They promised us
when the Wall came down,
when the graffiti sprayed Berlin
and envious eyes stopped eyeing
what could have been, that that
would be the end of it;
there would be no more nightmares
as two suns fought for dominance
over European skies.
I believed you, I saluted the Greenham Common women,
I thanked in my mind the leaders
and whilst I knew there would always be war,
for after all Humanity is not humane
and as a species we are just dumb fucks
Never trust a man
who says
with arrogance or subtle manipulation
that his car is better than yours,
that it’s engine is more powerful
and full of the latest gadgets,
can go as quick as the Devil
collecting souls, or is a magnet for picking
up women; never trust a man like that.
Never trust a man who shakes your hand
and says with snide response,
and who are you again?
when they know your name,
who never once congratulated you
on doing something worthwhile,
The truth of it is,
that with his smug
insidious smile, his suits
that cost more than the Government
is trying to steal off the disabled,
off the poor, off anyone
but themselves,
his hatred, obvious and despicable,
his manner, rude, vulgar
and disrespectful to those
who call Liverpool their home,
their place of sanctuary,
and don’t forget if it was up to people like him,
none of you would be safe,
you would all feel his tarantula like offence
weave its web…the truth of it is,
It was a far cry from the wail that finished off
any love I felt for the town
that nestled between drowning rivers
and the place where the white hart died
centuries before, running out of steam
on pastured land and from where
a rotten borough took place;
gentle snoozing town,
I was out of place, despite having
the strongest of connections
in a cottage in Peter’s Finger.
This hamlet market town, the piper of county
thought and woe betide country way,
never step out of place,
Where is Hawkeye Pierce now when we need him?
How’s that global warming now
as a terrible storm of winter
looks to
follow the
damned and
the
final sunset over Korea…
Ian D. Hall 2017
Behind the podium,
nobody can tell if his tale is waggin’
as he tries to keep his Master’s jaw
from saggin’, this Mutt,
this hound with Washington Dog Rot
at the heart of his soul,
surely in pain, for how else
do you suggest his brain works,
when he can consider it O.K.
to suggest a chemical weapon
wasn’t used in Europe’s back yard
and that the bones this Mutt has now dug up
just don’t exist at all.
Come on Spicer, come on boy, roll over,
The taxi had ground to a halt
somewhere down the Kirkdale Road,
hurrying home now in jeopardy, now a part
of the routine
of travelling and being ill
as bones shook to death,
out of the corner of my eye,
I saw a young lad, no more than eight
and small, Gerard sized, packing a wallop
with a ball against his parents’
wall and no doubt making the vase,
brought as a present by an aunt with no taste,
all kaleidoscope and narrow lip,
wobble on a hastily put up shelf.
This would have been so much simpler
seventy years ago, distant edible Time
gone by, a hopeful spot of lunch
and various glass sizes of whisky
and beer filling my insides,
the White Hart
a mess of staggering proportions,
eye sight blurred and voice slurred,
I would have bowed to the words
of Dylan, the master of such dramatic pause…
and shuffled along my own feeble attempt
in which to capture a moment
in fag cut haze, breathing it in,
sideways glance to a booth where my words
I want to be on a private beach,
picking sand and shadows
out of my bellybutton, admiring the view
of a secluded castle on the hillside
and the dense wood
that nestles around it,
far from home
when the sunburn hits me,
when nations clash
over such stupidity
on the beach, as they play war games
with tin boats and daring rhetoric,
I want nothing more than to be sipping
a cold beer as my skin goes red
and peels,
getting sunburned in the Med
It is the beautiful lie
that makes us believe that Central Park
lays empty, photographed at four
in the morning and any sign
of lingering, full of early morning dew humanity
photo-shopped out,
leaving only the light green grass and the sound of silence
in a city of broken and disturbed dreams,
the snore and the wide awake call
of the alarms and the beautiful
that reside on avenues and in sewers;
for tourism depends fully on the calculated
and erasable lie.