Come on Everybody
Page 19
This is the Terror Girl of the Daily Mail.
Now Anna is being kept under maximum-security conditions in a man’s prison – Brixton. There are only two women in the prison. They are supervised by seven warders. They have no privacy. When Anna has a visitor, her conversation is listened to. When her lawyer visits her in her cell below the court, there is always a policeman in the cell. For three hours a day she is allowed to meet the other woman in Brixton jail. The rest of the time she spends on her own.
So will Anna be sent back by our rulers
to the white of the white box
to the silence of the white silence
to the constant silence and the constant white
to the whiteness of the silence
to the silence of the whiteness
to the whiteness of the whiteness
to the silence of the silence
to the whiteness of the whiteness
to the silence of the silence
to the whiteness to the silence to the whiteness to the silence
whiteness whiteness silence silence
Stop. You can stop them. If Anna is extradited or not depends on the Home Secretary. Write to the Home Secretary. Demand she be allowed to stay. Demand that she be treated humanely. And if you are German, force your government to be satisfied with its revenge, to drop its demands for extradition, to drop the case against her, to close the Silent Wing forever.
We will walk out from here
into the blue-eyed, brown-faced, green-haired world
our spinning, singing planet
but Anna who was Astrid lies chained in the box of the state
silent men in suits walk towards her with blank faces
they carry syringes and hooks and guns in their white briefcases
LET ANNA STAY HERE
LET HER WORK
LET HER REST
LET HER FIND LOVE
Activities of an East and West Dissident Blues
(verses to be read by the Secret Police, the chorus to be read by anyone else)
When I woke up this morning it was nothing o’clock
I erased all the dreams from my head
I washed my face in shadow-juice
And for breakfast I ate my bed
I said goodbye to my jailer and spy
Burnt letters from all of my friends
Then I caught the armoured bus for a mystery tour
To the street with two dead ends
and oh
I wish I had a great big shiny brass diver’s helmet
and I wish I had great big leaden diver’s boots on me
and I wish I had infallible mates upstairs at the air-pumps
as I wandered forever on the bottom of the great free sea
I arrived at my factory or office or field
I did what I was meant to do
I left undone what should be left undone
And all of the others did the same thing too
And you too? Right.
In the evening I read whatever should be read
Listened to whatever should be heard
And I taught the top twenty government slogans
To my golden-caged security bird
And I changed into the pair of pyjamas
With a number stamped on brown and black bars
And I pulled down the blind to keep out of my mind
The excitement of the stars
but oh
I wish I had a great big shining brass diver’s helmet
and I wish I had great big leaden diver’s boots on me
and infallible mates upstairs with their hands on the air-pumps
as I wandered forever on the bottom of the great green
flowing free and easy sea
Carol During the Falklands Experience
In the blind midslaughter
The drowned sank alone
Junta set like concrete
Thatcher like a stone
Blood had fallen, blood on blood,
Blood on blood
In the blind midslaughter
In the madness flood
What shall I give them
Powerless as I am?
If I were a rich man
I wouldn’t give a damn
If I were an arms dealer
I would play my part –
All I can do is point towards
The holy human heart.
Chile in Chains
‘Student demonstrators yesterday forced the Chilean Ambassador to clamber over rooftops and hide in a kitchen after they broke up a meeting he was trying to address at St John’s College, Cambridge. The Ambassador, Professor Miguel Schweitzer, was invited to talk to the Monday Club on diplomatic relations between Britain and Chile…’ The Guardian, 13 November 1980.
‘Any victory for the people, however small, is worth celebrating’ – a demonstrator.
‘I’ve never seen an Ambassador running before, so I’m not quite sure how to rate him as a runner’ – a Cambridge spectator.
There’s eight men in Cambridge called the Monday Club,
It’s like the British Movement with brains,
And they thought it cute to pay a sort of tribute
To the government of Chile in Chains.
So the Mondays invited the Ambassador
To St John’s as their honoured guest –
But he must come unto them secretly
(At the Special Branch’s special request).
The Ambassador was glad to get an invite –
He flicked off his electric shock machine,
Scrubbed the blood from under his fingernails
And summoned his bodyguard and limousine.
‘What shall I tell them?’ the Ambassador mused
As he flushed his better self down the loo,
‘Allende was a mass murderer
But Pinochet is Jesus Mark Two?
‘What shall I tell them?’ the Ambassador thought
As his car snaked down Cambridgeshire lanes,
‘That Victor Jara tortured himself to death
And Paradise is Chile in Chains?’
But as they were proffering South African sherry
The faces of the Monday Club froze –
For a mob of Lefties had assembled outside:
Socialist and Anarchist desperadoes!
So they switched their venue from the Wordsworth Room
To the Wilberforce Room, locked the doors
And the Monday Club gave its limp applause
To a pimp for fascist whores.
But the revolution never stops
(We even go marching when it rains),
And a Yale lock is no protection at all
For a salesman for Chile in Chains.
When the Left tumbled into the Wilberforce Room
The Ambassador was terrified.
His bodyguard shovelled him out the back door
And the Monday Club was occupied.
Oh they hurried him over the rooftops
And the pigeons gave him all they had.
Oh they hid him away in the kitchen
And all of the food went bad.
But the Left sat down in the Wilberforce Room.
The atmosphere smelled of shame.
Then a Don said: ‘This is private property.
Tell me your college and name.’
‘We didn’t come to talk about property.
We came to talk about the pains
Of the poor and the murdered and the tortured and the raped
Who are helpless in Chile in Chains.’
They grouped a scrum of cops round their honoured guest
And we jeered at him and his hosts
As he ran with the cops across the grass of the Court
Like a torturer pursued by ghosts.
He galloped with his minders to his limousine
But the stink of his terror remains
And everyone who watched his cowardly run
>
Knows – Chile will tear off her chains.
A Prayer for the Rulers of this World
God bless their suits
God bless their ties
God bless their grubby
Little alibis
God bless their firm,
Commanding jaws
God bless their thumbs
God bless their claws
God bless their livers
God bless their lungs
God bless their
Shit-encrusted tongues
God bless their prisons
God bless their guns
God bless their deaf and dumb
Daughters and sons
God bless their corpuscles
God bless their sperms
God bless their souls
Like little white worms
Oh God will bless
The whole bloody crew
For God, we know,
Is a ruler too
And the blessed shall live
And the damned shall die
And God will rule
In his suit and his tie
One Bad Word
(for my Black and Asian friends and their children who are threatened in the streets)
You call me that bad word
That one bad word
That bad word weighs a thousand tonne
That one bad word burns my skin all over
You call me one bad word
That word makes my mother
Cast down her eyes in shame
Makes my father
Deny his own name
Makes my brother
Turn and fight like a demon
Makes my sister
Spend her life in bad dreaming
So call me one bad word
And you don’t know what will happen
It could be tears it could be blood
I could be storm
It could be silence
It could be a rage
Hot enough to burn the whole town down
Could be a stampede of elephants
Through your back garden
And into your mother’s
Frilly perfume sitting room.
Could be zombie nightmares
Every night for the rest
Of your natural life
Could be all your food
From this day on
Will taste of rotten fishheads
Could be anything
Could be the end of the world
But most likely
This will follow:
I’ll stare at you
For one cold second
And then I’ll turn and walk away from you
Leaving you alone with yourself
And your one bad word
from
BLUE COFFEE
POEMS 1985-1996
YES
A Puppy Called Puberty
It was like keeping a puppy in your underpants
A secret puppy you weren’t allowed to show to anyone
Not even your best friend or your worst enemy
You wanted to pat him stroke him cuddle him
All the time but you weren’t supposed to touch him
He only slept for five minutes at a time
Then he’d suddenly perk up his head
In the middle of school medical inspection
And always on bus rides
So you had to climb down from the upper deck
All bent double to smuggle the puppy off the bus
Without the buxom conductress spotting
Your wicked and ticketless stowaway.
Jumping up, wet-nosed, eagerly wagging –
He only stopped being a nuisance
When you were alone together
Pretending to be doing your homework
But really gazing at each other
Through hot and hazy daydreams
Of those beautiful schoolgirls on the bus
With kittens bouncing in their sweaters.
A Dog Called Elderly
And now I have a dog called Elderly
And all he ever wants to do
Is now and then be let out for a piss
But spend the rest of his lifetime
Sleeping on my lap in front of the fire.
Questionnaire
Q. How do you do?
A. Like a bear in the Zoo.
Q. Why should that be?
A. The world is not free.
Q. Must it always be so?
A. No.
With our hearts and our brains
We will tear off its chains.
Q. You write poems, why?
A. Because I am shy.
In real life I conceal
Everything that I feel,
But in poems I shout
And my feelings fly out.
Q. Why do you write in verse at all?
A. I would always rather jump than crawl,
My tongue would rather sing than talk
And my feet would sooner dance than walk.
Q. What’s the difference between a walker and dancer?
A. Love is the answer.
Q. Why do you write?
A. For the love of life
And my friends, my animals,
my children and my wife.
I am lucky and happy –
Q. But how do you do?
A. Like a bear who dreams he is not in a Zoo.
Yes
A smile says: Yes.
A heart says: Blood.
When the rain says: Drink
The earth says: Mud.
The kangaroo says: Trampoline.
Giraffes say: Tree.
A bus says: Us
While a car says: Me.
Lemon trees say: Lemons.
A jug says: Lemonade.
The villain says: You’re wonderful.
The hero: I’m afraid.
The forest says: Hide and Seek.
The grass says: Green and Grow.
The railway says: Maybe.
The prison says: No.
The millionaire says: Take.
The beggar says: Give.
The soldier cries: Mother!
The baby sings: Live.
The river says: Come with me.
The moon says: Bless.
The stars says: Enjoy the light.
The sun says: Yes.
Golo, the Gloomy Goalkeeper
Golo plays for the greatest soccer team in the Universe.
They are so mighty that their opponents never venture out of their own penalty area.
They are so all-conquering that Golo never touches the ball during a match, and very seldom sees it.
Every game seems to last a lifetime to Golo, the Gloomy Goalkeeper.
Golo scratches white paint off the goalposts’ surface to reveal the silver shining underneath.
He kisses the silver of the goalpost.
It does not respond.
Golo counts the small stones in the penalty area.
There are three hundred and seventy eight, which is not his lucky number.
Golo pretends to have the hiccups, then says to himself, imitating his sister’s voice:
Don’t breathe, and just die basically.
Golo breaks eight small sticks in half.
Then he has sixteen very small sticks.
He plants geranium seeds along the goal-line.
He paints a picture of a banana and sells it to the referee at half-time.
Golo finds, among the bootmarks in the dust, the print of one stiletto heel.
He crawls around on all fours doing lion imitations.
He tries to read his future in the palm of his hand, but forgets to take his glove off.
He writes a great poem about butterflies but tears it up because he can’t think of a rhyme for Wednesday.
He knits a sweater for the camel in the Zoo.
Golo suddenly realises he can’t remember if
he is a man or a woman.
He takes a quick look, but still can’t decide.
Golo makes up his mind that grass is his favourite colour.
He puts on boots, track-suit, gloves and hat all the same colour as grass.
He paints his face a gentle shade of green.
Golo lies down on the pitch and becomes invisible.
The grass tickles the back of his neck.
At last Golo is happy.
He has fallen in love with the grass.
And the grass has fallen in love with Golo, the Gloomy Goalkeeper.
Blood and Oil
(to the British armed forces)
And once again the politicians
Whose greatest talent is for lying
Are sending you where they’re afraid to go
To do their killing and dying
You’re young and you’ve been trained to fight
You’re brave, well-equipped and loyal.
That’s why they’re sending you to Hell –
Blood and Oil.
It’s not to defend the Falklands sheep
Or Christians in Ireland
But to sit in a tank till you are moved
On a giant chessboard of desert sand
You’re not there to fight against tyranny
Or for hostages or British soil
But for economics, the dollars of death –
Blood and Oil.
And the soldiers you fight will be young men
With no reason to kill, young men like you
With beautiful families back home
And some with wives and children too
But no politicians will be there
When lungs tear and arteries boil