'Love Song Of The City'

LOVE SONG OF THE CITY

(after Adrian Henri)

for you, I would translate the smoke from factory chimneys
into bouquets of plastic flowers
for you, Israel would bomb Gaza with Love Poems
for you, High Court Judges would perjure themselves
Old Ladies would help Policemen across the road
and the Pope would commit bigamy
for you, I would fill out every application form and questionnaire
in the Huddersfield Council Offices, in triplicate
would cross Leeds city centre, vaulting over every parking metre
without sustaining injury, at rush hour, a million times
would write four-letter poems on rail-station toilet walls
would die to rise again on the third day
like dawn over Bradford mills
& would paint pictures with the patterns
left by petrol stains on garage forecourt...

you are Warhol’s banana on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
you are a Miles Davis solo on the Radio Two breakfast show
you are a joint in church at midnight
you are Lois Lane to my Clark Kent
you are Auden on the cover of ‘The Beano’
you are a Bach cantata on the ‘Blue Boar’ jukebox
you are amazing grace

for you, every plaster duck on every wall of every terraced house
in Huddersfield would take wing to circle
the one-way street system, the wrong way
mine-shafts would silt with parking tickets
& Barnsley councillors would pawn
the Town Hall cutlery
for you, airports would return apologetically to forests
vapour trails would form erotic symbols across the sky
& daisies would be sown across the motorways
for you, I would write poems as bright as magnesium flares
to light your way
back to
me…


Published in:
‘MOONSHINE’ (UK)
‘PENETRATION’ (UK)
‘SANDWICHES no.16’ (UK – December 1976)
and my collection ‘POSITIVE/NEGATIVE’ (Straight Enterprises – UK)
while ‘Love Pome’ was published separately in:
‘BOGG no.15’ (UK)