Source: International Times

Last Tuesday at around a quarter to ten
in the bowels of the subway-car-southbound
half-way to Brooklyn Bridge
I could hear your radical red-sexy words
as clear as singing glass

I waited until the twilight mammas grandpas
and freckle-assed party straphangers
slithered into the dawn
then smeared the walls
with uncensored thoughts:

Bastards! Bitches! Stiff-suited dull-eyed sycophants
sailing away on a celebrity gravy train
First they fawn at your feet
then they kick you in the groin
Wasted chances with Mickey mouse orthodoxy
Trump-a-geddon is pig ugly
no more human faces just
sad shadows with dim pouched eyes
and little children caged 24/7 in
Amerika’s tender torture-land
You were right about shopping mall pimps
Big brained whales smart yellow jacketed bees
Beelzebub Boris
War-apocalyptic Autogeddon
Property-porn daddies – magic trees
and the slow-sucking parasitic kiss of the British monarchy
Spiting truth – awakening minds
with the thunderous fuck of rebellion
Irritating those puffed up literary peacocks
in their genteel towers of
masturbatory-elitist-cultural power
A skin of light across corrupted skies
More than just a polymathic pinup
For hipster bards
You could set fire to those extremely white neo-Nazis types
with smooth- strung WORDOLOGY
Death to coca cola!
Viva Frestoniana!

I could say a hundred and one times
THANK YOU for skinning the stinking gut of society
With bullet popping pen
but instead I’ll remember your warm spirited hobgoblin giggle
and your poetic wisdom:

“May you always be turbo charged Saira. The world has need of you. H.”

Picture by Elena Caldera

Jeremy Hardy: the demolition of Boris Johnson by Heathcote Williams

Drawing by Elena Caldera

Poem for Heathcote

When your magic sun comets the earth
The flame of rebellion burns
You are the song that rattles the soul
Pompadour haired poet prophet-punk preaching
to the world
You are the final word
Red snapper rebelista!
Lyrical Spartacus – in a maze of
darkness
The sharpened needle of truth
behind the hiss of Judas
flicker kicking with whales
Confabbing with elephants
Mischief making Puck –
inking walls and Buckingham Palace with protest-punch graffiti
Friend to the lost the dispossessed the hungry
Bob Marley tootin’ Emperor of Frestonia
Aristo’ don of Anarchy
Peanut brittle choco chomping British dandy!

Now that you’ve rocketed onto another plane
cherub-smiling dolphins
and tear cupped – daffodils
will sink in slumber
Bonobos and orang-utans will salute your cosmic laughter
Hot-lick word wit playa
Verses clap clap like purple thunder
slapping ignorance –
with spanky pants intelligence
– candy pale eyes
see the air is free
You are the whispered echo of conscience
on a Dizzy Gillespie breeze
Lexical spinning rock god
Skin thumping the drum – spreading your
wizardry on street corners and market stalls
You are that flowering amber butterfly
back flip jibing on talking leaves
The storied power of hope on
a bike of honey bees
The blood dust of a silver-petalled star
Bless up ! Prince Fiah !
A melody of tears may twist the lips of dawn
But your electric harpsichord of love plays on.

Saira Viola, 5 July 2017