KIRKGATE

This side of town that town forgot.
None of that po-mo
single accommodation flats and shops,
just car dealerships.

A bulldozing ring-road churns aside
abandoned industrial estates
and burnt out brick warehouses
stuffed full of pigeon feathers and shit.

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?"

A WASTING SONG

for DB

Travelling east
from Westminster
on the Jubilee line,
you lose one year
off your life
for each stop
you don't get off at.

Ulcers on the feet which go untreated.
Violence from passers by.
Unable to wash or shower on your period.
Being discharged from prison to the streets.
Exhaustion from walking around at night.
Being scared.

Westminster
Waterloo
Southwark
London Bridge

People are quick
to tell you to pick
yourself up.
Premature death.

Bermondsey

I shoplift for basics —
milk and bread.
People in their dressing gowns
at 3.30 in the afternoon.
Depression.
Black moods.
I live like I'm in prison.

Britain's big freeze.
The brutal Arctic blast.
A biting wind.
5000 deaths in a long, dead winter.

Canada Water
Canary Wharf

Oil and tar.

The body was still
in a bag at the scene
guarded by police
five hours after
it was dragged from the river.

A second body was recovered
by RNLI 
at 8.08 a.m.

North Greenwich
Canning Town
West Ham
Stratford

Something going down in #Westfield,
Popo and cordens.
Somebody got themselves stabbed in #Westfield.
Can't even get to Nando's.

RIP the young man
who got stabbed
to death today
in Stratford #Westfield.

It's a
sad
world
we live

THREE LITTLE PIGS

First we lived in a house of bricks

and the wolf was the landlord

and the wolf came

and blew the bricks in.

Then we lived in a house of sticks

and the wolf was the landlord

and the wolf came

and blew the sticks in.

Then we lived in a house of straw

and the wolf was the landlord

and the wolf came

and blew the straw in.

Then we lived in the roads and streets

and the wolf was the landlord

and the wolf came

and blew us all in.

This was partly inspired by part of this interview with Owen Jones: click here to view

Listen to the songified version: here

TSUNAMI

for RB

It came out of the sky and over the tops of buildings and up

out the sewers and smashed into windows and doors. A bailiff

that swept away families, spilled into gutters, collecting their debris —

a pushchair, a repossessed car, a settee, cutlery, carpets —

ripped off the floorboards, the walls, bare concrete and broken

to fists of rubble. A rising onrush of misery; batons and helmets,

a crash of riot shields thundering inland and northwards.

Some say the levees were purposefully weakened, that sluice gates

had not undergone the mandatory checks, flood defence budgets

were cut. Four years of waters continuing to rise, it's swim or die

or be eaten by the sharks, contract dysentery or starve or buy a speedboat.

THE POOR

You will find them under any upturned flowerpot

in any middle-class backyard. The dirt estates,

where living is sky high, 13 floors up in a piss-stained

lift that stinks of filth. They live anywhere the coppers

daren't come, where dodgy goods can be sold, unhassled,

in pubs and NCPs. It's a fluid market of heroin for TVs

taxed from houses in less affordable postcodes.

Here cash4gold flows through fingers like vodka

tumbles down throats. Each day they try

and plaster the waterfall, try breaking even, but nothing helps.

No-one helps. The most desperate chuck themselves off,

solve their misery in one final leap. The tabloids they read

call them mad or evil, pap them living their high-life

on dole sponsored caviar and Lidl baked beans.

They aren't helpless, just hopeless. Even key workers,

who brave staffies in rooms they'd refuse, won't bring money,

just scorn for their parenting. Nobody listens to anger.

The poor. The worst of the litter. Gas them! Wouldn't it be easier?