ELEVEN FINGERS

As I awoke and my eczema spoke,
it's world view came across as quite flippant
Y'know the blood on the sheet was just a bilious retreat
to the backwater bowels of my birth

I noticed the change in the musical range
Now tributes bunked up with heavy metal
Piercing is this trend, 'king poetry condemned
and no mail is sealed with a kiss

Past fathers, with no time for 'wantaway strikers',
bred new dads now wearing 'do's, earrings and pink shirts
And the sun dried tomato might tickle the palate
but Friday is still fish without batter
And in a Goan market some fella from Blackburn,
his exotica cut from the same cloth as my dad,
bought in to this chic age with his henna tattoo -
a dashing 'Kill All Burnley Bastards'

I had spied the graffiti,
y'know, 'Wolves Rule This Fence'
and romance's repertoire remains
Hey there lonely girl
let's knock doors and run off
I left my heart in a Mother's Pride Spain

by Robert Lloyd, copyright control