You will be knowing of Charles Dickens and Terry Wogan

and Scotland. All this can be arranged for cash no questions.

Ireland not on. Fish and chips and the Official Secrets Act

second to none. Here we go. We are liking

a smashing good time like estate agents and Neighbours,

also Brookside for we are allowed four Channels.

How many you have? Last night of Proms. Andrew

Lloyd-Webber. Jeffrey Archer. Plenty culture you will be agreeing.

Also history and buildings. The Houses of Lords. Docklands.

Many thrills and high interest rates for own good. Muggers.

Much lead in petrol. Filth. Rule Britannia and child abuse.

Electronic tagging, Boss, ten pints and plenty rape. Queen Mum.

Channel Tunnel. You get here fast no problem to my country

my country my country welcome welcome welcome.

Mrs Skinner, North Street

Milk bottles. Light through net. No post. Cat,

come here by the window, settle down. Morning

in this street awakes unwashed; a stale wind

breathing litter, last night’s godlessness. This place

is hellbound in a handcart, Cat, you mark

her words. Strumpet. Slut. A different man

for every child; a byword for disgrace.

Her dentures grin at her, gargling water

on the mantelpiece. The days are gone

for smiling, wearing them to chatter down the road.

Good morning. Morning. Lovely day. Over the years

she’s suffered loss, bereavement, loneliness.

A terrace of strangers. An old ghost

mouthing curses behind a cloudy, nylon veil.

Scrounger. Workshy. Cat, where is the world

she married, was carried into up a scrubbed stone step?

The young louts roam the neighbourhood.

Breaking of glass. Chants. Sour abuse of aerosols.

That social worker called her xenophobic. When he left

she looked the word up. Fear, morbid dislike, of strangers.

Outside, the rain pours down relentlessly.

People scurry for shelter. How many hours

has she sat here, Cat, filled with bitterness

and knowing they’ll none of them come?

Not till the day the smell is noticed.

Not till the day you’re starving, Cat, and begin

to lick at the corpse. She twitches the curtain

as the Asian man next door runs through the rain.

Too Bad

It was winter. Wilson had just said

we should have one in The Dog. So we did,

running through the blue wet streets

with our heads down, laughing, to get there,

down doubles in front of our drenched reflections.

The barmaid caught my eye in the mirror. Beautiful.

We had a job to do, but not till closing-time,

hard men knocking back the brandy, each of us

wearing revenge like a badge on his heart. Hatred

dresses in cheap anonymous suits, the kind

with an inside pocket for a small gun. Good Health.

I smiled at her. Warm rain, like blood, ran down my back.

I remembered my first time, my trembling hand

and Big Frank Connell hissing Get a grip.

Tonight, professional, I walked with the boys

along a filthy alley to the other pub, the one