( In response to an ITV Documentary attempting character assassination

"The trouble with Derek"

about former  Liverpool City  Council's Deputy Leader Derek Hatton and the furore of his recent re-joining of the Labour Party )

The trouble with Derek :

was that he was a socialist

that he was a militant Socialist

The trouble with Derek

was that he was class conscious

...

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Poem for Bob Crow (cheers W.H. Auden)

Stop all the docks, cut off the trains, 
Start the mariners striking, be still the cranes, 
Silence the busses and with muffled bullhorn 
Bring out the coffin, let the workers come. 

Let politicians circle, moaning overhead 
confessing on the airwaves, He Is RED, 
Put nooses round the white necks of the bosses, 
Let the riot policemen carry their o...

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`





gnarly fingers
veil his face,
skin thin and crusty
at spots:
splotched parchment
of years in the sun

water
cascades
from his forehead to
his chin
then meets gravity;
raindrops

through his soil-grimed
singlet, jeans and boots;
hours of toil
simmer away
in rivulets
of forgetfulness.




`

Photo by Eric Kaufman, NC

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Black

Black coal down the mineshaft so deep

Takes a pale sheen as my eyes do weep

Days without comfort are sending me down

The caged bird twitters but I still frown

Escape to the surface via cable or pills

The former brings succour, the latter masks ills

Sometimes my anguish calls the loudest of all

While strength I seek from a larder too small

©R...

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