MichaelAitken

This is not happiness
They long ago lost sight of happiness

They turned it into paper
And wrote about you in a file

This person is not meant to be happy
Send in the clowns

After the war
Communism spread

The west was afraid
It watched the world map

Changing before its eyes
Like Nebuchadnezzar

Watched the writing on the wall

The duke has died
The newscaster with the face like a draining board
Said the queen will be next

I turn over
A picture of an atomic explosion
Comes out of the mouth of another newscaster

Multiple explosions
Will it be Russia?
Will it be China?
Will it be Iran?

I switch off
All is sunny

Instead of the love due
I am strangulated by stress

The world now creeps in
Through the window at night

In the morning, I awake to find
A pile of bricks, and they call it art

I watch from the street
As the government turns into a bogy

Now it is being invaded by potato men
Now it walks down the street like a big spider

Get out the ray guns
Inform the UFO’s

My potatoes come from the EU
My books are printed in Hong Kong

My hands are severed in Oman
My head is bashed in in Detroit

The ocean is a goldfish bowl
That cargo ships sail over

It could almost be a laughable joke
A laurel and hardy comedy

I was born
In the driver’s seat
Of a car
That has gone
Out of date mad

I assemble a new car
From the branches of trees
From the rocks I dig up
From milk bottles

I route the branches
Into the milk bottles
I round off the rocks
To make wheels

I dream about my new dashboard
Like a meeting place for witches
In a rocket ship to the moon

Someone whacks it mid-flight to mars
With a hammer

I collect the guts of the rocket ship
Onto a table cloth
To update them
With anti-alien software

I walk about the two dark inner rooms
Of nowhere
Like a piece of defunct machinery

I do not see colour anymore
And my speech is lonely