Meddon Street

Dark nights, greasy chips
fresh from our arms click clacking
with the nice black rifles.
toy sailors street-lost
wound up and ticking
talking 'bout war

yeah, spit-bubbles
blowing from an 88 barrel,
bright pink Panthers,
heavy-metal Tigers,
little toy generals
re-running battles.

You wore the uniform,
Ostfront, 44, jackboots and Schmeiser,
Luger and water-bottle,
you stood five two,
clicked-heels, straight-armed.
I saw you in a book
on the shelves with the rest
of the obergruppenfuhrers
and their iron-cross soldiers
cruising Eastern Europe.
burnt stubble noon,
fierce blood blitzkreig,
steel heart lebensraum,
arbeit macht frei.

You were a butcher,
sliding through the rubber curtains,
herding cows to the cradle
the bolts go in
the cold cow slumps
to the rough wet concrete

In the cold damp air
your small breath shortens
on the snow-white linen
your cold breath sloughing
through the oxygen-mask

Days end, card stamped, tick-tock
wheeze way home
stooping at the lamp-posts
slump before the box
chomping through faggots
shouting at the blacks
and the pakis and the pinkoes
Behind you, behind you
wife whistles softly
as the steam iron flattens
your blood-stained apron.