Goodbye England

i don’t smoke marijuana,

drop tabs,

have mystical visions,

i ain’t Christ, or think i am,

and i don’t hear no voices from

out the silent skies.

i’m not that cool to hallucinate

like Ginsberg and Blake

with unfocused fantasies

and i’m also not that imaginative either.

i don’t read the papers,

watch tv,

snort coke, burn brown,

beat people up

or vote,

i make do with writing words

no matter how weak

and piss poor,

(i’m just a man)

(not academic)

(or a writer),

i make do with love . . .  no matter

how far away she is from

here

right now,

in arctic December -

with the drone of the heater, 

cat-eyed like a motorway

rotating like addiction, to work, routine . . .

i’m waiting here to negotiate

with immigration authorities

and medical bureaucracies 

for the get-out-of-uk-free card,

like Columbus

before setting sail with dreams

of better life.

f**k you nhs and your nazi hate

service lies,

although i’m an anarcho-pacifist

and read Tucker,

i want your thinly-veiled-national-security-teams

private . . .  secular . . .  with the priests

and police.

f**k you conservative conmen,

bank of England, queen b***h and co,

robbing the poor like reverse Robin Hoods

unashamed.

in Blinkland’s sugary sleep thieves become

loan shark shylocks,

money lenders, and takers

supported by law

and judiciary system satire fiction slavery

with rapturous farts

and planet of the apes style

gubernatorial fists.

my wife waits for me

over the ocean

eyes blue like the ancient waters

beautiful-creatures-first-flipped-out-of,

her mind -  

waiting there for me to read,

like the pages of a book,  (one that i like),

her body -

there for me to reach up for,

like a glossy design from the newsagent’s top-shelves,

descendant from . . .  goodbye England . . .

goodbye England

with your earl grey concrete lion heart,

reading

the distractions of establishment trash pulp

on the shelves of Smiths,

eating fish and chips,

shooting foxes . . .  

on world war two documentaries,

smothering your young

until they’re dumb and self-satisfied

industrial earth creatures

groomed on false histories

in schools that teach religious lies,

listening to pop-chart-kitsch,

as they symbolically burn Irish Catholics

every bonfire night,

unaware,

while fireworks fizz

into the skies,

and smoke pumps out all around

like the last dying breaths

of the dinosaur age

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[white raven]

Do you plan to write a Hello America? If so, I cannot wait to read it as this is so powerful.

[...]

. wow ... super spectacular poetry ... powerful ... profound ... detailed ... informative ... full of emotion ... and also charming and sublime ... especially because of these lines ...

"i make do with words, no matter
how weak and piss poor,
i make do with love, no matter
how far away
from
here
in arctic December"

. and ...

"my wife waits for me
over the ocean
eyes blue like a painted watercolour portrait,
and open to read, like a book, one that i like,
descendant from goodbye England...
goodbye England"

. no further evidence of the earnestness of the poet is needed ... :) ...

. for me, these lines are particularly brilliant too ...

"you conservative conmen, crime ministers,
Bank of England, queen b***h and co,
robbing the poor like reverse Robin Hoods
unashamed,
in Blinkland’s sugary sleep thieves become
loan shark shylocks"