Autumn SE22

Brick ships loom through the clouds
Pastel buildings, yellow sludge of flowers
Peckham is at her brightest now
Deliquescent. A cut-price utopia

It is light that binds us through the murk
A glimpse of Florida millionaires
Today's chatter – the economy
Experts dilate, on six-figure salaries

The city is a vast, decaying hulk
We are its ghost crew, its shadows
Autumn pavements are wreathed in mists
Like wraiths, we slide through its cracks

Winter makes us all a bit northern

Buy us a bitter, it's your shout
It's time to get the Parka out
The leaves in the flaming trees
Flutter like celebrities


Already dark at half past four
Going to the fookin bar
The sky's as black as a Staffy's mouth
Even in the fookin south


Icy mornings, sugary brew
Drinks that smell like superglue
Hobbling girls in tiny skirts
Sweaty blokes in nylon shirts


Winter is a northern squeeze
It's always cold on Salford Quays
The darkness never goes away
Even in the fookin day

Covent Garden piazza 2010

Suspended under the canopy

Drill hall commands echo and bounce

The rhythm of roar and shout

Exhilaration, an elixir

We watch, intently, from the crowd

It is a slow fall towards death.

In the high, vaulted arena

Where light falls, pigeons unfurl

And bright tables glamourise

I carry my melancholy heart

Ode to Naomi Campbell

Our paths will never cross

I will never talk to you, Naomi

I will never break the code

Behind which you hide

You held the court in your hand

Your face, inscrutable

Dark glasses. Black on black

You were glamour personified

You ride your celebrity like a raft

Fame itself is your muse

Magnificence in obsidian

Down the cat walk, you stride

That dictator business was merely

A trivial inconvenience

You are a goddess, after all

What does it matter who died?

Remember the days that we spent

On Streatham High Road

Scouring Woolworths for a ring?

It did not happen. We did not coincide

At least you did not batter me

Here, Naomi, take this pebble

A diamond for my troth. May it

Unfreeze your hurt, inside

Life: a manual

I woke up. Pretended to be a bloke
Conducted an argument with myself
Walked to the bus: a swaying goldfish bowl

One must navigate between earth and sky
Find one's way through a forest of symbols
Like a knight in a dark, silent wood

Though life is finite, a one-way ticket
The eternal endures, light and dark
The candles of horse chestnuts standing proud

The shaded graves are as cool as water
On a hot, prickly day. I walk past them
Imagining I am not going to die

Why is Liz Hurley so rich?

You with your radical innocence Did not ask for this daily display Of wickedness and stupidity The imbeciles with their megaphones Proclaiming their prejudice, with pride In this world of ours, wrong begets wrong The soft-voiced disseminate their lies As their badness becomes ossified In a slew of religions, cultures And competing ideologies We remain ignorant of our drones That bring terror to a foreign land And reward the merely beautiful Why is Liz Hurley so rich, and why Did Lineker play away from home?

England versus Slovenia, 23 June, 2010

A preternatural stillness

hangs eerily in the air

like a question that goes unsaid.

On burning summer pavements

and in chilled supermarket aisles

England is unified, in one shout.

We are united in our desire –

beer gutted and taut of belly

dowager and lager lout.

Flags stream from scorched balconies,

smoke climbs from barbecues

into the clear, listless sky.

Blistered by summer heat

the honking vans announce

that which they normally hide –

the national colours, our hope

bright emerald, white and red

the small weaving figures, our pride.

(NB. The disappointing game ended in an unconvincing, one nil victory for England. The winning goal, the only bright point, was scored by Jermain Defoe – a header from a cross by James Milner.)