memoirs of a poet

Galaxy of
[ ]
Tell me your
Despair,
When the men and the pitchforks
Scrap the streets for
Answers
Hiding on the “picket line”
Running in the heads of what I am going to do
Locals shout authority the high
Er ups mumble
under the breath countlessness
Flat 3 Green Courted
the dentist who pays the van-man
To rid him of her expense hush it
All a way
£100 lining the pockets of the bin with
Holes in them begging
Why is agency short lived?
Rats the size of cats dictate the
Dispute between the rubbish and the rubbish-er
Sparkhill/brook/valley/stream fend for a
Lack of Pride cool tones of
Shame overwhelm the road lady’s realm
pools of waste overflow choking
The freedom of a mother’s son’s air
Bidding war tactics amongst a call to
Prayer: “Do not corrupt the earth” (7:56) speak the
Lines of vehicles apprehensive and
Waiting like cows bidding
young figures to show a sign of
Help.

A lover’s old bed frame empties tins of cooking
Oil into the front bumper of a Toyota

It is carnage.

Next-door

A neighbour turns over
In the vein of mud marks
And smell clouded greed
The bull crowns horns when the
Dung-beetles and mice scurry
Amid the headlines looking for
Absolution.
Hand-held around the neck of plastic
Ties: broken piles of mayhem
Leftover McDonald’s boxes and the fishbone
your cat bit into, the antibiotic packets redundant,
From their line of work, man’s broken cables,
Torn hand-me-down graphic tee a brother gifted, Christmas
Presence at the chipped teacups singing garage
Junk yard of the universe.

And the refuse worker is up before the sun
Stuck in restless spaces where no thing fits
Sifting through rejects put there by Rejects

Spilling

out their misery onto the Miserable
Orange vests burning out the light tired
Trucks stifling along begging for day’s beginning
Debates between the misfortunate and the misfortunater
Life labelled blue and/or green carrying the
Weight of the village shrew:
Please park considerately flatten yourself to fit more in
your items correctly treat our workers with timeliness
Be done your offloading by 6:30am.

That overlording voice will say things like
“heroes” unsung
“backbone” unbroken
“our” purpose is valuable all while
Sleeping through the war of waiting at last
Clean streets safely neighboured communities of
Banners and Balloons (not recyclable) deflated
Pride for our “hi-vis” veterans
Occupying space between no
Man’s landing in the allyship of earth’s surface
And the sky tiredly banging their craniums
Hoping for a break thrown at them
Fair and reasonable settling for
pennies pity their noble rank.

All while the teenagers turn to grovel at
Green Lane Masjid asking Bishops for a sign of
Protest two years too late into
Unfair dealership rodents would look down on
disappointed solutions unfound but by
Those who need not find them.
Unschooled children calloused
Carrying the load deteriorating fact sheets
Lying on the ground unplaced by
Barriers crouched over the daffodils of
Spring.

Distress the Earth.

Dialogue
Diminished and saying:
“a strike was inevitable” versus
“clean our city” no one is winning when
Mice of Parliament beg their bidder
To end gloom infestation bending
Maggots and Vermin into comradery
Reconciled by sorrow,
Constant walks of dark of endings Labour
Threatens resolution recycling the tired
Lines of stagnation: “gone on far too long”
Signed the bottom of a letter striking the
Strike of policy and playgrounds where
Pays are cut in memorium of a “new era”
Governed by method acting political
Protest where the protagonist denies
their role in staging: the back-logged bin-bagged
Houses of Debate.

“Dear old Dirty” Birmingham hailing medieval
Misfortunes of decaying stigma
Filth perverting people looming
Back lanes and doorsteps and foot
Paths charted by mould that chokes
Air from stained-glass devotion buried
Illegally left behind lines of public or
Private national status
Laughing at itself when they
Prepare to “stay out” of those
Boxes wheeling around a rally
Crying unwanted attention from stage
Jesters in the Capital, negotiating bits of
Legacy gross with horrors of our
History.

The afterbirth of Disagreement fumes
Toxic with power struggle polluting
Ecosystems seeping contamination through
Neighbourliness commutes itself to
Work against tide that drinks the
Citizens silly with risk
ful fearing, Methane charges of burning
Biodiversity divided breeds of
Plural problems issuing cardboard boxes empty
Milk cartons to pour ourselves into small
Talk turned big egos fly tipping
Themselves to ruin.

The prospect of change

suspends

itself
Filling,
Falling land of a child’s bicycle
Handles on the likelihood of polluted
Caution paying
Tax on an asthma pumping statistical
miles of
CO2 driving in circles half a thousand
Times around the world
Record for the “warmest summer”
ing in pressure cookers deserted
Takeaway coffins lingering
Heat transient in steam rolling
Temperatures rise a spotlight on
July’s industrial revolutionary
“1 in every 5 years.”

The World has a Waste Problem,
Here’s How to Fix It:
Agenda needs to talk more
Consumption of Earth reads
Universal slogans of “buy” “have”
Eat me. Up the road baby can’t solve
Formula to terminate to
End all wars rapid with
Increasing mountains insurmountable
Tons of people starved.

meanwhile,

Messages are bottled in plastic bags of
Containers of wrappers of see life
Stopping in the sea-gulls drunk on material
Sponsorship –

Fixed on difficulty grim with
Outlook staggering at every day
Proportions wildly practicing
Gross conduct for cost-effectivity stock
Image generated machinery typing in
Binary: “Plants vs Zombies” enslaved by their
Maker of change climate and otherwise
Watching a world burn on its
Axis x y can’t they intersect at the Junction
Between Balsall Heath and Harborne.

City of a Thousand Tradings for a
Second-Place medal on the conveyor belt of
Impending doom –
Walking that alleyway of
Ghosts begging the street
To rid them of that rubbish pickings of what
matters in the Cosmos of
workers and slaves fighting
an ending that persists in never
changing for good.