If this boy had been more prudently 
dropped into life on, say, a street 
with trees that throw out their annual yellow 
to make a welcome parade for the sun; 
had as childhood neighbours a Circuit Court Judge 
whose front door had no letter box, 
a Garda Chief Inspector with an opinionated 
and over-confident dog; 
kicked a ball up and down summer evenings, 
dead apart from the occasional well behaved bee, 
with the boy next door (but one) who blossomed 
into a political correspondent 
and now gets to make up truth, 
another way would’ve been found.
But for coming at Gardaí 
with a chemical imbalance, 
what some people are calling 
a machete 
and a totally inappropriate 
post code, 
the only sentence 
was that ethically administered, 
democratically accountable, 
bolt action firing squad.
The eminent and learned 
bottoms we employ to sit 
on the inquiry into this 
need not fret the task ahead of them. 
For their report is already written.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: <a class="owner-name truncate" style="color: #808080;" title="Go to Paolo Trabattoni's photostream" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mctraba/" data-track="attributionNameClick">Paolo Trabattoni </a>/ Flickr</pre>

Garda Police

Poem: The Case of George Nkencho

Ominous opening credits theme ebbs 
to silence. Fade in: shaky-cam footage 
from various news agencies; a montage 
establishing time, place and the threat
unfolding unstoppably on a global scale. 
Headlines whirl. Graphs and charts stamp 
stark projections onscreen. Editing ramps 
up urgency, drama, the stakes. The tale
about to unfold is one of humanity 
at its worst and best. The selflessness 
of carers and keyworkers put to the test 
and emerging heroic. Cut to: the inanity,
the dithering, the bullshit of those 
in high office, the Etonian provocateurs 
bluffing and blustering, pitifully unprepared 
for a crisis that can’t be diffused
by three-word slogans and posh-boy jeers 
during PMQs. We’re on shaky ground. 
Any half-aware test audience crowd 
would demand a hero they can cheer,
not some Greek chorus of doorstep applause 
curtailed in the second act as too political. 
This floundering narrative is antithetical 
to mainstream cinema. It’s like Star Wars
from the POV of an admin assistant filing 
the performance review of a storm-trooper 
who got shot two scenes ago, or the blooper 
reel from a public information film on tiling
or basic plumbing for beginners. It’s not 
the film you paid your money to see. 
You didn’t pay to watch the idiot-in-chief 
ignore the science, grin deathlessly, toss off
some half-arsed soundbite, execute 
a soft-shoe sidestep from responsibility. 
Whither the nurses, shop workers, delivery 
drivers &#8211; the real heroes? Let’s reboot
the project, focus on them; let’s weave 
multiple stories, Short Cuts style, celebrate 
the under-appreciated, the underpaid; 
let’s give the audience a reason to believe,,
a grand finale. Let’s put a Hollywood spin 
on this year-long real-time clusterfuck, 
flip the narrative, double-down on feelgood; 
rewrite, recast, re-edit. We can do this thing.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street</pre>

Boris Johnson Coronavirus Update Conference

Poem: The 2020 Movie

for Susan
Whenever I show them the Future, 
they refuse it; 
say: this future has bad hair, 
waves its arms around too much, 
is too Jewish, 
or not Jewish enough, 
too not-a-woman, 
or the wrong sort of woman.
This Future has a face that one day 
might raise the corporate tax rate 
by zero point five percent, 
and is a little too insistent 
that poor people be allowed live, 
give or take, as long as the rest of us. 
That sort of thing scares the people we dine with 
nights we’re not dining with you.
I ask the barman for more finger food, 
picture the ocean raging into the restaurant, 
and them still sat there muttering at the chicken goujons: 
the people we talk to won’t vote for 
such extreme solutions. No one wants to live in Cuba, 
one of them says, as she’s washed out the door.
I pray, when all the futures 
they’ve turned their noses up at 
are safely in the mud 
and the men in boots and leather come 
to escort us all to the Processing Centre 
in the back of a truck 
that I be shot, cleanly through the skull, at the front gate, 
so I don’t suffer their groans 
about the quality of the gruel, 
and how that last beating one of them got 
was clearly in breach of the Human Rights Act 
and worthy of a curtly worded, 
but still civil, letter to The Observer.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/@henniestander?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Hennie Stander</a> on <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/barman-restaurant?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></pre>

Kevin Higgins_hennie-stander-O3oIr1j65EM-unsplash

Poem: Our Posh Liberal Friends

Look closely when the Central Line spits 
you out into a river of impatience, 
and you’ll see that angels’ wings are made 
from shop-doorway beds – cardboard.
Drill down into your listening and you’ll hear 
a heavenly voice asking for change to spare, 
above the guffaws of the comfortably numb, 
swilling their pints on the pavements of Holborn.
From time to time, pause under the lights, 
and slowly inhale these squares and streets. 
You’ll sometimes catch a faint seraphic scent, 
through the death stench of asset management.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: <a style="color: #808080;" href="https://unsplash.com/@daveast?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">David East</a> on <a style="color: #808080;" href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/homeless-london?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></pre>

david-east-unsplash

Poem: Look Closely

after Walter Benjamin
A barrel of industrial waste poured into a suit 
donated by a casino owner who knows people 
with a tangerine tea towel tossed strategically on top 
because it was the only available metaphor for hair 
was running for re-election as CEO of South Canadia 
against an old coat with holes in it.
The barrel of waste was trailing 
histrionically among professors emeritus 
whose brains were in the process of being dismantled 
by lethargy and time, and among those 
who, as and when the stock market permits, 
take a year off to celebrate their dividends 
by doing good works among brown people in far countries 
not lucky enough to have stock markets or dehumidifiers. 
Such people agreed with each other that the barrel of waste 
made the raging boil on the nation’s privates 
way too obvious, and hoped by throwing 
the old coat over it they could again 
forget it was there.
The barrel of waste said the old coat couldn’t deliver 
on the promises he wasn’t making, 
and maintained good leads among morticians, 
pimps, and police informants 
and had the total bastard vote 
ninety nine percent sewn up &#8211; 
in essence everyone except the late John DeLorean 
and perhaps Alan Dershowitz.
There was a minority faction who wanted the boil 
on the nation’s privates given free antibiotics, lanced 
with a big needle imported from Sweden 
and then cauterised. But most people found 
though they were in favour, in their hearts, 
of lancing the boil, 
in practice they were for 
allowing the boil to grow redder, angrier, more toxic 
under the old coat with holes in it.
So the minority extremist faction 
who wanted the thing treated 
were sentenced to the echo chamber 
to argue about whether the old coat 
with holes in it really 
was the lesser evil.
The midwife of history, 
grown bored with the year twenty twenty, 
had decided to play one of her jokes.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/@jontyson?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Jon Tyson</a> on <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/trump-biden?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></pre>

jon-tyson-Lmy2OAZlwb0-unsplash

Poem: The Joke

My butterfly net, 
mindful archive for this Alchemilla leaf 
with its mercury raindrops.
Late on my pillow 
I swipe into the blue light, 
into a mycelium of new smiles, 
endless as waves on the sand.
They say smart. 
But smart enough 
to remind us that the hilltop, 
and the crowded art gallery, 
request our presence, naked-eyed?
to remind us that fingertips are for skin?
We stay smart, 
if we sift the blessing from the curse: 
Foot-soldier of dystopia, 
indispensable encyclopaedia of life; 
bridge, 
wall; 
superstore of infinite shelves, 
leaving nothing to the imagination.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo: <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/@yanneskiefer?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Yannes Kiefer</a> on <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/phone-train?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></pre>

yannes-kiefer-mu7wzbdVlMg-unsplash

Poem: Smart Phone

Look! There it is, your civic pride 
back from putting an X in a right wing box, 
back from egging on a bigot down the ‘Spoons, 
back from trolling Facebook, Twitter, 
giving it all lives matter and I’m not racist but, 
back from Incel 101, back from dude, bro, 
brah, one of the lads, excitable boy innit, 
back from awright darlin’, only havin’ a joke, 
fuck you then, femiNazi, PC gone mad, 
an Englishman can’t speak his mind anymore.
Look, here it comes, full of The Sun, full of 
The Daily Mail, full of easily disproved scare stories, 
full of somebody else’s rhetoric, full of hate. 
Here it comes, your civic pride, blaming it 
on the blacks, the Asian (BAME? what’s BAME? 
fuckynell, PC gone made innit), blaming it 
on the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish, blaming it 
on the Jews, the Muslims, the Catholics, 
the Protestants, the Hare Krishnas, blaming 
it on anyone who looks different, sounds different, 
buys the Guardian or reads books on public transport.
Here comes your civic pride, barely able 
to articulate what “it” is but shrieking blame 
blame blame like a demented character 
on a Sunday evening BBC melodrama.
Civic pride with a hard-on for World War II, 
civic pride with a collection of military insignia 
bought off the net, civic pride with back issues 
of Guns &amp; Ammo and a second hand paperback 
about the SAS. Civic pride down the pub 
giving it our lads, Churchill, Union Jack 
(glass in the face for the smartarse who mentions 
it’s only a jack if it’s flown on a ship). Civic pride 
at chucking out time giving it Thatcher, Falklands, 
Port Stanley, Belgrano. Civic pride giving it 
bring our brave boys home and send in the troops 
and not really seeing the difference or the problem.
Civic pride with a union flag bumper sticker 
on a German or Italian or Japanese car, 
civic pride with a union flag tee-shirt 
necking a pint of Heineken, a pint of Grolsch, 
civic pride with a moby in a union flag case 
ordering an Indian, ordering a Chinese, 
settling down to an America cop show.
Civic pride advocating Buy British. 
Civic pride wanting British jobs for British people. 
Civic pride saying Britain first and not seeing 
the problem, and not seeing the problem. 
Hatespeak and division and not seeing the problem. 
Parroting media barons and not seeing the problem. 
Blaming the gays and not seeing the problem. 
Blaming women and not seeing the problem. 
Blaming the jobless and not seeing the problem. 
Blaming the victims and not seeing the problem. 
Being part of the problem and not seeing the problem.
Look! Here it is, your civic pride, 
breathless from pegging it over hill 
and field, from glen to glen (oh Tommy boy, 
the dog whistle politician’s calling &#8230; ), 
hammering through the hamlets, the villages, 
the towns, the cities, full-tilt heads down 
see you at the end through this green 
and pleasant land, screeching up 
just in the nick of time like Jim Dandy 
to the rescue only it’s Tommy innit? Tommy this 
and Tommy that. Ought to give him a statue.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: FCO via <a style="color: #808080;" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/foreignoffice/41642401391/">Flickr</a></pre>

St Georges

Poem: Civic Pride

The poem’s 24 equal-length lines represent the 24 floors of Grenfell Tower. It is written in memory of all who died three years ago, and in honour of the families, local residents, campaigners and advocates who continue to fight for justice.
&nbsp;
The old Lombardic for guard, guerin: gren; 
and the French word for settlement, ville: fell.
But between pink bloom-blushes of the June 
night and morning, a new splinter of hell
pushed its way up and onto the skyline. 
The hatches were loose, not battened down well
enough to keep the flames of corporate sin 
at bay. For years they’d licked and jumped through all
those bent cracks between promise and action. 
Now they bit into their human stubble.
If you were told it was your family’s turn 
to put the children on a carousel
without tight bolts, without belts, would the fun 
be worth it? If signed up to play football,
would you care about the hidden land-mine? 
So why stand ready to die or be killed
for this vast tungsten ocean, this ribbon 
of lights on the West Way? Truth is, until
power is held by its ankles upside down, 
the comfortable have their back to the wall,
and justice pours down like the summer rain, 
then shadows of emptiness and charcoal
will stretch like policies across this town. 
Stay put, in that home, that circle, that school.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: The Platform</pre>

Grenfell Featured 3 Years via The Platform

Poem: Grenfell Tower&#8217;s 24 Floors

Normality has come to 
an impasse. The world shrinks 
to a small web of streets, 
everyday life to these 
four walls. Everything 
beyond the window is empty.
Empty streets, cars empty 
of passengers. Buses, too: 
with everything 
closed down, travel shrinks 
to supermarket trips. Those 
bustling city streets
are silent now. Streets 
grim with shutters, empty 
windows. How many of these 
places will reopen, and to 
what custom? Income shrinks 
across the board; everything
looks bleak. Everything 
seems surreal, streets 
not even gusted with the shrink- 
wrappings of litter, empty 
premises hung with signs to 
the effect of “these
are temporary measures”. These 
measures might not be. Everything 
depends on those to 
whom the man on the street 
is expendable: the empty- 
hearted politicians who shrink
from responsibility, who shrink 
into the bluster of these 
post-truth times. Empty 
of empathy, they forget: everything 
is microcosm. These are streets 
the privileged don’t belong to.
Everything shrinks 
to these 
empty streets.
&nbsp;
<pre><a style="color: #808080;" href="https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/gallery/coronavirus-time-stands-still-pictures-4074440">Photo Credit: Nottinghamshire Live </a></pre>

Lockdown Nottingham

Poem: Lockdown Sestina

After the sizzle and spit of my flesh going up 
like bacon thrown on eight hundred degrees centigrade, 
when my bones have been mashed to their final powder, 
handed to you in such a civilised pot 
and you’ve flushed 
or scattered them – a fistful each – 
in the front gardens of those you know hate me 
(them that have front gardens; them that don’t 
put a little of me quietly through their letter boxes) –
I will inhabit the air, 
take the form of 
the absence of certain smells; 
the absence of my tannin caked mug 
leaving brown rings behind itself 
on the coffee table by the sofa; 
the absence of wrong political predictions 
I’ll no longer be around to deliver 
with the wave of an absolute arm 
during your favourite TV crime drama, 
so you can hear neither 
and wish I’d come with a mute button; 
the absence of traces of shaving foam 
kindly donated by me 
in the now pristine bathroom sink 
which will gleam at you like the teeth 
of a presidential candidate 
conceding defeat.
For my absence, like my presence, 
will be the mess 
you’ll never exactly succeed 
in completely tidying away.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: <a href="https://pxhere.com/en/photo/892133">PxHere</a></pre>