eighty eighty ninety years away
& William Burroughs is walking to school
the teacher’s trussed up like a monk
sporting tracts like a mortar-boarded fool
still in his gym kit and too young for junk
little Bill’s satchel is leaking rocket fuel
it’s not the world that’s cruel – it’s those that run it
you can raise a lone star flag but never outgun it
so little Bill taught himself to fire
he could hit an apple, a hard drive, a vein
he could infiltrate the minds of little green men
cut up their thoughts with a hot knife
& rearrange them so they came out sane
in the grey and yellow of New Mexico
everything was infected – even the morphine
the lower remove injected & so by the time
the invisible man was seen in Tangiers
all bets were off as to who’d be elected
& in the gulags staffed by gimps
children were crying ammonia tears
J Edgar Hoover ran a fifty year ship that never sank
his head poked unafraid from the turret of his tank
fed up with being sidelined George & Ringo formed a band
they called it Gringo & drew crotchets in the sand
making tunes under blue & strawberry moons
while Brian Jones drummed across the dunes
in Duke Street St James there’s a body floating
in the indoor pool – rumour goes the butler did it
just to make himself look cool
forty fifty ninety years away
the elite & the elated are crying out to be sedated
the words of rancid roosters never flew away
against the odds they’re coming true today
Julian Isaacs
Art Rupert Loydell