They have shipped Gulliver up north.

He lies at the edge of the town,

sleeping.

His snores are thunder in the night.

Round here, we reckon they have drugged him

or we dream he is a landscape

which might drag itself up and walk.

Here are ropes, they said.

Tie him down.

We will pay you.

Tie Gulliver down with these ropes.

I slaved all day at his left knee,

until the sun went down

behind it

and clouds gathered on his eyes

and darkness settled on his shoulders

like a job.

Making Money

Turnover. Profit. Readies. Cash. Loot. Dough. Income. Stash.

Dosh. Bread. Finance. Brass. I give my tongue over

to money; the taste of warm rust in a chipped mug

of tap-water. Drink some yourself. Consider

an Indian man in Delhi, Salaamat the niyariwallah,

who squats by an open drain for hours, sifting shit

for the price of a chapati. More than that. His hands

in crumbling gloves of crap pray at the drains

for the pearls in slime his grandfather swore he found.

Megabucks. Wages. Interest. Wealth. I sniff and snuffle

for a whiff of pelf; the stench of an abattoir blown

by a stale wind over the fields. Roll up a fiver,

snort. Meet Kim. Kim will give you the works,

her own worst enema, suck you, lick you, squeal

red weals to your whip, be nun, nurse, nanny,

nymph on a credit card. Don’t worry.

Kim’s only in it for the money. Lucre. Tin. Dibs.

I put my ear to brass lips; a small fire’s whisper

close to a forest. Listen. His cellular telephone

rings in the Bull’s car. Golden hello. Big deal. Now get this

straight. Making a living is making a killing these days.

Jobbers and brokers buzz. He paints out a landscape

by number. The Bull. Seriously rich. Nasty. One of us.

Salary. Boodle. Oof. Blunt. Shekels. Lolly. Gelt. Funds.

I wallow in coin, naked; the scary caress of a fake hand

on my flesh. Get stuck in. Bergama. The boys from the bazaar

hide on the target-range, watching the soldiers fire. Between bursts,

they rush for the spent shells, cart them away for scrap.

Here is the catch. Some shells don’t explode. Ahmat

runs over grass, lucky for six months, so far. So

bomb-collectors die young. But the money’s good.

Palmgrease. Smackers. Greenbacks. Wads. I widen my eyes

at a fortune; a set of knives on black cloth, shining,

utterly beautiful. Weep. The economy booms

like cannon, far out at sea on a lone ship. We leave

our places of work, tired, in the shortening hours, in the time

of night our town could be anywhere, and some of us pause

in the square, where a clown makes money swallowing fire.

Talent Contest

At the end of the pier, an open-air theatre, a crowd

who have paid to come in, wooden slats, the sea slopping out