Poem: "Roll Over Dean Benedetti (& Tell Dave Britton The News)"

ROLL OVER 

DEAN BENEDETTI 

 (AND TELL 

DAVE BRITTON 

THE NEWS)/ 

 OPERATION MOONBEAM 

“The music business was in a mood of high self-congratulation

this week after what is described as ‘the smashing of the biggest 

 bootleg ring in the UK’.” (‘Melody Maker’ 1 September 1979) 

Manchester streets 

squirm unclaimed sound, 

a patina of noise 

collecting in flesh-pools 

oozing in gutters. 

BUT DON’T PICK IT UP!!! 

Manchester caves 

r-e-v-e-r-b-e-r-a-t-e 

with indecent exposures 

of stolen sound, 

sucked from hidden mics, 

stacked in neat piles 

across grotto’s where 

Aubrey Beardsley and 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti dance 

(watched by fabricating 

identi-machine wizards) 

Mandible moonbeams 

light gleams 

stealth shift – 

finger prods the gloom 

sinks into viscous mounds 

of round black sounds, 

various, nefarious. 

R-E-C-O-I-L-S 

in legislative horror, 

image screwed into retina’s 

of vinyl germs 

inviting aural disease – 

wilderness is not a place 

but a state of unordered sound!!! 

Moonbeam wizards 

disinfect ears, 

check palms of hands 

for masturbatory hairs, 

flush offenders into 

neat matrix catalogues, 

and chains of books 

synchronizing 

gratuitous breathings 

Sometimes they hear 

Manchester streets 

v-i-b-r-a-t-e 

with a pulse 

of bass lines 

that coil and 

snare unsuspecting 

feet 

 and they ache… 

(Addendum: Dean Benedetti, who invaluably pirated live Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker sessions in the 1940s, is the legendary first sound recording-Bootlegger. Dave Britton, publisher of ‘Savoy Books’ and co-owner of Manchester’s ‘Bookchain’ shop, was the victim of anti-Bootleg prosecution following the ‘Operation Moonbeam’ Police purge in September 1979)

Published in:
‘GLOBAL TAPESTRY No.9’ (UK – May 1980)
‘IT: INTERNATIONAL TIMES – Frivolous Summer Issue 1980’ (UK)