BARKER

BARKER

(for Carmel Xmas 2001)

T’was a suggestion

Not an ambition,

to change direction

To like, start a profession

Head first I was in the battlefield

Frontin like General Patten

Armed to the teeth with attitude and cheek

Bent as a banana

In the trail of Andy

Like a duck and its mama

To plant a stall is to cast a web

The radius of my infra-scan

& to every passer fly

in a coaxing manner

I bark

Hard as any guard mutt outside a yard in Guyana

And so

Cut throat and fast

Like pirates on a mast

We bellow

And transact without contact

No ‘hello’

Dilly dally

" ‘ere y’are girls,

roll up or stroll up”

The wisest dude in the market hollers

& empties his stock box

for incoming dollars

For here

to expel is to sell well

Through worn chords, brain swell

Headache!

Cranium shell

pulsating like a bass speaker

when you shake it like a bell

Turning up its migraneous pounding

Breathe..

From the stomach

Neighbors, on cricket-is-rained-out-of-play days

are stark

In contrast

our punters

pile like rubbernecks

drawn by the bark

In Camden,

who knows

what the ‘eck we’re on about

The neighbors

look like they’re ,thinkin

‘Who let the blinkin dogs out?'

Leather Lane:

I swear I saw a master, raw

He, (Terry) held me in awe

I watched him sell remnants from on the floor

Crate for a chariot

and roar

Warrior cheif of the dogs of war

1st horseman of the apocalypse

Wielding fragrance you could spray on chips

and emerged the undisputed heavyweight champion

Of 600 quid in ten minutes

on salmon ‘n rosy;

Now what that emphasis,

is the power of individuality

And the weakness of the masses

So I,

Si,

Town crier,

spin yarns like Billy Liar

Protégée

I heard Terry say

And he’d egotistically tell ya

I’ve got something for the girlies

‘n something for the fellas

Sunnies for the honies

‘n funnies for the bunnies

The feeling I give

you cost nothing;

but your money,

I’ll unscrupulously take.

“Is this real ‘Issy Miyake”

Yes love

It’s real fake.