OXFORD
I slumped asleep three times on the way back,
To hate myself somewhere in Alperton
At five a.m., bemoaning the lost track
That started to unwind at half past one.
I drifted off when some student called Arthur
Began to bore me with his woman woes –
I’d not the patience nor the bitter heart for
Young Arthur’s dank misogynistic prose.
Before I knew it, I was at Victoria -
The driver nudged my shoulder, “off you pop”.
I stumbled to the night bus’s top floor where
I slept once, slept again, and missed my stop.
I waited for the first tube back my way,
Then slept through nearly all of the next day.
CAMBRIDGE
The time is right for fighting in the streets
Down by the Cam, then past the restless spires -
A bottle smashed, an idle threat, the heat
Is dimly on, you’d hardly fear such fires
Of peevish privilege. The lines are drawn,
You have to laugh - push barely comes to shove
The barely shaved, it’s only mutual scorn.
“Don’t fuck with us”. “Cambridge is our town, bruv”.
A cricket match, a casual annual sneer,
some dim insults, no great shift from the norm.
No grave threats squeaked you wouldn’t always hear,
But gloves are off. Come now, this is poor form.
The summer’s here, the time is right to fight
Then meekly shuffle back into the night.
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