Five Days After The Bomb

FIVE DAYS AFTER THE BOMB

We drove up from Oxford Street
and turned into Deansgate.
It took us thirty minutes
- but didn't it always? -
In between boarded-up buildings
bright cafés and bars
were open for business
and were bustling
as office-girls in summer dresses
crossed the street
for their lunchtime sandwiches.
Workers whistled on scaffolding
and even the Police smiled.

Near the Cathedral,
a group of camera-laden tourists
were gathered for a guided tour,
but I was unprepared for the sight
as we turned into Withy Grove
and looked up Corporation Street.
It was like gazing through a window
at some scene from Bosnia or Beirut;
the now so silent debris hanging.

The traffic lights change;
we climb Shude Hill
past the dark deserted Bus Station
on the day the IRA say "sorry"
and the newspaper hoardings reply
"HOW DARE THEY SAY SORRY"
to the city that survives and smiles.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 20th June 1996

Publications

1996 The Affiliate (Canada)
1997 MYSTERY OF THE CITY (Tring, Photon Press)
1997 Cyberscribers (Internet)
1997 The Plastic Tower (USA)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)

(g12)

iciest of nights
fish-net tights and mini-skirt
still they dress for work

© Gerald England

Composed: Ashton under Lyne, 24th January 1992

Publications

1992 The Plastic Tower (USA)
1998 Sparrow (Croatia)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)

*****
ledene noæi —
hulaholpke I mini suknje
one još oblaèe za posao

Gerald England

translated from English to Croatian by Marijan Èekolj

Publication

1998 Sparrow (Croatia)

Me and the other Gerald

ME AND THE OTHER GERALD

Yeah, yeah, I know what I said

I don't write poems about poetry

I don't write long rambling

discourses on all and sundry

but hell when it happened

something had to give or else

or else or else or else or else.

Karl Heiss started it -

sent me a copy of HIPPO

and there I am listed as contributor

but I'm not - Gerald Locklin is

and there are his biog. notes

under my name - it won't do will it?

And the same day

I get sent a review tape from SLIPSTREAM

and it's Locklin rambling on

the way he does about the minutiae of his life

how he fucks his students

and makes poems out of non-events

sure he raises a laugh or two

and some of it isn't that bad at all

Well I stuck the tape in the car-cassette player

and listened to Locklin as I went to work

I stopped at Mrs Jones'

she tells me how her washing-machine

won't do what she wants it to

asks me what my wife would do

I know what my wife would do

but I'm not going to tell that to Mrs Jones.

Back in the car Locklin is laughing at himself

Mr Iqbal wants to find out if the maturity value

of his endowment that comes up next year

will be enough to pay the dowry

for his daughter still back in Pakistan.

Locklin is talking shit about Donald Duck.

Miss Prendergast says she can't pay me this week

the Social haven't sent her her giro

and she's had to buy little Gareth new shoes.

As she bends to pick the baby's dummy off the floor

I'm treated to a clear view of her floppy breasts

and she smiles at me.

Does she want me to screw her in lieu of payment?

Well I've fifty more calls to get through today

Locklin is wondering if he can afford another divorce

He thinks he's living life, hey

Let him try selling insurance in Oldham

The tape ends.

By the time I've finished my round

I've got through two more tapes

but these are "Dolly Parton's Greatest Hits"

and "Brass Band Favourites"!

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Bardsley, 14th April 1990

Publications

1991 The Plastic Tower (USA)

1992 STEALING KISSES (Hyde, New Hope International)

1995 Boggers All (UK)

1998 The Bohemian Forest (Internet)

I Was A Teenage Werewolf

I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF

I was a teenage werewolf
and she was but the witch's cat
During the day she was a lithesome thing,
more than a slip of a girl
with jet black hair
and maidenly curves
At night she went home to the witch
became her cat
with fur so black
and claws so sharp
and I howled all night
for the loss of my love
for I was a teenage werewolf
and she was but the witch's cat
All night she meowed meowed meowed
as the witch rode high on her broom
seeking to revenge my daily theft
All night I howled howled howled
for want of the witch's cat
All day we made love made love made love
but she always returned as a cat
and I howled at the moon
seeking revenge for its nightly theft
for I was a teenage werewolf
and she was but the witch's cat

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Sheffield, 4th April 1972

1972 THE WINE THE WOMEN AND THE SONG (Pyle, Kenfig Press)
1993 The People's Poetry (UK)
1994 Plastic Tower (USA)

Not My Home

NOT MY HOME

Glasgow never had been my home!
  My home
was elsewhere;
but I did admit to living
  there.

There were times when I would almost
have called the city
  mine,
but I was constantly reminded
that I was a foreigner
  in that city.

There was a lack of communication
  which lay
not in speech,
  nor even
   nationality!

It lay perhaps
 in the dust of the streets;
 in the halves and half-pints;
 in the pseudo-religious cult of football;
 in the crumbling tenements:
it lay ingrained
 in the superficial.

Deep in the hearts of the city people
  there was perhaps
  no difference
between they
 and I.

Glasgow was not my home,
but I did admit to living there.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Glasgow, 1st August 1967

Publications

1970 MOUSINGS (Sheffield, Headland)
1990 The Plastic Tower (USA)