep coming.
Ian D. Hall 2017
It is a cold harsh place,
this Warwickshire town,
not one for me,
placed there
undeservedly,
once, cycling there for work
and feeling the chill, placed there
again and the frosty atmosphere
afforded this poor son
of Birmingham;
I don’t know how Lady Godiva
kept her private life
warm.
Ian D. Hall 2017
I bought a ticket
to go home
for the funeral,
it rained for a while
as I chose times and the ease
of passing
over one or two station stops.
Your mum was important to you,
I would have changed
at every station
if it helped at all.
Ian D. Hall 2017