Layered Cake
I’ve known many unsavory characters from my home city of Manchester
There’s the ex-demolition guy who took a great dislike to me
Did he have visions of blowing me up instead of my old car?
He had a trainee apprentice in the wings and had connections

I knew several football hooligans who fought for what?
For England, their home team, themselves, for violence?
Each told me a story of Rah-Rah-Rah Here We Go Lads!
One fought riot cops in Poland and was jailed in a sanatorium
He somehow escaped and was banned from Poland for life
The other was a City fan and battled his opponents in Greece
He was 45 and still loved a good tear up on match days

Drug dealers prominently featured in the city and surrounding towns
One dark night in my home town I saw an ex-dealer shot dead  
I heard then saw the BMW getaway car zoom off
Oddly I thought I heard two gunshots after it had gone
The ex-dealer’s wife asked me to help and I tried to
But there was nothing I could do but call the medics

Chavs are the worst in my town and others
Council House And Violent and ruling the tough estates
With their violence, crime, dealing and other acts
Not going to school or college but sleeping all day
And drinking and smoking **** all night with their underage gals
But when do they have time to do their crimes?

There are the plastic gangsters who think they’re it
Maybe with their mates they can burst a paper bag
Or intimidate innocent law abiding citizens who are meek

Further afield I met a gangster in Liverpool who was alrite
He liked a right tear up and had a job to appear legit
But his real work was in various things like drugs, guns and cash
He offered me a job as a courier because my car was old and gray
I said no for its easy in and never ever out

The English racists were a breed apart who hated all skins
I got on with one who liked metal but we clashed on views
He loathed foreigners and wanted them all out
And insisted that white men stick to white women

Most scary of all I met a killer on the run in Newcastle
We were on the ship disco by the river having fun
This guy had a real flirty wife called Carmen
I danced with her and later talked to her husband
He schitzed out and went mad but not for chatting with his gal
I asked what’s wrong and he admitted to killing a man
And said he didn’t know me from Adam so be quiet!
He was a Londoner and I said you did it for your own reasons
His wife consoled him when he had flashbacks

Ex-servicemen gave me a few problems over the years
I was drinking in my local pub when a para and a marine argued
First with one another and then with me over who was best
They hated the air force and me wearing an Air Force badge
Maybe they needed a war to get their heads blown off?

There were many fighters who lived to fight and cause trouble
Some had a go at me I tried to avoid their skills but heard their stories
Some were nutters but others quite pally and fine lads
There were brawlers, boxers, Martial Artists and more
Near the Mess House pub in Oldham guys die by a single punch

These savory and unsavory characters were the fabric of England
Some I remember and many I forget for right or wrong reasons
Their stories live on here my poem for you to judge

One Hundred Years
The war to end all wars ended exactly one hundred years ago
That war failed in its objective of making war and bloodletting obsolete
Just like the bow and arrow is now outdated war was meant to be
The renderings of battle and conflict consigned to the history books
When children ask their parents: WHAT WAS WAR?

The answer should have started thus: Well child...
But that scenario never happened because war is still with us
The old soldiers never grew old and their memory lives on
As their great grandchildren prime their guns and prepare for battle
Places like the Somme, Ypres, Verdun. Paschendale and Flanders are here

Inside the souls of the Tommie, the Poilu, the *** and more
Poppies commemorating the sacrifice and everlasting memory
Worn with pride by people like myself and my kin and my friends and family
Yet in places like Afghan and Syria and Iraq and Ukraine men fight and die
Death and destruction still rule the battlefield by blast and bullet

Weapons have advanced like smart bombs, jet fighters and missiles
Being a millennia on from biplanes, barbed wire and horses
Each soldier and each fight is mirrored thru history by another
Wars and battles complement one another in their ferocity and aim
Enemies must be defeated and military objectives achieved

Only the year and location changes while the soldier’s names fade away
To become unknown soldiers in our collective hearts and minds
Passing over before their time and entering the history books
Some are a footnote, others in heroic battles and a few forsaken
Every generation since the Great War owes it to the past to make peace

And keep hold of that peace forever more and spike the guns and grenades
So our world knows peace and harmony in an eternal Peace Dividend
The Military Industrial Complex being used for something better
Future warriors being out of work and doing new jobs
Think of the past and that awful Great War and what we can do now

Turn our world around and remember the sacrifice and cost of Total industrial war
Let no more warriors die in no more wars except in books, games and films
Remember our great fallen warriors and be humbly grateful and act their deed
Universally advancing world peace and making war obsolete forever

**** Heap
Round and round they go on a merry go round
Chasing one another in high performance warplanes
Trying to blow one another's ******* heads off
Madness over Belgium World War 2 style
**** Messerschmitt 109 and Yankee P-47 Thunderbolt
Armed to the ******* teeth read for war and battle
Just waiting for a shot shoot **** die death!
Here we ******* go guns guns guns!
But he missed and so the dance continues
German and American going round like Devils
Each as good as the other and both expendable
In the high tech no mercy duel where violence rules
Shortly one or both fighter planes will be wrecks
Burning fiercely on the frozen ground
January 1 1945 New Year’s Day battle style
Did you have a good New Year's Eve party?
Your hangover will be the death of you
Making you a second too slow
Then the **** will nail you and claim a new ****
Adding to his list of Allied and Soviet pilots
For he fights not for ****** or the Nazis
But to survive as two dozen of his comrades die
Killed by American guns while hitting their base
This is war where there's no glory just death

49…
He went by bus to see the football game. The bus was a Fiat just like his one off Fiat Panda2002. He sat there and read his book in the bar room. All the trophies were on display and the home team was there. He ignored them but they didn't him. Giving him a load of lads stuff. He observed them and joined them. It became confused. He was escaping his hometown. They tolerated him. He loved his car. He had to hide in the garden from the bus driver. Go by car! Then back in the football room he had a run in with the **** driver. It was later and confused. He hit the driver with his car bus tank machine to silence him or was it a biplane? Just be ******* quiet! Drive by Fiat Panda next time to see the Scots top teams. For I am cool and my dream rocks...

Letters in Wartime
Words on paper
Nothing more
Telling the story of a soldier
Or airman or sailor
Letters from the front
Sent home
To a sweetheart
Or family
First read by the censor
Telling of longing to see you
And hardship in battle
Seen thru with determination
And a love of country
Fighting for them
The loved ones
Far from where
He is stationed
Saying about his mates
Some who he misses
Killed in combat
Or worse still
Missing In Action
Maybe the Red Cross
Will locate them
All this told
By words on paper
Stay safe at home
I know the Blitz is hell
But we give it
Back to the ***
Avoid the talking
About sensitive things
For walls have ears
And aid the enemy
Follow the blackout
I send my love
And will write soon
Next time sending my photo
Till then my dear
Keep the fires burning
We protect our country
With untold valour
We will win
This awful war
Later my love

The manila envelope was full of ****. It stank so ******* much. There was too much of it. One example was this: a tattooed skate boarder was blown away after being severely beaten. He was full of lead. The stitched up bullet holes showed this. There were 6 or 7 in his upper body. It was amazing how the mortician cleaned him up. He looked asleep. And was, forever…

…part of the current mad presidents run in with criminals. These included druggies, robbers, gangsters and a whole lot more. But such things weren’t so simple. Many innocent people got caught up. Rather than admit a mistake, the cops had a way to deal with this. They planted fake evidence, be it drugs, guns or ammo. Along with fake accounts of the cops being fired upon. Of course this did happen, professional criminals had back up and weapons and made the security forces pay dearly, now and again. For the most part the Extra Judicial Killings were just that.

The dead man here was a musician. He thought he was going to sing but instead he was an EJK and blown away. It was a shame his friend was a known dealer and on the ‘List’ of known and wanted and targeted people. So he was collateral damage. This was fine in the eyes of the law, for a dealer had been exterminated. An innocent died, so be it…

…the innocent would no longer skate, be tattooed, drink beer, dance, or anything else. For he was dead. All part of the bad dream that was the Philippine drug war that killed thousands. All wars ended…

The dream the dream the dream! I write like Liz Hand. The dark underbelly of the city. Not just people dying. All of it. Every city has one. All are the same. The dark 3am beat. Put my poem in your book. My dream of it. An artist painting an artist painting an artist  painting an artist...


The big young potentially dangerous Russian stood in front of me. He thought what he had to say is important. He gave my soldier friend a note. Read it he said, it's says what they thinks about me. I nearly fight Ivan. He thinks I'm a banker and rich. I say Bro, I fly planes and write books. Dead it!, he tells my pal. My poem is about it because it's real.