POKELOGAN

Here she will come to rest, mother of weeds,
stanching into algaed waters,
grey waters, red and green
and brown. She will come to a slow.
A stir of mayflies on her surface. Among her reeds,
a slicked brown mammal slips under her skirts
and is mud. She comes slow grown down,
roots down into silt and stillness.

Among the cricket song a yellowed eye that blinks,
scales, a tail that fans the shallows.
The flit of dead leaves falling like drift rain.
She has come and will not come again.

NO COMMENT

I wouldn't admit this if it were true.
Not to you. Wouldn't say I murdered
two elderly men or ran over a child.
I wouldn't admit to the rape 
of six nurses on a university campus.
I'd never let you swab my cheeks
for DNA without due cause.
I know my rights. I know that prisons
cannot hold me. I remember
the grin of the barman before
he poured those six martinis
in the lounge. He did not judge me,
even when I bust her lip and ran.
It's something everybody does.
Turn on the news and there I am,
an e-fit that was seen near the bank
just before the robbery. The police
are interested in talking to me
in connection with the incident.
That's not me in the reconstruction.
I was never there. They'll never catch me 
and I'll not come forward on my own.
You'd hate me for the things I'm rumoured 
to have done. I don't care. You think 
I'll never change and I won't. I'll never see 
the consequences if it means my life. 
Nobody will prove me wrong.

SWEET CHARITY

Dear Mr. Bates, please may I
apply to your foundation
for funds to build a hospital
in our country. You could visit
with a television crew
once the building was completed.
We might even name a ward
for you so you can come
in a helicopter and be photographed
speaking to mothers
nursing skeletal infants,
awaiting AIDS medication
and food. This one was raped
by militia after they had butchered
her son and husband
in the village square. Mr. Bates,
if you could not build a hospital,
perhaps a factory will do.
Our government is offering good rates
to foreign investors with a mind
to make our country great. Our people
are desperate for work
and money and food. Electronics
is the future, Mr. Bates, and our country
has the skills but not the means.
A six-figure sum could build a workshop
and a school. We would not ask
for much by way of wages.
I'm sure you'll find our terms
competitive. Think of all we could earn.

The ladies fan their sweat with jeweled hands
and sip Tom Collins. The gentleman kick back
with gin and slims, smoking finest Havanas.
They tip the waiters handsomely,
easing the pain of their savagery.

IN NOVEMBER 13

for AG, RB, DP, AN, SM

Pope Francis says, "tie
the corrupt to a rock and throw
them in the sea." A man
living in social housing
instead of having a well-lit
second home may
count himself a failure.

In our society is a mass
sense of entitlement, induced
subliminally, but without much
subtlety. I tried that once.

Home office send a letter
to 7 year old boy
telling him to leave
the country voluntarily or
his departure may be enforced.

Jeez... Amidst death,
debris and desperation
a newborn human
learns to latch on.

The Yorkshire Post won't let me
run anymore adverts.
Gardinski replies;

"What if there is not enough ocean?"

SILENCES

After the bell strikes I think

of the seconds the bomb burst broke

the chatter and there was silence on the train.

In these silences I sometimes think

of deserts. Winston Churchill. Towers and castles

felled like forests. Che Guevara. Afghanistan.

No-one more silent than the dead.

Nothing more silent than the schoolroom razed by drones.

Nowhere more silent than the battlefield tomorrow.

LARDING

for SM

my knitting's knotted
stiff itchy wool
into chaotic bows
of colour clash
about my needle's
cold metal electrodes
that clitter-clack
with typewriter efficiency
untangling the yarn
from a misfitting cardigan
they spun to stiffness
unspooled like chevelled VHS
as they stitch and purl
out of sudden looseness
rough patchwork
that narrates
old neural pathways

See the original here

DOWN THE BLOOD

red as rain and thick as sludge
we got it coming down the blood
iron sodden northern mud
we got it coming down the blood

you're granda' knew he weren't no good
he got it coming down the blood
knocked dumb thick as wood
he got it coming down the blood

father'd never flinch or budge
he got it coming down the blood
cut a man to see him gut
he got it coming down the blood

I'd tek pussy when I could
I got it coming down the blood
slit my mother throat to cunt
I got it coming down the blood

red as rain and thick as sludge

we got it coming down the blood

iron sodden northern mud

we got it coming down the blood