Being eighteen in 1982
was easier than in 2018 –
we had less stuff to plug in –
sniping critics were blocked
by the turn of a front door key
and loud parents muted by
the stereo being set to ten
Our whole past was aligned
spine out – but not in public –
on the overhead shelves –
bound in worn LP sleeves
to which we returned on those
solemn dead-end Sundays –
before it was switched on
It’s .. trying to construct
a society around production
for need .. not .. for profit –
.. meeting people’s needs ..
I half-quote Tony Benn
Once I was in his audience
whilst back home
my father rebuffed
Wedgie-bloody-Benn with
his gruff-spoken shun
’bout the Leftie-in-a-suit –
Benn spoke without limits
at the Co-operative Hall
way back in the slush-grey
twentieth century
of do-not-touch candles
and knitted gloves
in an endless civil war
of fists and banners
across flattened battlefields
far removed from us
Face-to-face politic
was the free-to-use fuel
against factory shut-downs
and mounting job losses
.. (Thatcher) did make war
on a lot of people in Britain,
and I don’t think it helped
our society ..
Now we trade insults
over sofa-space distances –
a hate we would not dare
to excrete out there in public –
no loud enough complaints
about neighbours’
ached-stomachs
with day-end hunger –
not of zero-hour contracts
worth near to nothing –
or the basic provisions
of dignity and stability
Instead we lament
the kiss of a celebrity –
caught on camera –
going viral like herpes
This land is cut open
under smartphone blades –
those knives blunt voices
which once were our aides
My envy device knows me too well
just from the lightest of my touches –
She is engineered to conduct risings
inside my mind from sparked jealousy –
ramping up to shrill shocks of hate –
which will then swill around my unfit gut
and tease those last good microbes
into a lurching frenzy of brain cramps –
then I want to steal their smug smiles
which beam from their side of the world –
and she will be working so very well
at keeping me in her malicious circle –
and I will add fuel to her high pyre
by posting my oh-so-perfect life atop it all
*Inspired by@guardian and Moyra Sarner – thanks for the ‘envy device’
They will soon take command
of the scattered pill boxes –
those red brick squatters
sat above river crossings –
built for strategic purposes –
and to fool the nescient
of a Maginot Line in England –
to withstand our invasion
There will be working parties
to restore the squat outposts –
drinking tea and sipping gin
as the last of Locarno evaporates
The new guard will take to parades
under friendly church hall beams –
taught to guide the landing parties
into concentration camps in Kent –
and you will shift the weight of anger
by reposting others’ indignant shouts
from your padded cell of social media –
which is how all of this begins
This phone feels lighter
after I deleted the app –
today I’ve restarted
with a single act
No pushes from Facebook –
that microscope
into others’ lived lies
and hashtag tropes
My thoughts were narrowed
by the blinkered view –
No yearns for ‘Likes’ –
No fear of peer reviews
You share too much
on Facebook –
that communicable disease –
With whom and where
you lay your bed
so everyone can see
They’ll envy
your immunity
from their own genetic shame –
you exude a happiness
as they nurse
their low disdain
How are you living your life
on a daily basis?
Is there space in your thoughts
where the over-quick reactions
usually ferment so that –
for a short time – you are only you
not that Bummer newsfeed junkie
Do you ever find yourself alone
and immersed in rich solitude?
I do not need to
Travel to California
To be struck by the low reek
From skunks,
Those striped creatures
Condemned by Jesuits as:
‘Not worthy to be the dogs of Pluto.’*
Here that crepuscular
Scavenger of the dusk
Lifts its too-proud tail
To squeeze
A malodorous attack
Upon us both:
‘The sin smelled by Saint Catherine
Must have had the same vile odor’**.
‘Hold your nose,’
I suggest to my wife,
But the foulness
Is already there,
Inside.
* **Thwaites, Reuben Gold, ed. (1633–1634). The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France 1610—1791. VI. Quebec.
Today, the re-climbed height
of another British summer,
when buffed-up cars are steered
on a weeded gravel drive,
slow on that unmade road,
to park at a once-grand house,
where wedding guests gather,
those love-hungry witnesses
at the dressed-up ceremony:
Ribbons, flowers and cloth
hide all manner of hires,
including those who serve
the seated, the laughing
and the old, and still so unsure:
The band’s equipment, that wire-fest,
has been readied for later,
for phone-captured errors,
which will be viewed across Facebook,
but not included in the bound album:
The newly-married, etiquette-dressed,
are set on display, arrayed for viewing,
itching under garter and wing collar.
