114. urban planning
got the money together all right
in a big black briefcase,
but those spineless idiots –
those red square ventriloquist’s dummies –
they wouldn’t let me have one ! Gastards.
Now, it’s said that, since the fall of communism,
and the Berlin Wall
that you could buy a tactical battlefield
nuclear device out there
for next to fuck-all. So –
I cashed in all my green shield stamps
my national savings bonds
& got my benefit cheque
& fucked off to some quiet corner
of Belarus to see some shady types
in furry hats
– & there they were, sure enough,
laid out on a market stall
like so many fat sleeping policemen
all sucking their thumbs.
but fuck me if the Ruskies hadn’t heard of
Blackpool after all !
– said it put them in mind of Stalingrad after
Hitler had done with it –
& all I wanted was to introduce
that Great British oasis of driving rain, candy floss
and shellsuit fillers
to the unequivocal delights
of nuclear fission.
It’s what it fuckin needs, after all.