What do we need?

Sewage pours

From broken outflow

What do we need?

A picture of Bo Jo!

 

Economy is on a go-slow

What do we need?

A picture of Bo Jo!

 

We’re shrinking

Like a punctured Lilo

What do we need?

A picture of Bo Jo!

 

Digging carrots from snow

What do we need?

A picture of Bo Jo!

 

We told the foreigners to go

What do we need?

A picture of Bo Jo!

 

Our reputation is in tatters

And our union is breaking

Sacrificed by spivs and liars

 

Getting rich is all that matters

The truth has no value now

You know why, don’t you?

What we do we need?

I think you know

What we need is

Building a shed

 

 

And so in a scowling gale, I pitch the roof

and hoist purlins and other terms I do not know –

man abuses gravity, the new gestalt.

I don’t know how I know how to do this

only that I that I do and that contentment

is the inevitable result.

 

From the twitching light of neighbours’ rooms

dancing with doom in a howling storm

I know this must seem faintly weird.

This flowerbed footprint is my Man Friday.

I must look to them like Robinson Crusoe

with my muddy slippers and Covid beard.

 

When you speak an image, it is said

that a new spirit enters the room.

But here, in a suburban garden

I am enclosing a volume of air

in order to fill it with words.

Each trimmed lawn is a failure of empathy.

.

Amber island

 

After an easy journey

with few customs formalities

I would arrive calm and energised

for my two week holiday.

 

On amber island there would be

a beach bar run by a wise old fisherman

as gnarled as Poseidon

where the cocktails are almost free.

 

There would be no need to worry

about money or time.

Here, I would be like King Midas –

rich in the local currency.

 

Perhaps a small boat would take me

languidly, around the island

to a crescent of black sand

and a cave known to mythology.

 

The walled medieval city

would wrap me in its history

where a lifetime could pass by

in contemplation and poetry.

 

The sun would reliably

blaze and dip in a riot of saffron

and crimson into the wine dark sea.

Return to the UK? Why the xxxx would I?

 

 

The red prince

the news of his demise came suddenly
as I was driving, on business, up the M1
plaudits fountained, in a sugary sorbet
a deluge of unwanted information

fields like bored pensioners passed by
in a procession of indifference
crows pecked at the earth solemnly
at Watford Gap, I pulled over for coffee

without irony, the eulogies
itemised his luxurious hardships
as the flattering tributes continued
oozing, like molasses from a slave ship

his selfless dedication and modesty
and, the guardians of our national fable
courage, honour and loyalty
like toy soldiers, on a baize table

on the A1(M) the traffic melted away
eastwards, a glimmer of sparkling ocean
to the north, the fields shimmered hopefully
hazing, to an emerald horizon

from the Tyne’s spires and boxes of light
and the amber hovels of Darlington
the red prince’s men went off to fight
in each town was a brave battalion

garnished with medals like a Christmas tree
he waved to his men from the balcony
they roared and cheered without irony
they are the subjects of his last colony

as always, one-by-one, he betrayed them
leavers to a man, their wall is red
his gift, the dissolution of their own country
they are bereft, now that the duke is dead

Don't panic

 

After our experiment with oblivion

The day’s first interpreters

our private thoughts, the chattering of birds.

Even asleep we are telling stories

in a colourful soliloquy, to ourselves

Like a screen, the sky will slowly lighten.

Waiting for the day to be imposed

the radio is my companion.

Light breaks out like a colourful disease.

Before the news come farming and religion

the two verities – god and food

Without them we would surely weaken.

We would forage with foxes and magpies

for scraps to eat in the hedgerows.