Briefly entranced
by a swish of hips
as they sashay past a doorman,
he takes a breath, approaches
and asks to get through.

"Sorry sir," the tall man says,
"your purchasing record suggests
"that you dislike jazz.
"I think you'd better move along."

Of course, of course,
what was he thinking?
A narrow escape, that.
And on home through the empty streets he goes,
Untroubled by the wide wild sounds,
the horns and pianos,
the reckless freeform blast and chatter
that might ruthlessly have smashed through
his carefully constructed identity.

Safe at home,
his television allows him to watch
a comedy he has seen thirteen times before
and so must really love.

Well now, I used to teach.
I mean, I still do, but it's only for their benefit now, isn't it?
It's like the doctors and the greengrocers
and the streetsweepers and librarians,
still going through the motions
while they take recordings and what have you.
I guess we should be glad
that they're interested in the way we lived,
you know,
before they arrived.
But my kids, you know,
they're all actors.
They might learn the odd piece
of arcane knowledge
but I can tell they know
they don't need it.

No, no, I'm no rebel
I don't want any trouble.
Things are better since they arrived,
of course they are.
I mean, their technology -
we couldn't have come up with that
in a million years.
And they're very polite.
I have a colleague who says
this is because they feel guilty about their success,
but I don't know about that.
Things were bad for a while,
but I guess maybe that was our fault.
We didn't know how to react.
We adjusted poorly.
It's hard to accept that you're, you know,
obsolete.

Even me, you know.
For a while there I was,
well,
I was drinking a little too much.
It was hard, seeing the school destroyed.
They've done a good job
with the facsimile though.
even smells the same.

Yup,
can't complain.
Can't complain.

Rebellion has many paths
to tempt unwitting youth
and none of them are new at all
to tell the sorry truth
Though every would-be anarchist
would wish it left unsaid
John Harrow makes the signposts
with a top-hat on his head

When picketing the fellowship
a friend of mine declared
"You have to know your enemy
"To have him running scared!"
dismantling the sacred text
he'd bought the day before
for every penny that he owned
from Harrow's Bible store

The scarlet headed lyricist
sent shockwaves through the nation
shattering taboos
and knocking lumps from the foundation
But Harrow wasn't shaken
by this fiercely blazing star -
he'd trained the stylist, named the songs
and sold him his guitar

A buzz is running through the streets
as people take them back
and occupy the land
in global pacifist attack
But wait - before you celebrate
the fall of governments
With factories in Vietnam
John Harrow makes the tents

Cos protest has its limits
the establishment agrees
we're free to go these tested routes
like window-bumping bees
You make your point, you go back home
another day will pass
and half-full or half-empty
Mr. Harrow is the glass

Beneath our bruised and blistered feet
there comes a strange unearthly beat,
a pulse beneath our sad complaints
about how things were what they ain't
how everything has gone to hell
and how we got here none can tell
how kids ain't got no **** respect
how there's no rule they won't reject
and folks ain't safe now in their beds;
this beat continues, fractures, spreads
adds rhythms to the observation
that mankind's headed for damnation
the whole confounded human race
is ragged, cracked, a sad disgrace
(not like when we were being raised
our folks knew better, heav'n be praised
and we had boundaries, and grit,
and cross those lines and you'd get hit!)
And maybe we would stop lamenting
but this relentless pulse is venting
every bitter ball of bile
and tapping, tapping all the while
and speeding up in frenzied glee
until we all can plainly see
that, spinning in a beat-bound haze
we're longing for the GOOD OLD DAYS!
When Earth was young and pure and clean
and folks were kind, not cold and mean
and guided by self interest -
we used to see them at their best!
And click and tap and snap and clatter
comes rising from the mud and litter
And we're so caught in this discourse
we have no time to seek its source.
But down and down, beneath the soil
encased in bedrock black as oil
grinning to a tune they know,
the rhythm section's all a-glow
the skeletons of murdered daughters
of babies born and swiftly slaughtered
vagabonds and martyrs who
were butchered for a point of view
and soldiers, soldiers, cold battalions
knocked by maces off their stallions
to die dishonoured and forgotten
and lie until their bones were rotten
lost amongst the brittle league
of those who toppled to the plague
They're all awake and keeping time
to our pathetic little rhyme
and clacking carpals and phalanges
grind the message: "nothing changes!"
and not one ragged scrap of bone,
no semi-fossil all alone
can summon any memory
of when things were how they should be

So maybe I will stop the dance
and note the happy circumstance
that I am safe and well and free
I like my friends and they like me
and while injustice still exists
I'm not about to slit my wrists
No-one makes a bright tomorrow
by gazing backwards filled with sorrow
and here and now, I do aver -
I'm glad things aren't the way they were.

The trip would be flawless -
water splashing, echoed shrieks in chlorinated sunlight -
except for these baffling creatures
patrolling the pool

Up and down they go,
up and down,
staring daggers straight ahead
and daring you to get in their way

Rubber hats and plastic eyes,
folded skin, wrinkled
like deflated dinghies
doggedly paddling
their pointless journeys.

A bit like clockwork bath toys,
but not as entertaining.

The safety notices are wasted on them.
No petting?
I should ****** well think not.
Bombing?  Ducking?  Anything fun at all?
Up, down,
up
and down.
Relentless as the baddies
in a ZX Spectrum game,
stuck in their lanes,
joyless.

They were there when I was six
and they're still there, you know,
a few more wrinkles now,
up
(and down),
spilling out their black slick second skins.
Whatever it was they were looking for,
the search
isn't improving their moods.

Johnny can't join
his daddy has no car
Michael can't join
they don't like his shoes
Ahmed can't join
he has a funny name
Bobby can't join
supports the wrong team

"What's going on?"
bellows the red-faced teacher
"You can't treat each other like this!
"Have you ever been excluded?
"Yes?
"And how
"did it make you feel?"

He ushers them in, muttering
though somewhat gratified
by the shame in their eyes

Then herds them through
to assembly
where the guest of honour
is the minister
who proceeds to explain
to the obediently seated rows
that if they don't see things his way
they will be eternally,
terrifyingly
and agonisingly excluded
from the great big party in the sky

And the teacher hangs his head
in baffled complicity,
defeated.