DC, be Aryan

 

Z is for Zeitgeist, when shit flies around

and calls for the trumpets of doom start to sound.

Y’s yapping for Yalta. Oops, sorry, wrong war!

Someone’s forgotten we’ve been here before.

X exacts Xeno – the ‘phobe’ will come later,

supported by dubious dossiers and data.

W’s with Weapons we’re certain are hidden

in mousehole and mosque, graveyard and midden.

V values the Virtues our military build.

How many body bags do you want filled?

U upturns Umm Qasr, the first town we’ll take

and we’ll take and we’ll take, when our honour’s at stake.

T trickles to Tony, pet poodle and friend,

who, pissing on Parliament, holds up your end.

S slams on Shock, so, alongside of awe,

Baghdadis will cop it. Add them to the score.

R rankles Republican – Party and Guard;

one party’s arranged for the guard to be charred.

Q’s quaking Qatar, so let’s draft an order

to engage friendly fire as we cross Iraq’s border.

P procures Powell and Israeli Power.

As the latter bawls, “Increase!” the former will cower.

O oodles with Oil, so rich and yet thick.

No, Georgie, don’t swig it, that’s crude! You’ll be sick.

N nudges up Numbers in collateral damage.                   

Civilians or soldiers? Women or cabbage?

M masses for Mission. Er, what is its name?

A Storm in a Desert?  No, sshhh, Desert Shame.

L’s lovely in Looting for dealers who lie

about shipping fine arts to New York, on the sly.

K kindles the Kurds re-taking Kirkuk.

We’ll make sure the Turks’ll bring them to book.

J judders with Journalists, many embedded,

though a few independents will likely get shredded.

I implodes in Iran, the next on the list -

another sad nation that’s got Dubya pissed.

H hankers in Hans, the Swede with a plan

to locate phoney weapons - whenever he can!

G grovels to George. What a prize for his nation!

His election, we argue, was no aberration.

F falls to Fedayeen far in the East.

Did the CIA order a moveable feast?

E’s the Élite, which we are; yes, it’s true,

and sandstorms are wet and intelligence new.

D drops on Daisies, cutters and all: 

we won’t let Shi’as keep more than one ball.

C cringes for Children like Ali, disarmed:  

we’ve sent out prostheses; the media’s charmed.

B bloats in Basra, where Brits reign secure,

no matter that cholera streams from the sewer.

A might have been Allah, but Allah’s a boor;

it’s His fault Iraqis pumped up this war.

Glastonbury Thorn

The tree’s in leaf and neat

where the robin sings

a lure close under thorns

while day ghosts by stones

cold as myth, clumped

in the yew tree’s shade

as grass falls down

a field by the Tor

where wind flicks

edges of haze;

in blurred time

each bough breaks white,

branches thicken

snow and the dead  

behind my eyes.

You are drawn

by the bird’s bright call.

Opium Days

Everywhere I look, poppies.

Ssshh, here the children are quiet.

Fields of them fade into mountains,

their hushed graves. A bloom of bombs

and you wear one over your heart.

Two months on, with each one marked,

God in the burst, red over the hills

and up through Europe, sleep

where you slept for a century:

today you buy dreams on the street.

Old Battersea 2

 

Here it is, my first school. Back in the 1940s it was known as Surrey Lane School, an Infants’ section on the ground floor and a Secondary part on the upper floors. It was situated at the other end of Bridge Lane from our house, fifty yards distant after crossing a side street, Shuttleworth Road, and away from the bombed Congregational Church that stood opposite where we lived.

I have some memories of those early school days and of having mixed emotions on my first day there. Although the teacher, Mrs King, was kind and the classroom had lots of toys and books, I still didn’t like being away from my mother. Naturally, the next thing I remember is running home from school at breaktime, in tears. I don’t remember what those tears were about, but do have an image of my teacher coming to the house and of she and my ma coaxing me back to school. I probably settled in after that as the next event that comes to mind is the school’s Christmas party, for which we were all allowed to dress up. My mother had made me a Christmas Fairy dress, decorated with our tree baubles. I loved it, but my mother made me wear my new brown lace-ups, rather than buying the soft leather slippers I fancied should go with it. More tears - and a very subdued fairy plonked in her socks at one of the party tables.

It was, I think, a good school. Though I could read a bit before starting school, as soon as I did, my mother took me to join the nearest branch of the public library and we made a weekly trip there to change books. My brothers were also enrolled as soon as they turned five. I can remember reading the Alison Uttley and Beatrix Potter books, though I’m not sure how old I was – certainly before transferring to junior school.

There were plenty of celebrations and school outings - May Day, Empire Day, Harvest Festival and its beautiful displays (sent off at the end of the day to Battersea General Hospital and a local children’s home), trips to London Zoo, boat trips on the Thames, among them. But always tears. At London Zoo, Guy the Gorilla spat at me after being teased by some of my schoolmates and it landed on the velvet collar of my new coat – tears. On May Day I was a last-minute stand-in for the maypole dance. Of course, I didn’t know the steps, tangled the ribbons and was sent back in disgrace to sit with my mother – yes, more crying. And yet I know I loved the school, so it looks like I only remember the bad bits.

At the other end of the Lane, our house was odd and huge. A mid-Victorian detached house, it stood at an angle to the road and had one of its bedrooms built over an arch at the side, under which ran a cobbled way down to a working repairs garage way past our house. There were attics that we used as playrooms and that led out onto a flat roof, but we were forbidden to play there, though once or twice we sneaked out. Our garden was small and oddly shaped, though big enough for a patch of lawn, a couple of flower beds, a stone cold-larder with an icebox at the bottom and my father’s pigeon loft. My mother’s pride was that she had two kitchens; a back kitchen, more of a scullery, used for washing up and washing, and a front kitchen where she cooked and which was big enough for us all to eat in. My father bred fantails and tumblers; the racing pigeons were kept in my Granpa Cook’s lofts in Latchmere Grove.

The house is long gone; compulsorily purchased by Battersea Council and pulled down in the 70s to make way for a GP Practice. The school was later named William Blake School when it became a Secondary School for boys. Later still, it was converted into very expensive flats in the 90s – all part of Battersea’s gentrification, while the indigenous population was siphoned off into high-rise flats. 

 

Moderne

 

I don’t see why they should be praised,

they’re only bricks and mortar

time from Time has not erased;

it gives them every quarter

to loom above us in the streets,

lumber that’s made over;

we’re taken in by present neats.

Ha! Clutter over clover!

There was a time when caves were fine,

huts stood a storey high,

but now that story’s out of line;

we’re left to heft a sigh

at plumbed-down depths of Gherkin, Shard

and tower, those emblems full

of bankers’ ants who’re toiling hard

for plonk and pumped-up pull.

It’s they who’d have these buildings stand

as firm as man’s desire;

the sane would sooner, torch in hand,

set the lot on fire.