Most of us worked the Lancashire vineyards all year and a few freak redheads died.

We were well-nuked. Knackered. The gaffers gave us a bonus

in Burgdy and Claray. Big fucking deal, we thought, we’d been robbing them blind

for months. Drink enough of it, you can juggle with snakes, no sweat.

Some nights, me and Sarah went down to the ocean with a few flasks

and a groundsheet and we’d have it off three or four times in a night

that barely got dark. For hours, you could hear the dolphins rearing up

as if they were after something. Strange bastards. I like dolphins.

Anyway. She’s soft, Sarah. She can read. Big green moon and her with a book

of poetry her Gran had. Nuke me. Nice words, right enough, and I love the girl,

but I’d had plenty. Winter, I goes, Spring, Autumn, Summer, don’t give me

that crap, Sarah, and I flung the book over the white sand, into the waves,

beyond the dolphins. Click-click. Sad. I hate the bastard past, see,

I’d piss on an ancestor as soon as trace one. What fucking seasons

I says to her, just look at us now. So we looked. At each other.

At the trembling unsafe sky. And she started, didn’t she, to cry.

Tears over her lovely blotchy purple face. It got to me.

We Remember Your Childhood Well

Nobody hurt you. Nobody turned off the light and argued

with somebody else all night. The bad man on the moors

was only a movie you saw. Nobody locked the door.

Your questions were answered fully. No. That didn’t occur.

You couldn’t sing anyway, cared less. The moment’s a blur, a Film Fun

laughing itself to death in the coal fire. Anyone’s guess.

Nobody forced you. You wanted to go that day. Begged. You chose

the dress. Here are the pictures, look at you. Look at us all,

smiling and waving, younger. The whole thing is inside your head.

What you recall are impressions; we have the facts. We called the tune.

The secret police of your childhood were older and wiser than you, bigger

than you. Call back the sound of their voices. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Nobody sent you away. That was an extra holiday, with people

you seemed to like. They were firm, there was nothing to fear.

There was none but yourself to blame if it ended in tears.

What does it matter now? No, no, nobody left the skidmarks of sin

on your soul and laid you wide open for Hell. You were loved.

Always. We did what was best. We remember your childhood well.

The Act of Imagination

Under the Act, the following things may be
prosecuted for appalling the Imagination.

Ten More Years.

A dog playing Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’.

President Quayle.

The pyjamas of Tax Inspectors.

The Beef Tapeworm (Taenia Saginata).

British Rail.

Picking someone else’s nose.

The Repatriation Charter.

Gaol.