things move around

god knows i miss the tepid tea
and the emphysemics
and the idea

that they could be here
if i were there
on wigan pier

if i could be there
sucking in that air

i would be there

wigan north western
you have given to me enough
to deserve a fuck of a lot more than this

pissing down
been out in you
on that job

and knew i was in england
unhappy, but in england
none of which was true
but i was surrounded by a people
who, though pustulent, wouldn’t
give up to the french or americans
anything

because they knew
not in their shirt pockets but in their hearts
about being somewhere
that had been occupied millenia ago /
that had been occupied millenia before

can’t call me that anymore

intelligible
that i knew what it meant
to call england home

got on a plane and there england went
like chaff from a fighter plane

like the indian fucking rajah alone