POLITICAL ACTIVISM

steel blue sky/bright white clouds 
glo benevolent 
and 
neatly nuclear.


winter sun's walking low
even
at 10 and 11 AM/shadows slide sideways at 45 degrees.


beautiful day for a STRIKE.


i lay in till darks late smudge lays on a different globe
and
go
for brunch in the corner cafe.


i read of
concentration camp captives
stumbling out to see the sun set like a Durer water colour
thru
the 
tall
trees
of the Bavarian woods or over the mountains of Salzburg;
makes
my
coffee
taste of freedom and the Magic FM MOR sweet cliches
ring
true
like angels lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.

smoking in the cemetery winters autumn browns burst
vivid and varied - FIRE before
natures
short and naked 
necessary 
death.


by a new brown wood bench
i pick up a fallen vase/stand it straight 
place its blooms
back
inside/dont read the names on the plinth or the plaque


because


i


got


a


great empty field to cross/where i stop and crouch SURE
i
can
see
the
CURVATURE OF THE EARTH bending the cricket crease away


and


i


got


to get in/got


things


to


WRITE/but i stop in the corner shop and ask why they dont sell Hula Hoops any more?


MISS EATING THEM OFF YOUR FINGERS? she asks.
MISS HIDING SMALL BITS OF CHEESE IN THE HOLES i say.


in i open all the dusty doors and wonky windows
and
write
about
my doctors 
when 
i should be on the picket line
waving 
a large placard
for
1000 angry reasons . . .

THE TOOTH FAIRY STILL COMES OUT FOR ORPHANS

when everyone goes out to smoke

I am strong

and don’t

instead;

talk to a lapsed catholic

in her red xmas jumper

who believes

the tooth fairy still comes out for orphans

and,

well,

my reactionary atheist GASPS and SHITS

and

gently,

I take apart her Space Daddy

like she says her husband does

she can only nod sadly and her doe eyes drive me on

REMEMBERING NY COP

algonquin blue bar or the one next to it.

whatever.

another literary haunt

Faulkner had

barked in eating

lunch

with writing lions

etc

another couple of scotch rocks

and

some $48 dark wine.

no animals in here at all.  early pm.

outside

in

the

entrance to a truck garage

short arse big arse

irish old cop

is

twisting in his own wind.

cap points at all angles.

real character.  should have been an untouchable.

old wheelgun hanging low

and

swinging by his knee in chewed leather holster

bangs

against his short leg.

hes beautifully side lit

by

5^th

ave

pm

sun.

wonder what capones he must have seen.

GODS TERMINAL MASTERPIECE; THE FRONT LINE LIBERATION CORPORATION Part 7

On the screens and in the flesh I have seen soldiers shoot themselves in the horror of downtime unable to not use their guns, unable to not be killing, their instant feeds replayed with citations of dedication and posthumous decorations. 

Downtime; wait for action after action, wait for Dickey, wait for NBCBN.  Any downtime is too much downtime.  Sitting here for minutes minds begin to cloud and stray…INCOMING…comes the crackle cry from the PA and I open up at the tree line, thrilled relief floods my nodes. 

‘Set guns to liberate, Fodder!’  Murder Major Singh says into the PA. high up in the Thatcher.  ‘Back on line.  Hammer Fucking Time!’  His raises both fists in the air.

‘Squad!  Have it!’  I yell and Hans La Feu is shot, falling, Bennett’s squad truly dead.  Jr. Lt. Ramirez too is lying small and still.  Captain Clarke riding his half-track down the slope loses a track in a white explosion and runs down the three of his squad, his half-track flipping and rolling a lethal dance.

Dickey visible down there, big in our optics, crouches as white light blows away chunks of jungle, Earth’s punished flesh tears.  We fire blind at first, a deadly hail of warning suppression, keep Dickeys head down. 

Then I pick my targets, de-existifying a squad on a whistle stop ride to nowhere with an easy spray.  Dickey advances with his mortars, trying to get more set up in range, forced and eager to leave the cover of the trees to perpetuate the duty and good work. 

Gods time to die; time to exchange deaths warm blood with victories hot metal.  Everything as it should be, downtime forgotten I thrill with excessive purpose, blood rushing hot to my primal back brain.  The screens show my dedication and duty from the muzzle feed and closer; every tenth round a small lens.  Taking us all closer to the action in short fast clips for the cripples to slow and show split screen while the anchor enthuses and the soldier blood-rushes.

‘Close up, squad.  With me!’  I yell ready to move on down there...use Clarke’s half-track as cover first…The Blood Major indicates to me to stay put so I raise my fist.  ‘Hold!’  This used to be the Blood Majors squad back in Washington.  What’s left of us.  I open fire where I am.

Blood Sergeant Baps McFadden puts her milking breast away into her battle blouse.  Her baby slung on her back in his green baby-gro, his small pack of spare ammo strapped securely to him as he hangs there quiet and learning a lite-cam on his soft head.  She opens fire laid flat, calm veil comes down over anxious eyes; downtime forgotten.

            The air full of bullets, fast metal murder like steel bees hot as the sun.  A Mk 8 Workhorse on my right explodes in white, hurtles backwards into a squad of Fodder

Infantry fresh from their transport crushes them with heat and weight.  I felt the heat and the wicked rush of wind as the starved air rushes to fill the sudden vacuum.

            ‘Liberate Dickey down!  War to Fuck and Jesus!’  Blood Major Andy McNesbit shouts.  ‘Set guns to murder!  Today is a media day to die.’  His cameras, extra eyes on his helmet, look without blinking.  He speaks into his shoulder radio, voice crackles from the PA.  Idling engines shift into gear and the front line moves out on the shallow down slope again.  Dickey out in the open now and the Blood Major fires into the advancing lines taking no cover.  His Nokia Master Blaster with a discreet eye of its own barks his purpose north.  This is the way it goes; to plan.

            Bullets hit the half-track and Driving Captain McManus burst with the windscreen.  We murder a squad of advancing instigators as they creep round the cover of Clarke’s half-track.  Dickey evil and unlawful getting his to Fuck and Jesus.  Large and dancing into pieces in our optics as fast metal mocks his efforts.  I reload another clip of three hundred, brain tense and frozen in the tiny time waiting for the green Go light.  The Blood Major taps me on the shoulder.  Glass from a blown screen on the Zulu Silo Master tinkles around us catches the dull light and shines red.  The blown screen shown on another screen, the huge image exploding over and over and the anchor enthuses.  I see Skull Sergeant Alf Laden too far out too soon giving some good but getting some too much and he disappears in a red man mist.  The Blood Major puts his mask on.

PLANE 2; PLANE

I been silly for two hours now

with

the

plastic cups of ice

and

the

tiny scotches brand I don’t know

and

the

generic xanax came from india backpack.

my giggles lost in white noise of sky plane

and

cloaks the confines of the back chicken rack

guy next to me

moved

to free window seats watching anything on tv.

we

curve

over

greenland

and

canada.

could be in a submarine under the antartic.

I try to watch nbc.

GODS TERMINAL MASTERPIECE; THE FRONT LINE LIBERATION CORPORATION Part 6

.  The Blood Major climbs down from the Thatcher and walks over, smoking in the downtime, mask off.  He takes a drink from my canteen.

‘Blood Major, sir?’

‘Johnson, you cock!’

‘Five down sir.  And three from coming up the ridge.’

‘I know about coming up the ridge, Captain.’

‘Sir.’

‘Seen worse.’

‘We have sir.’

‘Take over Bennett’s squad.’

‘How many sir?’

‘A Private.’

‘Sir?’

‘Questions Johnson, you cock?’

‘No sir.’

Alf Laden was shaking his head.  I beckoned the Private over from the shade of the Churchill, Light Entertainment Units culling our own wounded on its screen, names scrolling past too quick to read.

‘You the last of Bennett’s squad?’

‘Sir!  Honour to meet you sir!’

‘Can it, Fodder.  What’s your name?’

‘Hans La Feu, sir!’

‘Welcome to the squad, La Feu.’  He sat down on the dirt waiting with the rest of us.  Downtime.  Fucking NBCBN.

            ‘Remember the last protesters we saw, Johnson?’

            ‘I do sir!’  I can’t remember the last time I saw a bird.

            ‘Two years ago, wasn’t it, soldier?’

            ‘Two years, sir!’  Two years ago now, dirty and protesting by the roadside, utterly without purpose, their T-shirt’s of dissident rappers, Duff Paddy vs. The Acidic Jew.  Long dead voices for impractical peace standing out preposterous against the sea of dirty churning green and loaded 58 webbing.  Metal on metal and on leather and wood and earth, rattling and clinking past.  Unstoppable straight purposeful machined metal, ridged and stamped and riveted; no give. 

            ‘Good cock I showed them Gods stuff, didn’t I boy?’

            ‘You did sir.’  Blood Major Andy McNesbit de-personated them with double taps to the head as we rolled past in our flame painted frowning Special Report half-track, at the front of the frontline, ambassadors of Warnage and Corporate Liberation.  Everything as it should be, their faceless corpses on the NBCBN screens, their murder repeated over and over, the Blood Major’s profile in the corner as a scarred anchor man gestured with his prosthetic and sang the Majors praises.  That was only two years after Washington.

            ‘They still show that on the screens, sir!’

            ‘I know it boy, I know it.’  The Blood Major was a Maim Major then, promoted after Washington, and his promotion to Blood was immediate.  Before Washington, we were welcomed by celebrating crowds eager for liberation.  The streets full of cheering civilians with flowers and gifts throwing themselves under our wheels and tracks, under our guns and blades.  Few stayed hidden in back streets with inappropriate T-shirts and had to be forcefully liberated their thoughts shameful.  Now it’s different; just us and Dickey.  No grateful civilians anymore.

            ‘Horrible down time, sir.’

            ‘Keep it together, you cock.  We will kill again.’

            ‘Sir!’  The Blood Major always knows the right thing to say.

            Horrible downtime.

Waiting to advance I eye the tree line, Blood Sergeant Baps McFadden next to me breast feeding in the cover of our half-track, solid riveted metal punctuated with plastic eyes, a baby steel dinosaur angry without play.  Its scarred windscreen and armor a fierce frown over the flames painted bright on the short bonnet, main lens a blank round nose. 

I offer her a cigarette and she takes one with a steady hand, eyes never leave the tree line, her baby quiet and suckling.  She was gone for one day when she gave birth in the Human Shield like she was gone one day when she conceived; every woman expected to do one day a year in the Breeding Church for conception.  We used to breed within our own squads; keeping it in the family but numbers are down now and we spread it about.  Every man expected to go too, during leave.  I will be twenty soon and I have not gone to the Breeding Church since before Washington.  It’s the pills.  In reality few go.  I take some more pills.

Skull Sergeant Alf Laden is sitting in the lee of a Media Tank with blood in his beard, every muscle tense.  Holds his Electrolux Media G50 with the ammo clip out dry firing down the slope with a finger that is trembling.  Holds the clip of three hundred an inch away from reload, red No light shows hazy through the smoke and gloom of the overcast sky.  His eyes riveted to the screen on the Churchill, his rifle clicking and clunking in its impotence.  The screen; tanks crews at work and then Dickey Enemy, his multiple death replayed over and over in the downtime. 

Jr. Lt. Ramirez, not my squad; Captain Clarke’s, a small red-eyed girl in baggy fatigues sticking a Black Blade into the ground over and over between her small boots.  Her teeth grinding working the muscles in her cheeks.  Blood leaks from her ears, face turns to the screen sneering as Dickey dies, liberated…no one likes downtime.  Captain Clarke sounds off his squad.  He has lost more than me.

‘Captain.’  He says to me in the downtime.

‘Captain.’  I say back, nodding.

‘Downtime, eh?’

‘Downtime.’

‘See those cows, Jesus!’

‘Yes.’

‘Seen Bennett?’

‘Bennett bought it.’

‘Jesus H!’

‘Yes.’  Me and Clarke, we go back all the way to Washington.

On the screens and in the flesh I have seen soldiers shoot themselves in the horror of downtime unable to not use their guns, unable to not be killing, their instant feeds replayed with citations of dedication and posthumous decorations.  

PLANE 1; VIENNA

mean lioness steward asking me if I want a drink.

I say

I DONT KNOW . . .

I dont; my science AWOL

on

board

a

sky

machine.

mean lioness steward gives forms out.

I say

DO I NEED IT? 

I take one . . .

seat

in

front

shoots

back . . . I say

FUCKS SAKE!

it retreats out my lap.

Johnny says

YOU CANT BE LIKE THAT MAN.

I say

FUCKS SAKE THO!

quiet arab crumpled everyday clothes

(now sky planes nothing special to him)

in

the

seat

next to me

indicating

my

pen

without a PLEASE.

LONDON

EGYPT

LIBYA

NEW YORK

he writes in his form.

now

some frightened numpty,

some daily mail reader,

some small mind paranoid

could

hiccup

with daft freedom and plane fear at his geography list

in these big bomb times

but

me,

I think hes travelling dark with oil money

and

big bombs been blowing

since

the

genius of china

or

balloons

over

vienna

1849.

GODS TERMINAL MASTERPIECE; THE FRONT LINE LIBERATION CORPORATION Part 5

‘NBCBN got a transmission problem with the Khyber Pass, Captain; they don’t want to lose out on pictures.  No big deal.  All going to plan.’

Everything is always going to plan here in the shadows of the great vehicles and in the shadows inside the great vehicles, a murderous herd of giant beasts grazing greedily north.  Everything is on film; everything is on Gods great screens; everything documented history as soon as it happens.  Banners at the bottom of the screen sometimes scroll the weather update, mostly overcast and raining, and the body count that’s been too big to say for a long time.  Rapidly escalating since Washington.

I pull my battle blouse tighter against the blowing wind, my pockets of culling grenades and bulky ammo clips a fine comfort, holding my righteous wrath still in stamped metal.  I pull the butt of my Electrolux Media tighter into my shoulder; wipe matter from the thick featureless barrel and the impassive lens.  I watch the tree line and the explosions from the Correspondents long guns shake the very earth we live on, shock waves come at me through the smoky air.  I smoke my cigarette through my gas mask, try to keep still, full of jumping nerves I sip water and pills from my canteen.

‘Sound off squad!’  I yell.

‘Sir.’  McManus from the half-track.

‘Sir!’  Youthful enthusiasm from Jr. Lt. Jr.

‘Johnson sir!’  Baps McFadden.

‘Fuck and Jesus, sir.’  Alf Laden, keen to get some.

‘Easy Alf.’  I say.  Danzig and the twins, Krychek and Hipowitz.  I was due five replacements and three from coming up the slope too.

‘What’s the delay, sir?’

‘NBCBN.  The Khyber Pass again.’

‘’Course it fuckin’ is!’

‘Down five, sir.’

‘I know it, Jr.’

‘Don’t forget Caine, Niven and Burton coming up the slope, sir.’

‘I know it, Alf.’

‘Down eight.  Fuckin’ Dickey!’  

An NBCBN screen on a Media Tank near us, the FLC Bush-Bush, shows the south, the black and red, burnt and bleeding valley. Fragments of steel and brass glint dull in the low light out there laying in the past; a valley finished with except for supply lines scavenging; legless survivors searching with lists, clouded with smoke and steam in the wake of churning metal noise.  A POX screen on the Human Shield shows squad after squad of 101^st Fodder Infantry sitting in the dirt by their transports, waiting, trying to keep still full of jumping nerves.  Themselves watching the screens showing carnage from further down Frontline on the big screens, shots of rockets standing poised for less than a second on tails of thick fire, twitching minds trapped in horrible downtime as the anchor talks on finger in his ear.

            The Blood Major climbs high up the Media Command Tank to smoke a cigarette and talk to Murder Major Singh.  Faces and profile on the Thatcher’s screens and elsewhere, the PA wails feedback as they talk into the field radio, the anchor with a prosthetic finger to his ear, thoughtful face speculating. 

I was eager to advance, tired of this open plain with its chill breeze bringing the smell of the enemy’s cooking up the shallow slope with the smell of the dead meat out there cooling in the too red dirt.  The Frontline, a long line of green spiky poetry engines ticking over in neutral, is uncomfortable in stasis.  Everyone in dirty green bulky with offensive tools holding their rage in check waiting under the stamped metal crucifixes high on the craft wreathed in smoke and clinging dirt, flares lighting deaths head emblems and painted swirls of flame. 

Tank crews busy gouging flesh and bone from their tracks fill the nearest POX screen split with a naval engagement on the coast, distant bristling slabs sailing in an ocean on fire.  Close up of the FLC Jutland launching silver jets.  The coast clotted thick with dead sea life washed up decaying.  The anchor commentates on the Divine Wind Air Arm attacks, those flyboys!  You got to be born out at sea on a Navy Fortress to get in the Air Arm; I was born on Frontline in the Breeding Church Human Shield.  At least I have Washington.

Sitting here I can hear babies wail over the ringing in my ears and the low bombs and the screaming silver Jets.  Hear deathware clink and settle.  Hear the breathing of thousands of tense soldiers eager to liberate.  The Blood Major climbs down from the Thatcher and walks over, smoking in the downtime, mask off.  He takes a drink from my canteen.

BEGGING MULTITUDE

all the faces
PEOPLES faces . . . 
dont quite
know
how 
to 
put 
it - they are everything/they are overwhelming.


theres WORLDS in their eyes/TIME in their smiles and moods . . . 


dont quite know how to put it; the begging multitudes
are
OVERWHELMING
in 
their
detail
perfection and mistakes/soft flagship docks in every room/every
situation
sails
on
creases deepened or softened
into
new
waters
or the same.

HOLIDAY

anxious I stroke all the shiny animals around,

beasts on the book shelves

silver fish on the floor

6oo

times.

manic and desperate I’m wiping dust off the mammals

hoover hair bales up from the sheep rugs.

I tidy

ALL THINGS

away.

all of them . . .

SHOWHOME

in here!

I’m doing this for one week.

a pensive parade of polishing,

pointlessly

policing

plentiful

kipple.

I down tools.  I tidy up.   

I’m carefully putting minimal affairs in clear order.

feel

like

I’m

Shooting Myself in my Own Head Saturday Morning

when

instead

I’m

Going to Soft Reptile Heathrow,  

to Catch a Plane, a Loose Crab . . .

my blue horse of insanity fills the hallway,

then hoovers it.

GODS TERMINAL MASTERPIECE; THE FRONT LINE LIBERATION CORPORATION Part 4

Captain Max Bennett, separated from his squad, standing far down the slope stabs himself in the chest with his Black Blade and screams at Dickey as he falls to his knees blending with the prone already there; a good point well made.  His promotion and decorations appear on the POX screens with his past profiled in a fast-rolling banner at the bottom.

To the east a Correspondent Tank detail backs up slowly and heads this way, the tiger stripe tanks buck as their big guns fire depleted uranium into the tree line and the jungle beyond.  The screens show briefly the feed from a shell hurtling forward and then the lurching feed from a tanks eye, cross hairs splitting Dickey premature.  The tanks low shapes of man-made muscle in the mist, straight barrels of machine death pointing accusingly without appeal. 

            ‘Hold fire, cocks!’  Shouts Blood Major Andy McNesbit into his shoulder radio. His voice crackles out of the PA over the slow heave of breathing soldiers and the high whine of feedback and hardware clinking on hardware. 

‘Hold.  We’re out of Dickeys range.  Stand by.’  He climbs down from the Thatcher.  I reload and light a cigarette to put in my gas mask.  The green Go light flicks on but I kept my finger still.  Horrible downtime but for the Correspondent Tanks getting some and giving some, Dickeys liberation at hand, great feed for screens I stare at.  Light Entertainment Units put down screaming wounded.

            ‘Johnson, you cock!’  Said the Blood Major.

            ‘Sir!’

            ‘You have leave due, Carnage Captain.’

            ‘Turned it down, sir!’

            ‘Good man, Johnson.  You can never go home again, son.’

            ‘No sir.’  Everyone turns leave down.  Leave is not about going home; leave is thirty horrible minutes laying in the noisy dark of a Breeding Church, like the Human-Shield or the newer Mandela, waiting for your downers to kick in with uppers in your sweating palm ready for when your time is up.  Female soldiers on duty in there conceiving noisily with young soldiers not yet affected by the pills or with Generals who have access to better ones.  Other female soldiers on leave giving birth even louder.  I can’t remember the last time I went on leave.  Or went to sleep.  Not since Washington.

            ‘Couldn’t take the down time, myself, Johnson.’

            ‘No sir!  I’m here to fight and die sir!’

            ‘We all are, soldier, we all are.’  Everyone fights and everyone signs up, everybody kills and everybody dies.  We are the 101^st Fodder Infantry of the Frontline Liberation Corporation.  A no frills outfit, the 101^st Fodder Infantry, we don’t sleep.  We are Gods temporary masterpiece alive and on fire with singular purpose. 

            ‘Life is Frontline sir!’

            ‘Good cock, Johnson, you said it boy!’

Life is Frontline.  The Frontline is a fat green stripe of wheeled city, edging forwards on huge tracks and sliding heavily on fat pillows of air.  Supply lines plundering the past straggle behind like filthy green tentacles, stretching back to disappear from sight in the dismal clouds of fallout raining ill on conquered land.  Hospitals on tracks lumber ten stories high, flat helipads on their roofs relentless activity of Choppers and flares and plumes of coloured smoke whirling in tight circles.  POX Babel Towers and NBCBN Media Centers great hovercraft controlling the feeds to the great screens doubling as silos and rocket batteries.  Magazines and munitions production crafts all earth hugging metal dinosaurs, Masters at Arms flying between them and the 101^st on the ground in Jetpacks signaling with coloured smoke and firing red tracers. This city a great fluctuating wave across the width of the continent and spilling into the sea on both coasts, all operated by invalid survivors stripped of rank and Gods glory; choppered back from the hostilities decorated and declared dead.

            ‘No one to visit back there, Johnson, no cripples to go see?’

            ‘No sir!’  The old joke still doing the rounds in horrible downtime.  The blinded and wheelchair bound forgotten and nameless working in the massive storerooms and magazines, running the mechanized production lines and great batteries.  The incontinent and incompetent maintaining the round spinning arrays and aerials swinging and twitching, pointing to heaven.  Those with prosthetics and those shell-shocked stupid work behind the POX and NBCBN screens on the sides of all the big craft on Frontline.  The anchormen are the only ones we see huge and commentating on the carnage, perpetual Warnage Reports, on the slope here and elsewhere down the hundreds of miles of the Frontline Liberation Corporation. 

            ‘What’s the delay, sir?’  Retreats, always short, are rare.  Policy is get stuck in; get some and give some; liberate.  

            ‘NBCBN got a transmission problem with the Khyber Pass, Captain; they don’t want to lose out on pictures.  No big deal.  All going to plan.’

SUNDAYS BELLS

up early/up all night 
fordy dagster sees mist out condensation windows sunday AM.
like narnia/like the sea.
he sees the 
SILENCE out there.

its beautiful of course and he smokes on the back step/piled up wet gold leaves/listens to the trees drip
and 
he
tells Diane.


BUT


inside is a 
RIOT 
in his head today/his mind is stabbing him in the stomach.


fordy dagster goes out in it/without breakfast or tea or washing.
seize the day and all that . . . JUST GOES OUT


BUT


he HAS to be told/no momentum of his own/ennui RULES all his years.
fordy dagster knows this
and
does
what hes told.


chipsticks and a red can from the shop fordy dagster is walking across a white football pitch
STOPS
when he can see nothing but the wet grass shining under his boots.


hes eating chipsticks/salt and vinegar/wipes hand on jeans.


hes smoking still/alone and nothing/white world would be heaven if the sun came out
and glowed
dull
life.


shadows appear and stake out the goal nets.


fordy dagster in the cemetery looks at the plastic coloured faces on new ceramic graves/prefers
the
old
stones
wonky in the weeds.  everyone who died in the 90s looks 70s somehow.


black iron fence is row of spears/a row of bad teeth/has 1000 wet white cobwebs sagging.
fordy dagster counts them
watched
by 
a
dog walking man.


of course all the time the church bells are ringing.
didnt narrator say?
cant you hear them?


fordy dagster been listening since they started/distant distraction 
chiming
in 
his 
unslept bed.


fordy dagster walks the pub mile up the hill/past the bench
of 1000 memories/past the pub 
of 1000 memories/up the car park steps
of 1000 memories.


fordy dagster is walking past where the shop was/shut now/they only had superkings and wholemeal and odd cake and
they
sat
in
the
back watching tv in their living room till you called them out to pay.


past where the phone box was where fordy dagster
used
to 
slide drunk 10p's calling dealers and faraway friends.


theres a bench.  its soaking wet.  fordy dagster walks to the church
always
aware a madman 
lives
up
here
tho he dont seem so made anymore/still, never say his name
or
he
WILL
appear.  hes done it before/he is legend/laughs like a donkey.


the bells are load and ringing and from this close they fill fordy dagsters whole mind/briefly he is nothing but bells/too briefly hes surrended/too briefly/leaning
on
an
old
wall/smoking again he opens his red can.


still early still misty/he pities the posh in their square town houses


(he remembers when one used to sell timber) 


and 
pities the lucky in their semis and cottages
this sunday
morning
racket
cos when close up like this
its
full
of bum practise notes and kind of awful.  so much better in the distance.
all charm gone/maybe inside its better?


its a pretty village but no morning for a hangover/fordy dagster
wonders
what
saturday 
night
village drunks do right now.


so fordy dagsters in the graveyard/sees a round vicar
with
a
shopping
bag/says MORNING.  like Trumpton up here.


hes standing in the old bit of the graveyard.
looks
like
Silent Hill.
looks
like
Sleepy Hollow.  tall weeds and old stone/low fence to the marsh.
mist dripping off the oak trees/unable to loose himself
in

the 
racket anymore
he
walks
down the hill
passing
the same 1000 memories.
moving
in
the
other direction.