WEST GORTON GHOST TOWN

for RB

These streets still have names; Wenlock Way, Lloyd Walk,

Basechurch Walk, Skarratt Close. White boards; windows,

doors. Cars from Safeguarding Children over the road.

A bus stop. A fifteen storey tower block with satellite.

I wrote this on the internet: modern archaeology.

Three Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs).

Google maps; faces blurred, anonymised, a dog,

a child in a pink coat with her hand raised. One click; 

they separate like ghosts. All of them are gone.

THEY EAT HORSES, DON'T THEY?

or THE NEIGH-SAYERS
or MR. ED BURGERS
or HORSE SHIT 

for TC, SJ and JM-G

1. 

Horse meat is the culinary name for meat
cut from a horse. It is a major meat

in only a few countries, but it forms
a significant part of the culinary traditions

of others. It is slightly sweet, tender, low in fat
and high in protein. In the late Paleolithic era

wild horses formed an important source of food.
Horse meat was also eaten as part of Germanic

pagan religious ceremonies in northern Europe
particularly associated with the worship of Odin

2.

France dates its taste for horse meat
to the Revolution. Just as hairdressers and tailors

set themselves up to serve commoners, the horses
maintained by aristocracy as a sign of prestige

ended up alleviating the hunger of the lower classes.
It was during the Napoleonic campaigns

when the surgeon-in-chief of Napoleon's grand army,
Dominique-Jean Larrey, served horse as a soup.

In Aspern–Essling, cut from the supply lines,
the cavalry used the horses' breastplates  

as cooking pots and gunpowder as seasoning.
In 1866 the French government legalised horse meat.

3.

It is a taboo in some English speaking countries.
It is a taboo amongst the Romani people and in Brazil.

Horse meat is not generally eaten in Spain (except in the North)
Horse meat is forbidden by Jewish dietary laws.

In the past horse meat has been eaten by Persians, Turks, Hanafi and Tartars,
but it has never been eaten in the Maghreb.

Popes Gregory III and Zachary instructed Saint Boniface
to forbid the eating of horsemeat to those he converted.

Despite the Anglophone taboo, horse meat was eaten in Britain,
especially in Yorkshire, until the 1930's and in times of post-war shortage.

4.

Beef (63%), Onion (10%), 
Wheat Flour, Water, Beef Fat,
Soya Protein Isolate, Salt,
Onion Powder, Yeast, Sugar, Barley Malt Extract,
Garlic Powder, White Pepper Extract,
Celery Extract, Onion Extract. Horse.

TASTING NOTES

CHABLIS 2009

Fresh and pure, this vibrant
Chablis has aromas of green
apples and blanched nuts,

with a taut yet softly rounded
mouthfeel. Such a refined, 
food-friendly style is typical

of this northern French
wine region, famous for its
fresh climate and limestone

clay soils. The Union
des Viticulteurs de Chablis
is a respected producer

from the region and winemaker
Bertrand Cherel has produced
an outstanding wine from 

the local Chardonnay vines 
in a highly rated vintage.
Enjoy it with a platter

of fresh seafood or cod
in beurre blanc sauce.

SOME THINGS I HAD, NEVER KNEW, NEVER HAD

for J M-G

I gave him the best ten years I'd ever have
in me. Thought he'd be gone in five,
but he kept at it like a metronome.
The headboard knocking on the guest room wall
told no lie. Every night he'd slither in
beside me. A butterknife of cold skin
and a papery skeleton that still hungered.
He never stopped with that, right up
to the last like a lovesick teen.
Mostly I'd lie patient as a corpse. I never
told him I loved him. I never loved him
more than money. I lived a decade
just to feel it. So, if you think my story's crass,
imagine yourself, ten year worth of nights
counting the colours in the ceiling pattern
on your back, imagining things you never knew
you'd had. Tell me, could you imagine that?

THE LONG ROAD TO KENTUCKY

for GR

It was a long road back to Kentucky
and I did not know the landscape,
if it was all scuffed, mud-frost fields
with the occasional white clapboard church
or if it was oil towns. I do not know the States,
by capital and flag. Some gasoline was drumming
round the trunk and I was filled with hatred.
I'd heard the Bible belt was tight here,
heard that blacks and fags still swung from rope.
I tuned the radio to catch the sermons
between the static. This was Leviticus
and I was nervous. There is no religion.
The sunlight is wide and unforgiving,
no shadows, no soul that hides, no man in the sky
to shout his truths. Just us. Let us be reconciled. 
And here I was, in God's own country, alive.

SIAMESE

for AA

two tails
heads rolled from a neck
turned fur into six
eight four legs
heads two three eyes
blended two four
bellies and backs
reticulating arched single
spine splits a helix
under pelt
fur fur entwined

FUN THINGS TO DO WHEN YOU'RE THIRTEEN

The first time I came
I was faking
myself into thinking
I'd come,
but all I had done
was shudder
the way I had seen them do
in the movies
and imagined
a white slick of spunk
on the magazine.

Later, I became obsessed with guns.
Every summer seemed to get wetter.
I became obsessed with guns.