THE REVOLUTION WILL BE ADVERTISED

For MF

The Gulf War will not take place
The Gulf War is not really taking place
The Gulf War did not take place

This tastes like the real thing,
says our man in the cotton shirt
from a desert jeep near Tripoli
on the trail of the Arab Spring.

The freedom frighters have skewered Gaddafi
and Union Brand bombs made it possible!
Scotland votes No!

In other news the central highway
is closed in Hong Kong.
Commuters are advised to make alternative
travel arrangements to avoid
the sit-ins protesting our glorious executive.

We want more democracy,
says the Sprite drinking man.
We want freedom to make more money
and buy luxury foreign goods,
to be the captains of our own industry.

Even the President wears
V for Vendetta.

In Tripoli things have taken turns
from Baghdad to worse.
Militant ISILamists have damaged
the corporate image.
IEDeas tremor under the asphalt.
Scorpions scramble.

DO NOT ADUST YOUR SET!
This is reality breaking through.

After the following messages and beheadings
blanket coverage will resume.

WEIGHT

A heaviness has sunk into me
like an old armchair. This austerity
has been gaining pounds
since the crash in the Middle East.
Now, if I try to lift myself,
it is like I am coming from a deep floor,
up through an ocean of my thought
and it is dark and I am changing.

Now it is time to decide
who to be. The closet is open
and the monsters are knives out
in the night at my throat.
I have a wasp wing. A lion claw.
Pressure rings in me
like a bullet in an oil drum.
I can feel my evil thrum.

It is hard to love. Love is hard.
Love is a fossil inside a rock
and the rock is hard
Love is hammer now. Love is anger.
Love is a broken tool. A split shaft.
Love is a stone. Love is dust.
Now it's a breeze. Now it's blown
Everything is broke.

OH WHAT A LUVVERLY WAR!

Oh what a luuverly war we had!
Didn't you go and weren't you glad?
And wasn't it muddy and wasn't it sad?
And wasn't you hungry and hurting bad?

Oh what a luvverly war we made!
All the fun of a hand grenade!
Fetch the shovel. Fetch the spade.
Bury the sacrifice you paid.

Oh what a luvverly war that's gone!
Let's plant poppies for everyone.
Let's build graves til Kingdom come.
Then bomb each other just for fun.

Oh what a luvverly war that's here!
It's been coming a hundred year,
since the silence became the cheer,
and black shirts grin from ear to ear.

IN ANOTHER TIME

The old King agreed to entertain
The Empress. He stroked
his short beard
and worried the country
would come to grief

as if shook from a dream.
The old King slept.

Someone off stage shouted, 
"Get on with it!"
and a floorboard creaked.

She bowed. The Empress said,
"I have come for your Kingdom,
your jewels, your pearls
and your people.
I wish to break chains and unions."

The old King gave some crumbling pages
his signature. A castle wall collapsed.

"Take what you can," he sighed,
"but spare my feelings.
We who came before made the world
you want to make afresh.
We fought the same way.
Do not tread the battleground again."

The Empress conceded with a curtsy
and crossed fingers.
She knew better than this old sod.
Off with his head!

Somewhere in a foreign field,
a corpse
in bloodied armour grinned.

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.

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.

CAMPFIRE

say, "Why don't you talk?"
get mad at me for going

ignore his staff's advice
get us into this war

deal carefully with Anselm's reply
strike a man with a baton

salute death as the central, defining fact
worship objects that can neither hear nor see

fear the laws where you are headed

FOREIGNERS

The foreigner abroad. The man 
who doesn't carry travel papers,
but wears sunglasses and a holster 
and a strap that hangs 
an automatic rifle on his jutting hip, 
whose fat fingers toy the trigger
in the sun. 

He who is lost 
among dust and sand, 
who steps out of the storm
a fearsome shadow, 
trembling with bulletspray, 
shooting the foreigners
in the foreign country.

THE GRANDMOTHER SHUFFLE

for MH

My Grandmother shuffles the cards in her palms,
but boxes them. These days her palms

are smaller, she remembers. She remembers the Luftwaffe
bombing Coventry better than dinners. She boxes them.

She does not notice. The shadows are creeping
over the kitchen like Luftwaffe. Those gentlemen

she courted in Birmingham remember the prick
of her hat pin. They got too fresh. It was only a first date

that slipped from her grip like a butterknife.
The Luftwaffe are thunder, sending her running

under the stairs. Now she is shuffling.
Her small palms boxing the names of her nephews

and grandsons.  She remembers them like a husband.
They get fresh each time they meet. The Cathedral is burning.