#messianic
Beat-Up Old Car
Vastly under-appreciated possession
In dull blue, a MK1, no less, with original rust
Inside lingering scents of Exchange and Mart
top-notes of WD-40 and miscellaneous mix tapes
A car like this gets into your life
in lumpy knuckle-barking unsubtle ways,
stays there in subtle ones
That long drive back to Yorkshire
in the quintessential exemplar
Clutch cable snaps.
****** and Crap.
Hardly helpful but can be accommodated
with enough thought
rough though it is
on starter motor
and nerves whenever
anticipatory powers inadequate
and we are forced
to a complete red-light stop
Brakes dodgier, exhaust noisier
than ideal or legal
Gender-ambiguous
elderly tyres flirt outrageously with slick tarmac
Showing their canvas underwear
and male-pattern baldness
Keeping this unstable, unsafe, unreliable
ultimately essential lump of metal
moving and on the road
is a fine art
Engaging, fluid and intense art;
The Clash and The Specials
Costello and The Cure in support
A distraction then
getting hauled over by plod
somewhere near Bury St. Edmunds
Thatcher's boys.
Tax? MoT? Insurance? ID?
No real interest shown
Any passengers in the back?
Clearly no. Pickets?
Pickets? What?
Please open the boot sir... Oh.
On your way lad. Drive carefully
I was, officer, I was
More than you will ever know
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 9:52 AM UTC
Salvador devotes the rest of his life
praying to save the world from hunger and war
and pestilence.
He preaches to the beggars: *ignore
hunger, thank God for the beauty of this smog-
infested sky where the moon and the stars
and the fireflies succumb to the blasts of neon
lights and flares of profit.*
He preaches to the beggars: *endure
life as you sleep in pavements among blots
of bubble gum and dirt and spit and morsels
of pity. This hell tempers your faith.*
He preaches to the beggars: *learn
the ways of gadflies -- know with pinpoint precision
where to look for carcass to feast on.*
But the beggars gather away from Salvador’s
prayers. Cradled by their pus and grime
and lice and love of life; with their hard-bitten
fingers and sermon-broken eardrums and
bleeding hearts, they
heave the birthing of their own salvation.
Apr 9, 2015
Apr 9, 2015 at 10:46 AM UTC