i asked today
what more was needed
what more i needed to do
and i realised it’s the wrong question
quite the wrong one
because when all is done and said
and everyone seems now
to be scratching their heads
in fact what they wanted all along
was never to sing but be sung
there’s nothing more i want of here
and everything i want of there
and still i can
and still i shall
attempt to make a bit of a mancunian well
where pebbles may fall
and sounding not at all
for ages and ages
even so make a final splash
and allow me to give something back
to the country and people
who are so savagely bullying
that it’s hardly surprising their grand legacy
is called brexit
but even when i recognise this fact
and even when it’s all said and done
and even when in the uk
fun is just about
as prevalent as the sun
in parts of the world
where when they hate your guts
even garters ain’t yours to have
without them sticking their fingers in your eyes
so the bridge of sighs
becomes the abusive bridge of signs
in a place where mafias are invisible
only because nothing ain’t some kind of mafia …
didn’t yer know
and so that’s all i need to say:
my experiences on both sides of that sea
have been for me quite enough
and quite the same
involving and invoking
cruel and stupid men
who could’ve been people to be publicly proud of
and instead are people who privately sound off
without ever taking ownership
for the gaslighting they commit
hiding as they do
in the tribe that means
if you’re in you’re a lout everyone treasures
and if you out you’re the only brave one
they will ever see in their lifetimes
and this is when
i asked once more
and this is when
what i asked i saw
before the lazy slob
who considers himself so cool
actually in slovenly manner
befitting his kind of gruel
and coming from that old school
so very redolent of the fallen wounded
you’d think they’d express compassion
like a mother with a child and their milk
when instead the value of woman
for them never existed
because the women they live with
are not to be treasured
but beaten so awful
as if carpets trod regularly underfoot
and only sometimes taken and shaken
in order to deliver some sooty craven
because for this sort of man
the only thing he knows
is how to enforce his will
as if it’s good and always goes
when in truth this man and his pals
know only how to live in hell
and perpetuate it
for the object of their ire
and aspire only to the dirty dirty
of auden’s novelist
where hatred bursts out
like an explosion of pus-ridden lust
and so ultimately for me
this is my homeland
and ultimately for me
this is why i may no longer work here
and ultimately i tell you
what’s really what i missed all this time
was the opportunity
to rhyme something good
about the men who should make up bravely
and fine
this thing we call brotherhood
and fatherhood
and cousinhood
and all
and all
and all and all and all …
and so you do see what i mean
and so of course you do you do you do
and so when in fact the only thing
in gross reality
they’re capable of making up
without equally gross finality
are the lies and rank dishonesties
of their tiny little crimes
which their tiny little minds
do so enjoin our neighbourhoods
to participate falsely in
it’s cool yer know
to know them so:
these men of tribe
and winsome smile
who grin out of hatred
and depose out of love
for the beginning
and the end
that is the fallacy of brutes:
the brutes of britain
who will never win the day
because all they can ever say is:
“hello luv … give us a kiss”
as they miss the whole goddamn point
because when they do
and when they presume
and when they assume
it’s right to demand
all i can say
is i’m ashamed on two counts:
to be a man brought up
like so many others in the uk today
and to be a wider brit of smallest silly mind
which is all i can now think
is all i must now get away from
why my place is no longer here
and so wherever it might one day become
at least i won’t be sitting on my backside
in some parochial park
where only the idiots line up their beamers
as finally and totally
their sociopathic easing
repeats and repeats
unceasingly their fleecing
of all sensible community and true life lived
as they prefer to beat the wife
before night reaches another fleeting glimmer
of what it could all have been
if only the purposeful had even just once
reigned in the british isles
of foolish signals and trivial spies
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