KEITH HOWDEN

THE GOSPELS OF
SAINT BELGRANO

The uncensored and wholly
politically incorrect
conversations and  speculations of

James Bird Horobin.

An Icelandic Saga

Birdy, these days my once-a-fortnight
self-elected boozing companion,
Thursdays from eight to ten (his time
is limited) being, I think,
the day they let him out, told me again
his sufferings from trench foot
contracted downing Stukas. I don't believe,
white-haired and shaking a bit
(delirium tremens is why he's there,
I fancy) born about nineteen six,
he saw much fighting.  Birdy says
he likes life's little ironies. Tonight
he told me how his fat brother-in-law,
once Headmaster of a University,
signed on as trawlerman in some
fish-smelling and mysterious port
lurking his mind, his tub Pea Green
or Sea Green, uncertain, her skipper
bonkers who, two days out of port sets course
for icebergs, telling a creaking tannoy
his long-considered wish to bring
penguins to true religion. Bonkers.
Nobody bothered. At the first iceberg runs
his boat alongside, dressed in black
and white, arms flapping a crucifix
and jumps onto the ice. Not much
you can do for that sort, Birdy says,
although they brought him quacking back
in a strait-jacket. It's a story
Birdy loves telling of this lunatic
dressed up believing he's the first
to crack penguin vocabulary. And that's
what education does. It's all a plot.
How else explain some buggers
get the good jobs when anyone
can see they're loonies?  And by now,
it's time to go, his little freedom
limited.  Time Gentlemen. That Charge
Nurse wants him. But at the door he winks
life's little ironies.  Does nobody
in the whole trawler business tell them
no penguins in the Arctic, only
bloody great polar bears .....


On the Origin of Species

Birdy on his fortnightly jaunt (the
loony bus picks him up at ten)
coughs like a frog and tells me again
how mustard gas destroyed him, maskless,
guarding Biggin Hill. I don't believe.
More likely fags. What bit I see of him,
he's ten Park Drive an hour. Tonight,
in confidence, was telling me
how his fat brother-in-law -
once Captain of a torpedo -
works these days caddying, lugging sticks
for stockbrokers and bankers.
Only the other week was carting clubs
for some half-blind Bank Manager
needs pointing at the pin and has to play
with a bright yellow ball. Birdy, busy
these days demolishing the great
philosophers spent yesterday, he says,
debunking Plato. Tomorrow, Darwin.
Birdy, no Christian, winks and says
he's reconciled The Origin
of Species with the Book of Genesis.
Adam and Eve: no doubt created. Cain
and Abel also: begat. It must be there
the problem starts. Who could they marry?
What creatures were there for their mates?
Only monkeys. Birdy's sure of that.
And that's man's starting point. Why else
do we eat meat? That blind Bank Manager
strayed  into rough. They found him
addressing a dandelion. It's a story
Birdy loves telling, of this bloated
capitalist who can't distinguish
a golf ball from a weed.  And that's
what education does for them. It's all
a plot. How else explain a Cabinet
of puffs from Public Schools who always get
everything wrong ? Monkeys could do
it better. Ready now, Gentlemen -
that Neanderthal Charge Nurse
is spoiling Thursday’s anthropologies.
The loony bus is here and time for him
to go. Life's little ironies. Birdy
winks at the door, confirming us
the only two conspirators who know
the secrets of Cabinet Government and
humanity’s simian origins.....


Metamorphoses

Birdy, this Thursday's, got it bad.
Ack-ack. Ack-ack. Coughs frogspawn
into a jelly handkerchief. Sounds like
Dortmund's defences. Chest droning on
one engine, ready to ditch in
his pint's North Sea. Ack-ack. Ack-ack.
Tonight he's wishing he had
the energy of that bluebottle he chased
all afternoon.  Birdy reckons they must be
God's perfect creature, nature's answer
to nuclear fission. Ten licks of shit
and they're away, stocked up for
a whole day's bombing and banging. If
transmogrification exists, that's how
he's coming back, he says.  But not
a frog. Ack-ack, he's coughing. Jim
Pilkington could stun bluebottles
and tie messages to them with a hair.
Birdy swears it's true. He's watched them
droning lopsidedly and towing
their little drogues.  Ten licks of shit
he says, and he'll be back here ready
to buzz the bloody Cabinet. Or better still,
a wasp.  Crawl into Thatcher's
Gorbachevs and stuff his sting
into mount Reagan.  And the same thing
for that mad Matron. Soon have her
dancing and squealing when he lances
her pilot light. Worth being squashed for.
But not a frog. Ack-ack. Ack-ack. Jim
Pilkington used to write Beer
is Best and Guinness is Good  on
those little drogues. Birdy says, a case
of arrested development. Plenty
of physical talent and less
than a frog between the ears. Birdy
envisages a million bluebottles
stoked up on shit and pulling
their little drogues through Jimmy Young
polluted air.  On every one
a diatribe on bloody Thatcher's
total malodorousness. Ack-ack.
Ack-ack. It's Thatcher brings it on.
He might come back as one of them,
but not a frog. Jim Pilkington
used to inflate them with a straw
shoved up their arses.  And what about
the whole bloody Cabinet? If they
were insects, no doubt he's coming
back as an aerosol to squirt
the lot of them.  Time Gentlemen -
That Charge Nurse should be metamorphosed.
The loony bus frogs at the door.
Its one-legged driver won a fortnight's
skiing from competitions on
some soap powder. Tore up the tickets,
said he wouldn't want to spend two weeks
of holiday with all those buggers
he spent his time avoiding in
the other fifty. Ack-ack. Ack-ack.
Come on Birdy.   But not a frog.
He might meet Jimmy Pilkington. One squirt
from him transmogrified, he'd make
that Cabinet squirm!  We can't wait
for bloody ever Birdy.  Then, no doubt,
quick as a flash, there'd be a law
banning aerosols. No doubt some Saatchi
love of the environment, no doubt
that pious fishwife howling Rejoice
and oozing Finchley's concerns about
the ozone layer .....and frogs....


Annunciations

Met Birdy boozing his usual
Thursday freedoms. Tonight displaying
the healed scar of a head wound he got
from a Heinkel's bullet. I don't believe.
More likely where he cracked his skull
the night the loony bus went missing
in woodland. Birdy was telling me
that his fat brother-in-law
(once stoker on a jet) threw darts
at Hobbies and Handicrafts to find
some pastime that would help him fill
his boring life. Bird Watching won.
Birdy thinks that's a hobby full
of useful knowledge. For instance, did
I know that only men and owls
have subcutaneous fat? And did
I know that pigeons carry compasses?
That circling buzzards can discern
a mouse from three miles up. Birdy,
this week, is on the Renaissance
Old Masters. Tells me how he's puzzled by
the Annunciation. Just how did God
put Mary in the club?  Sperm streaming
in gobbets through the sky? A packet
of it, with instructions for
the Angel?  Or else some miracle
trickier than that?  Quick off
the mark, he says, those Catholics.
A Bishop and a Priest already there
at the Nativity. He doesn't care
for owls. Pigeons he hates because
he saw a line of maggots heaving
six hundred yards come out of one he shot.
Buzzards are different. He's quite
impressed by them. Right, Gentlemen,
your coach awaits .... it's the Charge Nurse
whose Annunciation should have made him
something that raptors live on
calling him home. To see a mouse
from three miles up, he says, they must
have eyes like hawks ....


Garibaldi Rides Again

This Thursday, revolution's
burning Birdy's mind.  He likes it.
Batter than always being banged
home on the loony bus by that  fascist
of a Charge Nurse. Head full
of buzzing bees these days, he's shaking
more than before. He says it's shell-shock.
Came on over Dortmund. They offered him
a blighty. He refused. I don't believe.
Probably DT's the way he puts
it back two hours a fortnight.
But revolution's on his mind.
Why is wet quicker than dry? Why did
his mother stop him from swimming
because his costume was wet?
Birdy says it's natural politics,
the built-in fascism of things.
That fat brother-in-law
(once stumper for Everton) went on
a holiday in Italy and saw
a million statues. Birdy
reads anthropology and it's
a tale he loves to tell of these
misguided missionaries approaching
a bunch of Maoris. We bring you
a bargain, they said. The only true
and absolute God. Performs miracles:
can raise the dead. Turns water
into best quality wine.
Sounds pretty good. Maoris would like him.
Sounds just the sort of God
we've waited for, they said.  Who is he?
Is he with you?  Where do we meet him?
Not here at the moment. When did
he do these things? Not recently.
Which of you saw them done?  It's not
as simple as that ...Aha, we've got
a few like that ourselves.
That fat brother-in-law
saw Garibaldi's statue central
on a lawn bestriding the horse
of LIBERTY. Birdy likes liberty
There was another notice underneath:
DO NOT TRAMPLE THE GRASS. Birdy
says that's what education does.
Maoris know better. Liberty
always loses. Nurture always gets shat on
by nature.  The house of order
sits on shallow foundations. That's why wet
is quicker than dry.  Come on,
Gentlemen.  Your armoured car
awaits you. The Charge Nurse wants him,
rightly suspecting revolution's
bestriding his brain. Birdy's
not stopping now though. That's why
newsagents cram cruise liners,
why butchers drip cash, why grocers
leave millions, why bonused bankers
vote Tory.  That's how we got Hitler
and Thatcher ....


The Stuff that Kills Germs Dead

Birdy tonight was hopping
buttock to buttock. He blames
shrapnel in his bum, picked up
dog-fighting Messerschmidts.
I don't believe. More likely piles.
That fat brother-in-law
(once look-out on a submarine)
now studies language. A wartime
poster: Always Wash Your Hands
After Passing Water Or Stools
was the start of it.  What was
so dangerous in passing glasses
of water ? And were stools dirty
from being sat on?  It spoiled
his table manners. And what's Public
about Public Schools?  What's
this fatal disease that budgies
only sometimes die of?  What's this stuff
that kills germs dead? Is there
some other way of killing things?
But Birdy's philosophical.
It's speculation night come round in its
due cycle. What's buzzing in him
is parallels he's dreamed between
atoms and solar systems. We're a bit
of some gigantic body. Could be God.
More likely, since it’s badly designed
to be some scheme of Matron Thatcher.
His stellar calculations
and mumbo-jumbos of astronomy
have constellations twitching
like buttocks. Birdy believes
we're part of something's leg.
Reckons he'll make the world's
most powerful microscope and stare
into the unimagined reaches
of someone's leg. Something minute,
manlike in there, he thinks, might be
staring towards him through its world's
most powerful telescope.
Come Gentlemen. Your time is up.
Your sojourn in this den of vice
is at an end. Shift your arse, Birdy.
It's time, almost, to mount
the loony bus throbbing outside.
That fat brother-in-law, he says,
wants to know why, if notices
insist Dogs must be carried
on elevators, how come
they're always full of people
not carrying dogs ....


The Rhetorics of Constipation

Birdy's constipated.  It's a sign
of greatness. And he knows
a joke about it too. It's that Thatcher Matron
rationing his Park Drives, or else
those starlings. Once he recovers,
she's in the shit, but he can't mount
offensives till his ammunition
wagons come through.  There was this squaw
went to the Doctor. 'Big Chief no shit.'
She got a laxative pill.  Luther
was constipated. It's the sure sign
of greatness. Birdy thinks Gengis Khan
must have been stogged-up too. That fat
brother-in-law knew an Italian
prisoner of war. 'Twice times,' he said,
'il Duce Mussolini bosses us.
First times he damn good mans and do
very big goods. But then two time
is bloodyfuckingcunt.'  Birdy says
it's obvious il Duce didn't have
long-jams in his bum.  That squaw
comes back again. 'Big Chief no shit.
and gets herself an even bigger
laxative pill. Jim Pilkington's
newsagent Uncle suffered from it.
Blamed his wife's oatcakes. Six shitless
weeks he was groaning and straining
in his allotment. Was Julius
Caesar constipated? Birdy
reckons he was. Do I think Hitler
was like that too? And was that why
his Generals gave him that bomb
to clear his passages? The bum Doctor
gave Jimmy's Uncle only another week
before he burst. He vanished into
his shed in the allotment and came back
trouserless, triumphant, dancing
his garden path. 'The Lord be praised.
Eureka. Hallelujah. Shifted it!'
Something that looked liked a Daschund
was lying behind the shed. That squaw
comes back to the Doctor. 'Still Big Chief
no shit. She gets an enormous
laxative pill.   Was it the same
for Alexander the Great? Then that shop
of Jimmy's Uncle hit hard times.
He blamed it on a flock of starlings
fouling his posters. In desperation,
started to feed them daily
on his wife's oatcakes. If constipation's
the sign of greatness, where does it put
that woman squawking Rejoice and daubing
England with shit? And what about
Reagan? He might act constipated
if his cue-card told him. When that squaw
came back with 'Big Chief no shit' again,
she got the bloody bottle. No more
trouble with starlings. Flocks of them
lined up on roofs frantically bashing
their beaks on chimneys, doing
their damnedest to crap.  It's Time,
Gentlemen. That bloody Charge Nurse
 is such a shit he should be used
as a cure for constipation.
Shift your arse, Birdy.   The loony bus
is full to bursting and you have to shout
Genuine to get yourself a seat
in the loony bogs. NO SMOKING notices
everywhere else. That fascist Matron
does it on purpose.  Come on Birdy -
That squaw came back again and said
'Big shit no Chief.'  As soon as he gets
his ammunition back, that Matron's
going to be in the shit ....


A Matter of Fungus

Birdy, a month absent, he says
trouble with his head, was back
this Thursday, a bagful
of mushrooms seeping his beer mat.
Tells me, tonight he meant to bring
the Iron Cross he won. I don't believe.
That fat brother-in-law  (now factor
for rubber nails) has sprouted
an aluminium leg constructed from
old Spitfires. I think not much
character consistency. Was in
some snooker tap room and had just
potted the green when a mad dog
bursts in. Everyone jumps on chairs,
except old tin-leg can't. Birdy's
on mushrooms tonight, believing
that they're the morning's distillation
of stallion sperm on earth.
A case of parthenogenesis, he says.
Where that one came from must be
anyone's guess, although he's done
the Virgin Mary business. Toadstools
drop out of wild night creatures.
into receptive soil.  It's what
produces which we need to know.
Moles must make truffles. When they
cluster on trees, it's obvious
birds have a hand in it. That mad dog,
with twenty pairs of legs to go at,
picks out two. And of the two,
it fangs the tin one. It's dogs
produce the red sort, look like pricks.
He's sure of that. But teeth stuck into tin,
not flesh, they can look surprised.
He likes life's little ironies.
But it's what happens - it's
the burning question - to human seed.
There's the profoundest mystery,
the last enigma. What do we make?
Uparse, Birdy . That Charge Nurse
is a fucking poisonous sacrophyte.
It’s time for mushroom crisps. Or
helicopter flavour. It's a joke -
they're always plane. War in the air
is with us again.  The loony bus
and one-legged driver wait.
Another Thursday's done and that's
what education does for you. How else
a Parliament full of pillocks, look like
they've been dropped out of dogs
and can't stop wars .....


Everyone's Shit Smells Different

Birdy, this Thursday bandaged
fingers to wrist insists stigmata,
some wound picked up fire-fighting
a Wellington over France. It's geodetic
burning his mind. I think I see
connections, but don't believe.
The Charge Nurse tells me next time
he'll use the toaster differently.
That fat brother-in-law is now
distributor of pigeon-milk. His leg's
grown flesh again, the aluminium one
forgotten. These days, photography's
his hobby. And Birdy's too, I think,
The Sun bulging his jacket pocket.
How come, he says, that photographs
look like the thing they're of?
He stays right handed in them. Mirrors
play tricks. It's another piece
of Natural Fascism. Why is it
he's kack-handed in them? And why not
upside down as well?  That's one
for education. But it's definitions
of the self bugging him now. Why is
the self the self? He's been at Jung
and at The Sun today. Page Three's
attraction's reach him. When someone's self
is bulging tits he likes the chance
of scuppering confining self, he says.
That's best not thought about.
It's Natural Fascism.  And cameras
can't lie.  Today's Godiva needs
his geodetics, cantilevers. What seals
him him, me me, holds us together?
It can't be just the bumps and bits
squelching in skin. And where's the soul?
He's seen one photographed. A sort
of burning blue skimming in ether.
More likely fag-ash on the negative.
How can this happen : in his ward,
twenty three inmates always noshing
the same nosh, forever drinking
the same bloody tea, and yet
everyone's shit smells different?
Somewhere in that, he says, must lie
the truth of self. Like rays or auras
comes emanating out, solidified by
the silver stuff on films. Again, it's
Natural Fascism. That fat brother-
in-law's been winning competitions.
A snap of two Policemen scratching beneath
a poster at the Monkey House:
WAS DARWIN RIGHT? If monkeys asked
questions like that, he says, we'd give
them souls as well. I tell him
they still come out on photographs.
It's a daft question. That's what
education does for you. And now It's time.
Gentlemen.  Uparse Birdy.  Out.
That Charge Nurse needs a colostomy,
a noose to strangle his little polyp soul.
The loony bus is now performing
its Thursday throb outside. Why else,
he wants to know, and winks, don't
we put Thatcher on Page Three? Bangs in
his last Park Drive and fumbles
with bandaged hands to meet the match.
With photographs like that, he says,
Tory tits pointing the road to hell,
no need for bloody toasters ...


New Adam Christens His World

Birdy, this Thursday, for the first
time I remember, uninjured.
Whako!  he says, and Jolly good show,
twitching a moustache fashioned
on B-films dog-fights and again
piloting some spiritual Spitfire,
bullets of spittle, trailing
smoke of Park Drives from falling
Junkers' engines. It's only words.
Yes, words, tonight.  Why aren't they
the things they name? His pint, he says,
is GLUB, not beer, tonight, his chair
GOCKET. New Adam christens his world.
With a set of new words, Birdy
reckons we could reshape things,
except, he says, world won't behave
as words command. Whako!  That fat
brother-in-law, now risen in the world
to foreman of a chip foundry,
is taking chemistry lessons: going to make
Invisible Juice. One drink of it
and you're unseeable, one aerosol
squirt, things turn transparent.
Already, in his head, Birdy's
been goosing the Queen while she's
trooping the Colour and he's been
groping those Page Three girls
with immanent hands. It's a world
of glorious dreams. but can't be made
with words. Birdy says language
in a world that has no language
 makes us the miserable architects
 of our own ruin. Where that
 one came from, I don't know.
 Better to be without it. Grunts
 and squeals enough. Jolly good show.
 No aspirations then. He's been
 at existentialism. Bull in
 a china shop, I tell him. Birdy
 threatens my GLUB and GOCKET. Isn't
 it plain that God's illiterate?
 No bloody doubt invisible. One swig
 of that fat brother-in-law's unmade
 concoction and he could be
 the world's greatest spy - sneak into
 that Matron's bedroom, piss on her whip
and jackboots : invisible Park Drives
under the NO SMOKING notice.
But best of all, he dreams, in front
of the whole Conservative Conference,
haul Thatcher's knickers down. Whako!
Invisible, he says, would find us
truth beyond words. It's Time,
Gentlemen. Uparse, Birdy. I’ve been
watching you.  Suddenly disappear
and give the loony bus a miss.
Time, Gentlemen.  That's really
what education should have done
except that it's run to keep that lot
of Cabinet pufters happy, the rich
rich, the poor poor and God's
in his Heaven and what the hell
is right about this loony world
of nuclear GOCKETS and GLUBS
he dropped us in ....
 

Trivial Pursuits

Birdy's all twitch tonight. He says
it's nervous chemistry, some Natural
Fascism bursting through. Probably
Hitler suffered the same. No hope tonight
of any consistency. Trivial Pursuits
is stalking his mind. He's Captain
of Loonies versus Staff. In ten minutes,
we've won El Alemein and Stalingrad,
fought the Ardennes. Birdy was there
and Thatcher wasn't. That's important.
That fat brother-in-law went to
a Fancy Dress but couldn't afford
a costume. Went painted yellow in
a lump of cloth and called himself
Chink in the Curtain. Didn't win.
Birdy says when he was a kid
his local Vicar was Chinese. His mind's
a clockwork maze, an ostrich straining
in a budgie cage. Shoves in
another Park Drive and downs a pint
every ten minutes. That Vicar
had twins, Chipstick and Chopstick.
Chipstick, scrumping for apples, lost
his manhood on a pointed railing.
But what's intelligence? He needs
to know for Trivial Pursuits, to pick
his team. It's only static
electricity and chemical reactions.
Chipstick could shove a light-bulb
into his bum and make it glow.
Birdy says, nowhere else for all
his chemistries to go.  Why is it
pyramids sharpen razor blades?
Did I know Billy the Kid's
grandmother lived in Accrington?
Do black men make black sperm?
Do I know the number of chirrups
a snow tree cricket manages
in fifteen seconds and add forty gives
the temperature in Fahrenheit?
But not in boiling water. Why is
a rose a rose and why does Adam
have such a big prick? Serve those
Page Three girls if someone got
among them with that! That old diddy
in the far corner is anybody's.
Offered it to him on the bus last time.
It’s time, my trivial gentlemen.
I’m in pursuit of you. Uparses...,
Birdy’s eyeing that Charge Nurse’s fat arse.
No point, he says, shoving a bulb into that
not much electrical or intellectual
juice up there.  The loony bus
and the old diddy wait. Chopstick
was posted on a pew beside a diddy
who looked like that. During the Sermon,
she farted like a trumpet, nearly blew
herself out of her corsets. Then,
quick as a flash, he says, she turned
and belted Chopstick, calling him
a filthy boy. And that's what
Natural Fascism's all about. Chopstick
got thudded. Come on, Birdy. Can't wait
for you for ever. Time, Gentlemen -
What about Epstein, Einstein,
Gert Stein, Beer Stein? It's Trivial
Pursuits. Birdy says that's what
education's for. To make old diddies
smart enough to fart in public
and get away with it, to keep
those fools on top who start on top,
to fill top jobs with prats who'd lose
to loonies at Trivial Pursuits ....
 

The Phlogiston Theory

Birdy tonight's got eczema, says it
was the day he bombed Hiroshima twitched
his phlogiston. I don't believe.
It's the full moon and no avoiding
religious mania. Birdy smoking
Park Drives for censers, agapes
of ale and crisps. And soon, it must be
the word made flesh.  Birdy has eyes
on Circe. (His name, not mine.) He fancies her. 
She might, he says, make bed-room for him.
He told her, he says, that he’d honour
her urges. She called him Antichrist,
So far, no word  made flesh.
That fat brother- in-law rose to be
acting Corporal in the Home Guard SAS.
Made a gun out of a floorboard and a bayonet
from a six inch nail. Was hired by Thatcher
to kill trade unionists. Birdy
says, years later, he met  Chipstick,
newly dropped grinning from an ambulance,
all vital functions where previously
 speared by a railing, restored, his
 newspaper headlined : ACCRINGTON
 POLICEMAN HAS BIGGEST BEAT
 IN LANCASHIRE. That's appropriate.
 But where is Heaven?  Does some
 warm dosshouse wait for us
 on Jordan's other side? What colour
 is angel shit?  Or do they? Eternity's
 the nitrogen cycle. We must be
 each other's crap, he says. That makes him
Jack Bovis - who used to fertilise
his cabbages with the stuff he dug
out of his cesspit. Birdy ate
two weekly. Another headline he found
said MAYOR OF ACCRINGTON
GIVES SECOND BALL FOR CHARITY.
That's also Chipstick's case, he says,
Out of the ambulance and heading off for
his first ever wank. But something -
something that's indivisible -
maintains us. It's this phlogiston,
They burn you or rot you. But they don’t tell you.
 to get it back from you. It’s kept
In barrels under Buckingham Palace. It’s
unique and indivisible stuff
invisibly binding everything.
Some new port his loony boat's
sailed into. How else, if cells are
forever dying, do we stay the same?
A full moon is bulging eyes tide-drawn
to Circe. That fat brother -in-law,
ordered to water the billet gardens, didn't go
because it rained. He got demoted, told
he should have worn his oilskin.
Uparse, Gentlemen. Doctors are fools.
When they castrated that fat Charge Nurse
they threw the wrong bits away.
Chipstick—or was it Chopstick? - survived
to tell the tale. And education
doesn't work. Those bloody liars
in government who fleece us
on fags and ale each budget  keep all   
the phlogiston for themselves,. Full moon
quivers the loony bus and Circe
awaits him, teetering near
the tap-room door. Birdy says God's
a fascist and on her side,
gloating his joke of sex.  But better -
Uparse, Gentlemen. Your coach awaits.
Buckingham Palace next stop...
Circe than Thatcher ....

The Gospels of Saint Belgrano

Birdy's seen the light. He's been
converted. Whatever wazzed
Saint Paul on the Damascus road
was nothing to this.  That's a dud match
beside this conflagration. Voices
spake unto him, Could have been Heaven's:
more likely Jimmy Young's egregious
proselytings.  It all comes from
those mock elections practised in
the bin last Wednesday. Birdy stood
for the Conservatives. He's promised
jackboots for Matrons; bigger whips;
more rawhide public floggings; flashier
hangings; a bigger, brighter Sun;
more Public Schools; an utter lack
of education; positively
no health care; and legal repression.
The buggers voted for him. In
The Gospels of Saint Belgrano,
Heaven's like that. Birdy wants to know
if loony bins are where they take
their MORI samples from. Also, he knows
another joke. This Vicar in
some crap hotel gets pissed and strokes
the red-haired barmaid's bum, then asks
if she's coming to bed. 'And you
a man of the cloth,' she says. 'It's in
the Holy Book,' he says. 'The Gospel
of Saint Belgrano.' Birdy's glad
God's off the Secrets' List. Once, Alice
Naylor was in a field asleep, her thighs
invitingly apart. Birdy says
voices spake unto him. Saint Belgrano
said GRAB. And easy Alice lay there
big as a battleship.  It was the voice
of Saint Belgrano. In his Gospel,
Jesus gives all the loaves and fishes
to two fat stockbrokers. That Vicar
begins to squeeze the barmaid's tits.
'And you a man of the cloth,' she says.
'It's in the Holy Book.' Belgrano
says, 'Love they neighbour as thyself and do
him down. Be hateful. Then it's logical
to hate your fucking neighbour.' Birdy
crept up on Alice, Saint Belgrano
still nudging him GRAB. And so he grabbed.
Jumped on her, half asleep and in
a flash torpedoed her. A voice
was shouting REJOICE. That Vicar
starts twitching her stocking-tops. 'And you
a man of the Cloth.' 'It's in the Holy Book.'
And so she tells him if he shows her
that bit of Saint Belgrano's Gospel where
it says she should, she wouldn't mind
being fucked for a fortnight. So
they went upstairs ...'  Time, Gentlemen.
Your ship is sinking. It’s time
To man the lifeboats. Uparse, Birdy.
That Charge Nurse has an amulet
of Saint Belgrano. Birdy's mate
called Reuben looks like a Rabbi.
On last week's outing, the loony bus
stopped at some kosher cafe. When they saw
Reuben, he says, you couldn't
hear yourself for the sudden thunder
of bacon sandwiches smacking the floor.
Can't wait for ever, can we?
The loony bus is throbbing and
that one-legged driver's giving him
Belgrano's curse. That Vicar
points to where on the fly-leaf of
the Gideon Bible, someone's written -
the red-haired barmaid fucks.' Who runs
this fucking world? It must be
Saint Belgrano ....


A Modest Proposal

Birdy tonight believes in
Water Privatisation. It's
no sudden conversion
to capitalism. Who'd want to be
an H2Owner?  Those TV adverts
make him puke, but it's time
to jump on the band-waggon.
And now he's wondering
why he's told me, just when
he's solved the eternal equation
of capitalist production
with a Shit Economy. Only
think of the spin-offs ...
It's shatteringly simple.
Nobody wants to pay to crap, so
everybody starts shitting
into The Sun and afterwards
throws parcels of the stuff
into the street. Who'd be
a Page Three girl for that?
That fat brother-in-law
went out and paid to have
his waters privatised. Joined BUPA
to get a rubber bag.  The Sun
is shit but still you get
a read for your money.
Better value in the end
than paying for a flush. You can't
read that. If he had money, he'd
invest it in The Sun.  It's shit's
natural repository.
And then there's aerosols ...
stink-squashers and fly-killers...
bum-fresheners ... Who cares
if the buggers are green?  Enough
methane flying about to power
jumbo jets and blow a hole
in everybody's ozone.
He'd have money in them. Birdy's
dreaming of getting in on
privatised shit mountains,
great heaving dumps of it
and building fly-traps over them
to catch the little buggers
in millions.  That fat
brother-in-law went bragging
how he could shit on buses
after his operation. Didn't
laugh all that much the day
he burst his BUPA  bag and had
to sit with it. No fun coming home
wet through and smelling
like a British Railways' bog.
You trap the flies and then
compress the little sods
into a meat-cake.  They must
be good to eat : you only need
to look at all the things
that live on them.  They don't
harm, spiders. do they? Enough
free meat to feed the whole
third world and plenty left
for the buggers at home. Better
than caviare and doesn't look
much different. All those
protruding eyes. And that's
capitalism in a nutshell.
Everybody's shitting and feeding
free, then shitting and feeding
free again.  It's Thatcher's
Utopia and it solves
the Balance of Payment problem.
Birdy thinks he might
let that fat brother-in-law
in on the act. Uparse, Birdy.
It's time. But not that Charge Nurse.
He's so busy performing
fascist salutes it's likely
he'd miss the paper. Come on, Birdy.
Enough shit for tonight.
The loony bus is waiting. If
he had his way, he'd use it
for collections now.  Easy
to sell the stuff in bulk
at the Tory Conference. They
could eat it while they were
reading The Sun and afterwards
drive home on their own gas.
Now there's a paradigm
of capitalism and
true economic circularity
for you.  But who needs
a Shit Economy when we've
already got one ....


That German Connection

Birdy this Thursday's croaking
that German connection. Achtung! Achtung!
Harmonium chest and phlegm's timpani
are wheezing vox humana. But who
hums that in polling booths? How come
The Eagle's Nest he once campaigned against
becomes the Thatched House, its bar packed
with clowns pissed on schnapps? How come
that camp landlord forever
lifting his elbow swapped for a Grantham tart?
She’s that mad Matron's sister. How come
they landed Irma Griz?  The same
jackboots and whips. Funny, that
German connection. Birdy says he had
a German air-gun when he was a kid,
with a red-feathered dart. One time
with Jimmy Pilkington, they sheltered
in a thatched barn and Jimmy climbed
into the loft to crap. That bloody
Tebbit stars in a hundred
Grunewald Depositions : it must be Durer
that painted Ripley. It's funny,
that German connection.  Birdy
watched Jimmy's arse, naked and white,
bloom through a trapdoor in the roof. Achtung!
That Chancellor's the archetypal
jessie that everybody kicks
right up his Goering arse. Achtung!
Inside those oyster folds, a mouth
is telling lies. Funny that German
connection creeping in. That bum
protruding through a trapdoor was
more tempting than apples to Adam. In with
red-feathered dart and up with
that German gun. Achtung! Baker's
a sculpture squeezed in lard by that
new Kraut who only makes them
to watch them melt. And then there's
Herr Oberlieutenant Cecil. One of him
in every Elstree Stalag - though this one's
gone to the House of Keys. Four legs
instead of three. Funny, that German
connection creeping in. There was
a scream. Then silence. Somebody brought
a Nurse with rubber gloves and tweezers
to get his dart back. At least he had
witnesses to prove he'd put it
right in the bull's eye. Then there's Hurd.
Carved in the Black Forest by
the puppet maker who begat
Alf Ramsey, Archie Andrews and
Pinocchio Hume. Those little lines
from mouth to chin, but you can't see
what makes it work. Clever those
Black Forest puppet carvers. Funny
that German connection creeping in.
It's Time, Gentlemen, please. The ex-
Hitler Youth are calling.  How come
the new lot in the Thatched House look
just like the ones we fought to shift
from the Eagle's Nest?  Achtung!
Uparse, Birdy.  That Charge Nurse
voted for Thatcher. Can't I see
his swastika eyeballs?  That trip
up Jimmy Pilkington's arse messed up
his only dart. That one-legged driver
voted for Thatcher too. Birdy's going
to teach him to goose-step. Quick march,
Birdy.  Achtung! he's shouting. But funny
that German connection ....


The Word Made Flesh

Birdy, for tonight's outing, squints
shaded at light. Dark glasses
twitch over bruises.  Birdy says
its sun-glare caught as a gunner
in a Blenheim's turret. I don't
believe. More likely, Circe's
rejected him. Park Drives are tracing
Battles of Britain over ale.
The Charge Nurse says another night
like that, the old fool capering
into Circe's room and her
screaming Antichrist, and he
won't be responsible. Antichrist's
one word for Birdy's fleshly urges.
That fat brother-in law went training
for Priesthood. Claimed that allergies
kept him from fish on Fridays. It's
more likely what he needed was
dick dispensation. Birdy says the joke
was that he turned out impotent.
The word without the flesh! Anyway,
if the old fascist (he means God)
fancied us in His image, who makes
simpletons? There was one he knew
called Dandy. Circe's not looking
his way tonight.  Dandy was dumb,
worked in the paint yard, carried
the chit from floor to office telling
the colour of the day. It turned out
 quicker to paint him. Why do women
 encourage you with words but scream
 Antichrist when you show them
 a bit of flesh? It's Natural
 Fascism.  They used to paint Dandy.
 That way, they said, no chance
 of him forgetting. At last year's
 Carol Service in the Bin,
 some Vicar said the Loony Choir
 would sing The Virgin Mary had
 a Baby Boy, but only after
 Ding-Dong Merrily on High. Birdy
 fell off his seat. Was that the day
 they made Word Flesh? The day they stopped
 painting him, Dandy came and begged
 to be daubed again, better than needing
 to remember words or carry the chit.
 Uparse, Birdy. Time, Gentlemen.
 Circe's out like a shot. It's obvious
 that Word and Flesh for her
 are different. Here's the Charge Nurse.
 Another bloody fascist, Birdy says,
 made in God's image. And simple too.
 Not many tyrranies of flesh eat him,
 and not many words encumbering his brain.
 Its time. Birdy says Dandy's
 the only case he's known, and bugger
 that stable in Bethlehem,
 of Word made Flesh .....
 

 The Parables of Itch

Birdy, scratching a bit, tells me
he's lost his itch, his Park Drive's
gone out, his little bag of crisps
gone soggy. Why, if the itch has gone
does he sit scratching? Could be a case
of crabs. It's when he points his crutch
I get his drift. Got Bomber's Droop,
he says, impotence catching him up
from too much flying. Even today's
Page Three gave rise to nothing.
Flesh's long rampancy's given him
the sailor's kiss. Circe reminds him
of Eunice Stott. Centuries ago,
she taught him Latin myths and bits of
Religious Instruction. Birdy
recalls her spinster pantings when
she dropped the Roman lot and felt
God groping her. She had the itch.
Chopstick's father used to pray
For those who wield large tools in fields
and hedgerows. Birdy says he wants that
to happen to him. That fat brother-
in-law's on chemistry again.
This time, it's Quick Juice. Something
that speeds reactions. Just one dose
and you can catch those battering
bluebottles zooming through rooms
between finger and thumb, or else
beat Borg at Wimbledon, six love,
six love, six love, or knock the hell
out of Mohammed Ali in Round
One. Birdy says, give him a dose and he'd
be in and out of Circe before
she'd heard her bedroom sneck. But that's
only a dream. He's lost his itch.
Eunice Stott must have thought Samson's
tackle much bigger than Hercules',
and Jupiter's shaggings not
such fun as God groping her. She had
the itch. This morning's Sun had some
old twat of ninety marrying
his teenage secretary. The bridegroom's
gift to the bride was an Antique
Pendant. Birdy wishes that he
still had the itch.  Some trawlermen
dredged up a bomb. The headline
he swears was true, was: Mine Pops up
after forty years.  He reckons he
can't wait that long. No doubt he's got
Bomber's Droop.  It used to leave you limp
like this. And will the itch come back? 
Those myths were daft, he says. Who'd want
to fuck a swan? But better that
than Christianity's obsession
with bloody virginity.  If Quick Juice
cured it, he might be scratching
the fly in Circe's eye. It's Time,
Uparse, Birdy. The Charge Nurse tows him
scratching away. Circe's already been
swaddled to safety. A bent Park Drive
drooping his lip and scrabbling
for matches, only the loony bus
waits for him and not much itch
in there, he says. It's Bomber's Droop
he's got, or else, scratching his crutch,
it's crabs .....


A Man's Man

Birdy's brooding. It's Albert Ogden's
birthday. They were mates. If  I
don't like his mood then I can go
to buggery.  Albert won medals, was
a Man's Man. No Messerschmitts tonight.
Since Albert died, he says, he's known
he's an Outsider. And words are lies.
Take Heroism. Means: too bloody thick
to smell the danger. Or else try
Patriotism. That means: please
exploit me. Or, in Albert's case,
take Comradeship and Buggery
and Suicide. Birdy's Park Drive
glows like a traffic light. Why are lies
slicker than truth? Why is Honest
so vulnerable to Dishonest? It's
the Natural Fascism of words.
That fat brother-in-law once filled
a book with clippings weekly culled from
the News of the World. All Vicars
and Scoutmasters. He called it
his Buggers' Annual. Meant as
a jibe at Albert, Birdy says.
Up at the crack of dawn and striding
moorland: slept in snowdrifts : always won
first prize for bandaging and knots.
A Man's Man.  Then one day he shuffled
his talents together. Albert took
two innocents to march the moor
and bandaged both their hands behind
their naked backs.  Did that make him
A Man's Man?  Birdy wants to know why
a sticker on his camera tripod said
Push Down and Open Legs. It played
buggery with his photographs.
And Albert hanged himself to show
his skill with knots. Did that last courage
make him a Man's Man at the end? It's
Time, Gentlemen. Who gives a bugger
for Albert Ogden? Birdy draws hard
at his Park Drive. Its semiotic
is saying stop when he can't stop.
Come on, Birdy.  It is now time
to bugger off.   The loony bus
outside is throbbing Birdy's pain.
That bloody one-legged driver drives
like buggery, he says, and so
it's Happy Birthday, Albert Ogden, who
was a Man's Man. Birdy, since his death
has been an Outsider. That must be why
they've kept him inside ...


Something and Nothing

Birdy's saying nothing. Birdy's
got nothing, a souring half-pint
clouding his glass, his last Park Drive
a crumpled concertina sending
smoke signals from the ashtray.
Later, he winks, there's something.
That fat Chancellor wants a bullet
up his exchequer, Birdy says.
Plenty for that mad Matron -
more bloody whips and jackboots. Nothing
for him. But what is nothing? Now
his tongue's scratching the ineffable.
A balloon with the skin off? Birdy
says when he was a kid, some fat
Conjuror called him to the stage.
Look through this tube, he said, and tell
everyone what you see. That fat
brother-in-law got stripped down to
his nothings by Policemen. Showed
Birdy his bruises. If that's nothing,
he says, a lot of something
attached. Seen elephants with less.
Birdy looked through that tube and saw
everything. He was God. That grinning
audience leering. Kindly tell us
what you can see.  That Conjuror
leaned to his ear and whispered:
Shout nothing. NOTHING. Or I'll make
your dick pop out. Who was it made
planets and whizzing suns from nothing?
And who made God from nothing? Who made
God's Dad? And  if nothing begets
nothing, where does that leave the whole
bloody pantheon?  Nothing. NOTHING,
he shouted. NOTHING. He didn't want
his dick popping out. Circe thinks
Nazis were earthworms. That's why
there was a poster saying Dig
for Victory.  But she knows
nothing.  If he'd shouted SOMETHING,
would that make God and suns or just
his dick pop out. Ratiocination's
that game tonight. Can I lend him enough
for ten Park Drives, to see him through
till morning?  Nothing to me.  It's Time,
Gentlemen. That fat Chancellor wants
something sticking up his budget. Birdy
says Circe's obsessed with worms.
She might be that fat Conjuror,
he winks, reincarnated, since -
Uparse, Birdy. Nothing to keep you here.
Time to be popping out - God had
a hand in nothing, but Circe's
had a hand on something...


The Last Marsupial Wolf

Birdy's stabbing ostentatiously
at air with his Park Drive. He says,
testing for fire-damp. There's a smell.
Who farted? No doubt, that Waldheim
is a bad lot. Bet he's related
to that mad Matron. But there's a smell
somewhere. It can't go on. That man
he says, after his wartime record,
to be elected back into power,
must be another part of The Great
Western Mystery.   Most likely
this world's an exhalation from
some vast, immortal arse. But who
farted?  That's The Great Western
Mystery. Can it go on? That fat
brother-in-law is temporary
manager of a closed-down cinema.
The last chap broke the bank and lost
two thousand quid in advertising.
One day, they came and dragged him
strait-jacketed into an ambulance.
And that woman, once you’d heard her voice
and once she’d finished her jackboot salute,
to get elected must be still more of
The Great Western Mystery.  There’s
a smell.  Birdy says he bought a book
at the loony jumble. It's the story
of the last Marsupial Wolf. Chapter
One's hero is, he says, this prick-
eared wolf. It's an old school book.
Some funny drawings cluttering the margins
after that. It can't go on, he thought.
Or could  it? Circe wants to know why
does it always rain at the end
of a fine spell? Chapter Two's hero
is a Shag in the bushes. That prick-
eared wolf listens to shags. It can't
go on. Birdy says it begets
even queerer drawings in the margins.
Now he's stabbing Park Drives, testing
for fire-damp again. Who farted? It's
The Great Western Mystery. That
loony Manager spent a couple
of thousand on advertising for
The Great Western Mystery. Chapter
Three's hero is a Whistling Dick.
It listens to shags as well. It can't
go on. Those drawing ornamenting
the margins get more and more imaginative
Time, Gentlemen. Uparse, Birdy.
Come on out of your pouch.
That Waldheim and that woman
are two bad lots.  There's a smell. It
must be The Great Western Mystery.
Birdy's holding his nose. Meanwhile,
the last Marsupial Wolf ploughs to
extinction.  Two thousand quid, he says,
to plug this film he called The Great
Western Mystery. No wonder
there was a stink. Its title was
Hoof-hearted .....


The Dick Test *
*a method of examining susceptibility to Scarlet Fever.

Birdy's been fighting, out again
with Albert Ogden in Spain. Together
they clattered Franco.  It's hinterlands
of history and purlieus
of politics tonight.  Birdy's
Park Drive's been stabbing fascism
since he came in. That Thatcher's
a disease in the nation's brain,
some nightmare fever. We need a cure,
he says. Circe's been watching
that Matron's dog's play concertinas
across the lawn and they're both males...
That fat brother-in-law's been shifting
scenery for Shakespeare. The plays
are lousy, but he admits the bloke
was clever to think them up. Birdy
had Scarlet Fever once. Nurses
burned flowers of sulphur. His Doctor
prescribed a Dick Test.  That put
the wind up. Thought they were going
to cut off his swastikas.  Now he's
fumigating fascism with
another Park Drive.  And back
to Thatcher. Circe wants to know
why Matron's dogs keep playing
wheelies over the lawn. Birdy says
it's a Dick Test. That fat brother-in-law
should read Labour's Love Lost. It's
a political tragedy. Birdy got
delirious with fever heat, he says,
and nightly nightmares. It was the smell
of brimstone and a Methodist
upbringing did that. He always dreamed
he was in hell, that fat Conjuror
forever smirking there. Time for
your Dick Test. Pop it out ...He was
always on stage and Albert Ogden and
the whole world audience. Nothing,
they always shouted. NOTHING. That fat
Conjuror always cuffed him. This boy
fails the Dick Test. Cut off his swastikas ...
It was the most profound religious
experience he's ever had.
Uparse, Birdy. You’re on a knife-edge.
But for that bloody Charge Nurse, Circe
would get a Dick Test. Thatcher
should have one too. His last Park Drive's
smouldering fascism off. Operation
transport waits. The Charge Nurse cometh. But
they wouldn't dare to examine, he says,
too scared of what they'd find ....


The Anthropomorphic Universe

Birdy says something unfair, some
principle of disaster straddles
this world. That's what made George Formby
famous and left Frank Randle
forgotten. Tonight, he poking Park Drives
in Wilko's eye. Circe's new suitor
has a lot to answer for. Birdy
says if we anthropomorphise
the universe, we're bound to shape
perspectives of disappointment. Where in
hell does he get them from?  He says
Albert Ogden's cat got mange. He put it
in a tea-chest with three ferrets
to kill the bugger. But it slaughtered
the ferrets, no trouble. That's one
example of how the world is geared
to muck us about. We have no chance.
That fat brother-in-law's just won
on the Football Pools. He claims a system.
Birdy says only a fool's system
could match reality and that's
the likely explanation. He knew
a place, he says, called Billy's Hole.
Just a rock crater. All the kids
swam there. Birdy feels like shoving
Park Drives up Wilko's arse. This Billy
walked every black-out night from the pub
to his hut on the moor and carried
a hurricane lantern. Birdy says
that cat of Albert Ogden's got
pummelled to death the next week by
a Flemish doe when it tried
to get at her young. Two German
bombers running for home from raids
on Liverpool saw Billy's light
in twenty miles of black. What sort
of logic rules a universe in which
cats can kill ferrets: ferrets always
kill rabbits: but rabbits put the kybosh
on cats?  A world organised like that
lets that fat brother-in-law win the Pools
and Circe take up with Wilko. Birdy
says Frank Randle was a lot
funnier than Formby. That's because
he was of the people while Formby
was only for them. Can I
work that one out? Time, Gentlemen -
Time for comedians to swim back home
That fascist Charge Nurse wants him
early into the loony bus tonight. He’s lost
his Thatcher icon and his swastika armband.
Probably up Wilko’s arse.  No doubt
where that last fag-end Park Drive
in Birdy's anthropomorphic
and illogical universe might like
to join them. Kids used to swim
in  Billy's Hole. Uparse, Birdy
They didn't recognise
that they were celebrating
the least famous but the most accurate
precision bombing of the war. And Billy's
part of the anthropomorphic universe ....


The Medium is the Massage

Birdy's been at the books. And at
the beans. Seismic rumblings
and methane luminosities of fags
proclaim what's blowing in his wind.
Brain bulging metaphysics, bum
bassooning Heinz, he reckons
he's joined those Aeolists who sussed
the gob's incompetence and opted
for bumspeak instead. Shit's own language
best explains shit. At least, they knew
what this world runs on.  Already,
he's tuning his flute to manage
Rejoice and Westland. With a bit
more practice, Safe in our hands
should come. There was this Methodist
and  a Roman Catholic, both of them
religious who agreed to go
and hear each other's Services ....
Some of his mates blow long and some
blow loud. Others, just smelly. Jim
Pilkington could easily have won
the fart Olympics in all three disciplines.
That Petomane, he says, could manage
operas, arsole arpeggios
a speciality, poking his bum
through curtains on a stage to trumpet
Gilbert and Sullivan. Birdy's
aiming for that. The medium
is the message.  Shit's own language
best explains shit. Birdy says
Rule Britannia rasping through
Margaret's little Nurembergs and Land
of Hope and Glory's orifice
oratorio tromboning the lugholes
of those blue-rinses ought to be
what beans are for. That Catholic
went to Chapel, said it was good. And then
next Sunday took that Methodist
to Mass ....Jim Pilkington could clear a field
of cows with a fart. But what about
Fartov the Great, appointed
bum-juggler to the Court
of all the Russias? He could
inflate balloons and improvise
flatulent flattery. He could juggle
a ping pong ball on a column
of stench.  That's why the medium
is always the message. Shit's own language
best explains shit.  Birdy could star in
Party Political broadcasts, burst his bum,
lipsticked like Thatcher's face
out of a Union Jack and fart
the unemployment figures,  twist
his arsole to a smirk and quote
statistics.  That Methodist
gets all confused, bells banging, up
and down to genuflect, with incense
clouting his snitch. Stand up, sit down,
Sign of the Cross, sit down, stand up,
then genuflect again. He couldn't
keep up with it. When suddenly a smell
smarter than incense smacks his conk ...
It's Uparse, Birdy - that Charge Nurse
is holding his nose. Birdy says
It’s the new fascist salute. God and gasmasks help
the loony bus tonight if he keeps up
this seismological warfare.
Get the message, Birdy or else
you’ll get the Margaret massage
where you won’t like it. That Catholic
turns to the Methodist and shouts, Have you
farted? Still working on the last
genuflexion but three, that Methodist,
caught between sit and stand, says, No.
Should I have done?  Can't wait
for ever, Fartov. That Charge Nurse
is signalling Time. Birdy reckons
one of Jim Pilkington's specials
would sort him out. The medium
is the message. Shit's own language
best explains shit .....


Ideal Republics

Birdy's saying that Charge Nurse
wanks at  a secret Thatcher icon,
has her face glued over a body
with bulging tits and Union
Jack knickers scissored from page three.
Can that be  called a rising? But
a standing cock doesn't droop
for legislation. Tonight's Park Drive
is waving insurrection and
his wheezing chest drones versions
of the Red Flag.  Birdy says it's lawyers
ruin the world and what we need
is bloody revolution. Somewhere,
there's an Ideal Republic. Birdy,
disguised as Cade, is baying for
the pissing conduits running with
red wine.  There shall be no more money.
Hang all the lawyers.  Birdy says
one summer night with his Fire-watch
binoculars, he feasted eyes
on Alice Naylor's tit. It bloomed
globular, nearly touchable
at his nose-end, its Polyphemus eye
staring towards him. That fat brother-
in-law once qualified to work
for a solicitor, spent his time
writing conveniences. Even
Birdy's ashamed of that one. Now
he's suddenly Winstanley, Digger
and Leveller, seeding illusions
to plant Ideal Republics, labouring
to hack down thistle lawyers. That's
tonight's dreaming diocese. Binoculars
picked out some Lance Jack's hands persuading
Alice's summer frock over her knees
and sliding past her nylon tops to
disport on the white continents of
her opening thighs.  Now Birdy's
King Lud, his Enoch stoving in
all the false frames and striking down
law's treacherous machineries.
His Park Drive's glowing red to shape
Ideal Republics.  Binoculars
trapped the sunlit suck and pull
of swollen flesh. Cavorting under
a barrage-balloon, Alice Naylor's bum
shuddered intemperately to
some khaki carnalities. Birdy,
now a Chartist, swells to become
one of the sons of poverty dreaming
Ideal Republics and he's dancing
on lawyers' graves.  It's nearly time
for bloody revolution, or it's
Time for arising Birdy. Time for
your bath mon Monsieur Marat.
Uparse now. Law's long leprosies
are fading and those Ideal Republics
are shutting up shop. That Charge Nurse
Is itching to be back before his icon
and that memory of Alice Naylor
every chance certain to threaten
Circe tonight.  Birdy, it’s time.
The Charge Nurse cometh and it's times
they aren’t a-changing.  Birdy goes
swelling his dreaming diocese,
his Park Drive glowing a new creation
of some ideal republic......


Requiem for the Skinback Fusiliers

Birdy tells me this morning's post
brought a free gift. Came from Park Drive.
When is a gift not free? Or are
they ever? he says. Everyone pays.
It's Natural Fascism.  And when
we join the Skinback Fusiliers, does that
come free? Skinback Birdy was once
Colonel of Ballocks' Barracks, dreaming
of girls fragile as ice but heaving
under their lace as randy as goats.
Was that a gift? Does that come free?
Birdy remember's Alice Naylor's
sixteen year tits and squelching them,
soft as tomatoes. And underwater,
once swam the canal's lagoon, his burst
breath rising like silver tomatoes
into the light. That was a gift.
That fat brother-in-law's collecting
his Green Shield Stamps, stuck in a book
for a free coffin. Birdy's chest
squeezeboxes threnodies. His Park Drive's
hardly a gift.  Skinback Birdy thinks
our minds are conscripts and we march
to an ignorant Sergeant's bark. All for
a Passing-Out Parade where there can be
no General on the rostrum. No-one's
bothered about our daft salute.
Gifts don't come free.  Once, Alice Naylor
stood blindfold over a mirror while
he shone a torch to light her secrets,
thighs white as celery, forced
in the dark. For that, he's gasping
at his Park Drive. Skinback Birdy
says we're all lost in a mad battle
of living.  No messages splutter
our walkie-talkies. Everybody's
called up for nothing and demobbed
to buggerall. Time, Gentlemen.
His Park Drive's semaphoring time
for Skinback Fusiliers.  Uparse,
Birdy. It's time.  Another lover
groped Alice Naylor. Birdy says
his name was cancer. Do I call that
a free gift? More than the loony bus
throbs waiting for us. His last Park Drive's
gone out. Birdy's squeezebox chest
is practising again, trying to play
the Dead March in Saul .....


Goodbye and Bugger You

Birdy, old bastard, once my once
a fortnight self-elected boozing
companion, Thursdays, eight to ten -
our time is limited - being
the day they let him out, is dead.
Gone, like the Psalmist said, to do
his business in the Great Waters.
God help God. The Charge Nurse says
game to the end. Three Park Drive coughs,
a fart to split the universe and wheezed
Goodbye and bugger you. Gone to solve
The Great Western Mystery, gone groping
in some Ideal Republic. It's goodbye,
old Antichrist. By now he knows
the colour of Angels' shit. Goodbye
to Dandy, Chipstick, Chopstick, all
his pantheon of pillocks. Bet
by now he's bumping to the strains
of Ding Dong Merrily on High
with Alice Naylor's shade, to seed
his Dick Test's final nothing.  Will that fat
Conjuror free him now? Goodbye
to you, old Skinback, and to that
fat brother-in-law. Birdy's parked
agnosticism's Spitfire and fucked off'
where no mad Margaret’s tyrannies
or shagging dogs can catch him,
hides where no fascist Charge Nurse, made
in God's anarchic image, wants to play
Barrack Room Lawyer. Does Albert Ogden
wait for him there? Oblivion's got room
for Buggers' Annuals. What once was word
made flesh is flesh made word and that's
the oldest pantomime to theme
this tortured elegy.  It's Uparse
Skinback.  And time and never time
again for Birdy’s romps. Glad that
he went defiant, cramming
his censer gobhole with eternity's
Park Drives. It's time.  The loony hearse
waits for us all. That one-legged driver
drives like there's no tomorrow.
Goodbye, old Skinback. It's Goodbye
and bugger you .....