Tappety-tap, tappety-tap, ting
[return]
He sits with narrowed-elbows
under fag smoke and cough –
typing – close to mechanical
Making English a simple press
That haircut – number two up to
the darkness – and I confuse him –
Mr. Orwell – with Mervyn Peake
Behind him – a rat-run trench
Fascists’ bullets sing out for him –
like they do now – for equal people
in other wars of shot hopes
Tappety-tap, tappety-tap, ting
[return]
Imperial confusions –
then he went to the heart of it
This man could pull a gun
as much as a metaphor –
although the former killed
I saw him – in my head –
back to the fighting – not scared
but engaged in his war
with words – once done with blood
The last man in Europe
would spit blood near to it –
that remote island of death –
spin in a dinghy on currents –
and he tells me – dead – to edit
Tappety-tap, tappety-tap, ting
[return]
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