Wednesday 24 October 2012

Which Side Are You On? [11.]

seriousness, mostly
            then set humour times

       Some small boy looking earnest
                        holding mum's placard

             It's very hard for me to say:
             a. We're all in agreement here.
             b. We had such a laugh last night.

                           an icky knot
                     never wholly gone
                           in grandest swim
                     of everyone
                               
               Somewhere else
                  the making of a ladder
                       from the body
              that goes up with
                          rough guts stirring 
                  to stars: originary farts
                 punched eyes

        those rumours that won't be gone

     Back home we keep the red flag where everyone
     that needs to can see it
               (a little soiled, it must be said).

  and yet, it seems the question's begged,
                Whatever have we to look forward to?

            Old boring songs sung unashamedly.

           remember to pine for oldfashioned industrial
                   structuring and worked flesh            
         
              To looking forward, question mark.

                Gather and disperse.
                                                     
             [closing sentences will refer to image
                          in black and white - maybe winding gear
          with majestic clouds of due rain/ smoke going
                   up and out from chimney
                                         in misted over near distance]







4 comments:

  1. Back home we keep the red flag where everyone
    that needs to can see it
    (a little soiled, it must be said).

    One takes one's heirlooms as they come. However musty, what other nonelectronic cargo have we got. Better an old boring song sung without shame than heads hung in terminal silence. Still the big smoke does amount to the oddest nostalgia item. (Reminded of this by the literal pall cast over the decrepit household by an episode of burnt toast, three or four rainy nights back. It still hangs in the sodden air and no one is wishing those times would come round again.)

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  2. I am glad of this inheritance and even the songs against that growing silence. I hope the satirical turns in the series won't be construed as a denial of the culture that moved and shaped me.

    The whole nostalgia around those vast factories that swallowed up lives is certainly strange.

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  3. i'm still chuckling to myself about 'originary farts..' sigh. i've no excuse for myself.

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  4. Are you sure you're not a Britisher?

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