Saris billow in the wind like dhows off the shore
bus drivers whistle ragas above the traffic roar.
Late afternoon, and darkness already
elbowing its way through the crowded streets.
The pavements glister and are cold.
A lady, brittle with age, teeters along,
keeping balance with a shopping bag in one hand
and a giant box of cornflakes in the other.
Lovers arminarm home for hot soup and a bath-for-two.
Everyone a passer-by or a passer-through.
Up at the university, lectures are over for the day,
and students, ruddy with learning, race back to the digs
to plan revolutions to end revolutions.
When asked why he had elected to pursue mathematics
in academic seclusion, the old prof had answered:
‘Because there’s safety in numbers.’
Happy show.
Good to see the front row getting stoned
on a joint full of herbal tobacco
Mike hands out during his song.
And afterwards its beer out of plastic mugs
then off to the Pennyfarthing for pie and peas and dances
wi’ lovely lass wi’ biggest tits east of Pennines.
(ii)
Knocked up after three hours sleep
‘Your seven o’clock call sir’
With Pavlovian urgency I respond and
start dressing, guilty of staying in bed,
terrified of being late, then the truth
hits me like a snowball. No call.
I hadn’t ordered an early morning call.
Its a mistake, a joke, I collapse
back into bed and dream of hot pies
thundering down motorways flanked
by huge tits. Its eleven o’clock
and waking to find myself still alive
I get up and go downstairs to celebrate.
The girl at reception calls me over
‘The morning papers you ordered sir’
and hands me the Times, Guardian,
Telegraph, Express, Mail, Sun, Mirror,
three copies of the Yorkshire Post and the Beano.
‘I didn’t order these’ I quibble.
‘Its written down’ says she. And so it is,
in handwriting not my own. A joke.
I accept the Beano. On such a day
as this threatens to be who needs news.