Oh, for the wisdom of the heavens,
And the wide stretch of the stars,
And a land where no pain exists and all is light!
But here there are shadows,
And my heart breaks!

And so I dream and hope a little,
And fancy myself to the future,
And fighting, accept,
And nudge him to a smile,
And try – between us – to make his world a better place.

26/2/2007

Look -
The military air-traffic control system that brought you here was four times overpriced
But Jack Straw, Tony Blair and Geoff Hoon
Are pleased to have saved 250 jobs in the Isle of Wight.

Welcome to Tanzania!

Your arrival was safeguarded by a £40 million loan from Barclays Bank that made it all possible.

Welcome to Tanzania!
Here in la-la land
We are helped in our la-la view of the world
By the la-la policies
Of the la-la folks across the Great Water.

Welcome to Tanzania!

Sing it now:
La La La, Tanzania !

Welcome mate, we’re gonna decide your fate
In this place of hate -
Yeah, welcome to Woomera!

Oh, welcome to Australia,
Which we ain’t gonna share with yer -
No, welcome to Woomera!

Listen mate, it’s like this mate,
We stole from the darkies mate and we know that’s not great
But the door’s shut now mate and you’re just gonna have to wait whilst we decide your fate
In our place of Hate -
Oh, welcome to Woomera!

No one gets into Australia,
Immigration time’s over.

Yeah, it doesn’t seem fair at all, mate,
Poor bastard you’re in a state,
It’s totally out of order, mate,
But I don’t make the rules
And though I can see you’ve struggled to get here
I guess – maybe – it’s just that we ain’t gotta know yer,
And sadly, we ain’t gonna, ‘cos immigration time’s over,
We ain’t gonna share with yer -
Yeah, welcome to Woomera.

She tires in an instant,
Peace,
And a half-chattered sigh escapes her lips,
Snug warmth-breath touches a kiss
On my cheeks.

What bliss is this
That she remains so calm ? -
Her storm is done for the moment,
And I look on in disbelief.

June 1999

Nov.2001

The Thermobarbaric bomb
Is deployed with great glee
By the men of the West
From the land of the Free
In support of their
Great Democracy.

The Thermobarbaric bomb
Joins the Daisycutter that can destroy a small village
And it joins special forces firing into a compound
In a massacre they won’t allow Amnesty to check up on
And it joins rockets fired into dungeons (after the burning oil)

In a great
Dehumanisation
That just doesn’t fit in
With the warm, kindly and caring image
America and Britain
Have of themselves.

The Thermobarbaric bomb, in fact,
Is by far a more accurate indication
Of our civilisation.

Dec. 20001

And the words FLEW!
They seeped along a street,
Through a car radio,
Blared into ears,
Tapped into more neurones,
Moved more fingers,
Wiggled feet
Nudged hips,
Made chins go up and down
Heads go side to side,
Hands wave,
Lips smile,
Buildings shake,
Roads curve,
Clouds speed up,
The Earth spin,
The sun shine whiter
Thoughts EXPLODE in strange new ways
Life get
BRIGHTER!

Naturally, the best were shot, sent to the Front
Where All Good Men Go:
And those left behind
(Too young, too scared, too vicious)
Had to make the best of what was left.

This wasn’t difficult -
There wasn’t a lot.

THE FIRST BOMB
DESTROYED MAJOR CITIES
And what little food was left,
Radioactive,
Had to be eaten with care -
Because it was the last thing that would ever be eaten.

The Old Women wailed, but they had been the ones
That started it all:
A million seething hates
Builds up One Big Picture Of Hate,
And they had hated – boy, how they had hated!
(Never believe that women are weaker than men.)

Not that the men had been perfect -
They’d stirred the pot too
(But never at home, that had been women’s work).

Oh yes, to blame it all on the men is unfair,
Though the ones for Peace had soon succumbed to their base emotions …
It was the Falkland’s all over again,
Writ large,
Or Diana the Image, in a nation with nowhere to go -
Mob rule,
Quite perfect
For starting a war …

Still , what’s a war when it’s on somebody else’s land ?

Only this War
Had Been Over Here.

The elections had helped -
So near, so little time,
Something
Had Had To Be Done !

When the moment for peace came
The Prime Minister Walked Away
And History (there wasn’t much left)
Would have been revised, the moment air-brushed out
So that all who could read the text-books would see
How It Wasn’t Our Fault.

There now – it’s done:
No great celebrations, no thanking God for our victory
(For God is righteous and favours whites, Anglo-Saxons and the wealthy, in that order,
Praise Him, for he is Mighty and will help Us,
But not our Enemies
Who must suffer and perish in Eternal Fire …)

Well, of course the fires are out now,
They only last a week or two and then the firestorms
Are done.

And the politicians – well, what can one say ?
They were never of much use and now
They’re of none.

Still, Life Goes On.
(My charred limb fell off yesterday,
But the rest of me’s O.K.)

Bit late for changing things now, really,
But I pray – well, naturally, I pray:
There’s not a lot else to do.

Once the screams had died with their owners
There was only silence,
Apart from the black rain and the odd ferocious wind.

I pray, yes, I pray,
I pray for Hope, although really that’s all Gone,
And for a Peaceful Death
(Though Death doesn’t bother me anymore, I’m too numb)
And for my children who all died -
Though one of them still shrieks in my head.

Hell, I’ve got it lucky, really -
At least I’m almost sane.

That was one thing I was never shown how to do -
I was never told how to pray.
Now, of course, I’m learning fast,
But then there were too many idiots who’d staked a prior claim,
Too many groups with Copyright Names on their own Wise One -
And I avoided that strange game.
I only wanted a God who spoke to me (preferably peaceably),
Someone or Something to set me free -
And there wasn’t one.

So I’ve invented One.

He’s called God,
And we try and listen to each other:
And I thank God,
And God then thanks me.

There now -
I’m done.

18/11/99

Tennis: the reigning champion is a non-entity, robot-trained
And fed on a diet of numbers,
15-love, 30-love, 40-love, Game!
With baseline serves fired from precision arms
And a slack-jawed face blanked by too many years of counting money -
Ah, the passion!
The crowd turns
To watch a sparrow landing
Or a cloud spill some rain.

Golf: hypnotised by the telly we have to watch dragging bores
Claw their way round,
Only the brightness of their jerseys
Preventing us from dropping off the precipice of our excitement.

Baseball: 3 a.m, the world asleep,
Commentators chew on names,
Inject excitement into fat men with fat bums,
Home runs,
Girly Rounders,
No one seems to care it’s dumb.

Rugby: the buggers run in the rain
In Wigan
In mud -
If you ask me it’s a bit of a dud.

Ice-hockey: frenetic pace,
Pucks hurtle invisibly around icy arenas,
Padded shoulders thump each other,
‘If only these sticks were guns!’ you can hear them think,
‘We’d finish you losers off completely!’

American football: indistinguishable from their military tactics,
Philistines advance in massed ranks,
Brute force against brute force -
Size is everything.
It’s a battlefield out there,
But foreign spectators just don’t care.

Athletics: lean women who can’t menstruate
Jostle with sprinters in lycra-clad pornography
As high-jumpers whose legs finish a mile away
Crowd out rowers with blank, square-jawed faces,
Skiers who can’t forgive Eddie,
Swimmers with elongated bodies
And squat dwarves pumping weights.

Boxing: two shits you wouldn’t want to meet in a bar
Obey rules -
And that’s the achievement.

Basketball: tall men, long arms,
Jumping high,
No charm.

Cricket: and the sound of willow hitting someone’s balls,
A Bouncer to take off his head,
Arguments with the umpire resulting in knives drawn
And a riot in the beer-bellied crowd.

Football: the national game,
Ruled by turkeys, played by drones,
Watched by cardboard boxes -
Force-fed on money, its gut’s exploded,
Sex-starved shenanigans by the ruling elite fill empty pages …
Ah! But wait -
Women’s football shows flair and imagination,
Not yet ruled by the corrupt or watched by Tracy’s boyfriend,
It leaps off the screen
With a scream that yells, ‘You better bloody well watch me!’

Wrestling: two Queens ham it up for the cameras,
Massaging each other’s shoulders afterwards.

It’s a melange of images,
Faintly disturbing -
I switch off the T.V.

The heat of your body glows against my skin
As I slip in beside you:

Here there can be no gaudy misrepresentations,
Only your caress as we bask in the precious dawn hours
In semi-slumber.

23/5/1987