The Ballad of Raoul Moat

All my life I wanted death, hence the reason I took risks; made the worst of enemies; did the things I did.

And so to June in twenty-ten well-baked and stinking hot an oil [...]]]> My show of ballads plays the Soho Theatre in London next week. Here is a new ballad about Raoul Moat, audio and words below:

The Ballad of Raoul Moat

All my life I wanted death,
hence the reason I took risks;
made the worst of enemies;
did the things I did.

And so to June in twenty-ten
well-baked and stinking hot
an oil slick spreading up the gulf
and Britain newly shot

of Darling, Brown and Mandelson
let’s go to Durham jail
where lads from Tyne and Wear side
who have ventured off the rails

are sent, where Ronnie Kray did bird,
where Ian Brady’s boasts
would echo round victorian walls,
where Myra Hindley’s ghost

is said to haunt the F Wing lags,
where time’s a two tonne weight,
where Private Brian Chandler
was hung in fifty-eight.

And there in bastard, sticky June
all hunched up in the haze
a prisoner called Raoul Moat
is counting down the days.

A beefed-up panel-beater, sometime
bouncer, arborist
his poxy past pock-marked with crimes
a life of tears and fists.

Banged-up for eighteen breathless weeks
for clobbering a child
he hugs his knees, his forehead drips,
his thoughts are black, rank, wild

and treacle-thick, half drenched in ‘roids,
his cranium well crammed,
imagining that filthy pig,
that copper, with his Sam.

For she’s a bitch, a slag, a cunt
for she is filth and sin
and when Raoul Moat walks free from here
his Sam will get done in.

All my life I wanted death,
hence the reason I took risks;
made the worst of enemies;
did the things I did.

For six years Sam had felt his hand
since she was just sixteen
she’d had his kid so she was his
but then law intervened

and set her free, she ended it
but knew he’d try to stop her
so terrified she told a lie
said she was with a copper.

And by the time that Moat was out
the lie had slicked in him
a black and oily hatred
weighing heavy in his limbs.

This cruel injustice fitted him
Raoul Moat was used to it
the mirror showed a victim
they kept face down in the shit.

The burly British underdog,
the disenfranchised thug,
Blitzkrieged with stuff he couldn’t have
and wrecked on muscle drugs

Raoul Moat romanticised himself
it wasn’t very hard
the noble savage cuckolded
the stuff of ballad bards.

Convinced himself he had no choice:
a gruesome trick or treat,
he took his sawn-off shotgun
to a sleepy Gateshead street

at 3am, when madness prowls
and stalks around your head
he killed the man he thought a cop,
he left his girl for dead -

her liver ruptured, stomach burst
what could he do but run?
But very soon the word was out
and then the hunt was on.

All my life I wanted death,
hence the reason I took risks;
made the worst of enemies;
did the things I did.

And Fleet Street, with its penchant
for a manhunt and a murder
made Raoul Moat’s mug a frontpage splash
from Mirror to Observer.

The bleached-out passport photo
with the psycho, steroid stare
the breathy editorials
that warned good folk beware -

Raoul Moat was tabloid dynamite
the papers drooled for more
a shot of Tarantino
with a can of Geordie Shore.

And Moaty duly gave them what
they’d all been waiting for.
He seized upon a squad car
and he walked up to the door

shot PC Rathband in the eye
to further square his score.
Oh how the wire buzzed that day
oh how the newsrooms roared.

You see the greatest tragedy
of these bewildered times -
we have perpetual coverage
without perpetual crime.

But here we had a hunt-a-thon
a real time movie reeling:
Another take please Mr Moat
and this time Raoul, with feeling.

And Moaty gave the goods again -
a 56 page letter
his victim spiel, his love for Sam
and why he had to get her.

Confessional and laced with fear
from Desperation row
as mawkish as the sobbing kids
from TV talent shows.

His vanity and loneliness
his sorrow, dark and grim
it did its work on thousands
and they sympathised with him

All my life I wanted death,
hence the reason I took risks;
made the worst of enemies;
did the things I did.

And so, against a chorus
of a million op-ed sages
the popcorn-toting public and
some Go Raoul! Facebook pages

the cops stepped up their hunt across
the bitter and sparse hills
pulled bobbies off their locals beats
and even hired Bear Grylls

to track Moat down to Rothbury
where in another time
they sung of blackleg mining men
who broke the picket line.

And here, word of a storm drain
on the outskirts of the town
soon brought the paparazzi and
the Sky News choppers down

so everyone could tune in live
on tellies, tubes and feeds
as armed police closed in around
the man upon his knees

his own gun pointed at his throat
an edgy stale mate
as journos madly tapped their phones
and coppers offered bait.

Moat’s friends were fetched to talk him down
but still he held his ground
when Gazza pitched up with some grub,
it ceased to be profound

and morphed into a pantomime -
surreal and almost funny.
The public got their spectacle
the papers made more money

but some, I fancy, felt for him
this lonely, beaten figure
his world just dust around him when
at last he pulled the trigger.

All my life I wanted death,
hence the reason I took risks;
made the worst of enemies;
did the things I did.

So breathe, the dreadful thing is done
What tragedy! What pity!
The action men reporters went
a-tweeting to the city

and left the folk in Rothbury
with trampled lawns and greens
who tidied up their town and left
some flowers at the scene;

police began their paperwork
enquiries commenced
and even politicians
who are usually on the fence

got stuck in. David Cameron
our newly-voted chief
he stood up in the Commons
and although he kept it brief

condemned the folk who’d set-up pages
routing for Raoul Moat
the sort of folk who hate the cops
the sort who do not vote

the people so devoid of heroes
killers fill that role
a long, long way from London
and familiar with the dole.

We didn’t even pause for breath
before we started hating
and wagging bony fingers
at the Raoul Moats in the making?

While blinded PC David Rathband
pushed away his wife
enclaved in sheer-black solitude
he broke and took his life.

This ballad has no heroes
it’s tune is not so hot
the chances are it won’t be heard
above the tabloid’s shots:

the blunt, cathartic bullet storms
that state some folk are scum
that certain things can only be
made better with a gun.

Anyway, that’s not why I’m writing, I’m just trying to add a bit of human colour to an otherwise promotional blog post.

I’m playing The Soho Theatre in May. That’s 2 [...]]]> Bonjour blog fans. It’s just done some rain in Bungay. The cat’s basket was drying on the line. It’s even wetter now. OH NO! Life, eh?

Anyway, that’s not why I’m writing, I’m just trying to add a bit of human colour to an otherwise promotional blog post.

I’m playing The Soho Theatre in May. That’s 2 – 5 May 2012. It’s the last chance to see Luke Wright’s Cynical Ballads in London. I know: both exciting and a wee bit sad.

Ok, so here it is in bold:

Luke Wright’s Cynical Ballads
2 – 5 May | 9.15pm
The Soho Theatre, Dean Street, London | 020 7478 0100 | Book online

*

Look, I done an asterisk to suggest a change of subject. Seeing as you read the promo stuff so well here is a short poem about service stations to MAKE YOUR DAY! I wrote it for BH on Radio 4. I’ve spent days living in service stations and even wrote a show about them once so it was the commission I’d spent my career working up to. It’ll probably mean that I NEVER WORK AGAIN. Anyway, here it is:

National Service

The tabloid headlines sing together:
Three-day weekend, lovely weather
in the motor, hell for leather
Pull into the services!

Hello Moto! Welcome Break!
Massive coffee, piece of cake
you’ll find us just off junction eight
Don’t wait! Pull into the services.

For what says Britain more accurately
than stopping off for milky tea
a lukewarm pasty and a wee
They’re free – pull into the services.

A bonding of our class diaspora
well-heeled Bentley, musty Astra
eyes meet over hot plate pasta.
It has to be the services.

The coach tours with their pac-a-macs
the chaps in powder-primrose slacks
the Mayfair mums who dole out smacks
through petrol strike and pasty tax
they come to queue for fatty snacks
the whole of Britain’s making tracks.
Howzat! Pull into the services.

Strange cities, neither here nor there
just catwalks for our leisurewear
a place where you don’t have to care.
Yeah? Pull into the services.

As British as the summer rain,
as queues and coughs and held-up trains
Gordano, Todhills, Clackett Lane.
Here again. Pull into the Services.

The Special Relationship

It’s twenty-twelve, Olympic year, a Jubilee and all so flap your union jacks and hang some bunting from your wall crack out those tacky Royal mugs and croon God Save The Queen let’s use our British Bluster as type of time Machine

to [...]]]> For those asking, here is the poem I performed on the BBC World Service today:

The Special Relationship

It’s twenty-twelve, Olympic year, a Jubilee and all
so flap your union jacks and hang some bunting from your wall
crack out those tacky Royal mugs and croon God Save The Queen
let’s use our British Bluster as type of time Machine

to take us to the Glory years – the eighteenth century
when half the globe was Salmon pink and Blighty ruled the sea
when Boston was a suburb and DC just a dream
and every Yankee worth his salt was loyal to the team.

And maybe if you really squint and drink a quart of gin
around about the moment that the room begins to spin
you might make out Britannia unburdened by her sorrow
resplendent, young and nubile, but she’ll be gone tomorrow.

So spare a thought for poor old Dave, who’s pimping British blues:
Who will buy my shop-soiled goods, come on form a queue
and brown-nosing America on ghastly foreign trips
to shore up British interests in our “Special Relationship.”

So, we’ll give you the Beatles, in return you’ll give us … Britney
I’ll scratch your back if you … promise not to hit me
and this is Cheryl Cole … you don’t want it … no, fine, sure
ah, just what we’ve always wanted … another Holy war.

But there’s a thought to cheer you up as your pub becomes a diner:
the yanks aren’t any better-off, they’re sucking up to China.

A Poem for Fred Goodwin

So Toodle pip then Fred the Shred a nation’s anger on your head there’s many out there want you dead, they took away your gong instead.

Your friends have [...]]]> BBC World Service have just been in touch to see if I’d write them a little piece about Fred Goodwin losing his knighthood. I penned the following:

A Poem for Fred Goodwin

So Toodle pip then Fred the Shred
a nation’s anger on your head
there’s many out there want you dead,
they took away your gong instead.

Your friends have claimed it quite unfair
A scapegoat for the whole affair!
They blame the mess on Brown and Blair
and though I think they’re half right there

someone’s got to be the first
and with our fury fit to burst
and pension pots unreimbursed
well, frankly Fred you looked the worst.

But come on fellah, dry your tears
you’ve still 400k a year
while angry kids who stole sports gear
got punishments far more severe

and lost the lot, their freedom, homes
these lads whose lives are monochrome
and have to throw their sticks and stones
’cause they’ve no voice to call their own.

Don’t panic Fred, there’s nothing changed
the order’s not been rearranged
the way of things is much the same
it’s only you that’s out the game

and even that was all for show
a gesture so the press can crow
a tabloid sacrifice and lo
we get to keep the status quo.

I didn’t get a lie in [...]]]> It’s my birthday today, I’m 30. Woah. My son (2.5 years) is at my mum and dad’s so we’re kicking heels in a very pleasant way and making the most of this quietness before the baby comes. I just had a fry up and later there’s a curry. Hurrah.

I didn’t get a lie in though. I was up at 7am and writing another Hornchurch poem. This is the penultimate one. This is a conversation piece, nothing too flash, but I think it’ll work quite well in performance. The rhythm of the first piece is really fun, it builds nicely.

The London/Essex Dilemma

YOUNG MAN:

If anybody asks me, I’m from London
never Essex, rarely Hornchurch, London
East end, it’s the beating heart of London
got the tube, in my book mate, that’s London
drink my pints and sow my oats in London
sweat and earn and sleep and piss in London
Shakespeare wrote his sonnets here in London
half the world was governed here in London
Richardsons and Krays sliced throats in London
buzz of fourteen million in London
cloak of anonymity, that’s London
sweat of seven thousands boozers – London
heat of bodies packed in tight, that’s London
greatest city in the world is London.

So really mate, why choose to be from “Essex?”

OLDER MAN:

Well firstly friend, I see you like your hist’ry
but really Krays and Shakespeare, come on mate
that’s tourist stuff and as for boasts of empire
what’s next, a little ode to Wills & Kate?

See, pride in where you come from starts with hist’ry
so you should know, I hate to break your heart,
traditionally old Hornchurch is in Essex
and London was a fair slog from these parts.

You’re bowing down to roads and tubes and planning
you’re letting them dictate your past to you
but Essex is the county of rebellion
two fingers to smoke, that’s what we do.

John Ball, Wat Tyler, working men revolting
Essex, it’s the county of the free
that monkey they call Mayor in the blonde wig
you have him mate, he’s not to do with me

It’s not all green, green grass and Little England
it’s room to breath away from the machine.
It’s not all loads-a-money/TOWIE/Blingland
that’s London seeping up the a13.

So keep your smog and sad serrated sky
I’m Essex and I’m Essex till I die.

Weekend Dad

It’s every other Friday after [...]]]> This is another dramatic monologue for the Hornchurch project. This is kind of me putting myself into my worst nightmare. It somewhat affected me when I was writing it, so I have no idea if it’s any good or not. I feel it might be, but too close to tell.

Weekend Dad

It’s every other Friday after school.
Not long enough for me to be exotic
just long enough to not know what to say.

You used to tear across the tarmac, throw
your arms around my neck and softly sob.
Your Bob The Builder bag flung to the floor

your bright green scarf half off, your half
familiar smell … I could tell already
how much you’d changed in thirteen restless nights.

It broke my heart, the way you’d cling to me
the weight of absence buried in my neck.
Then later how you’d use words differently

or pick at food I’d made your special way;
how I was out of touch with all your friends;
your life abridged to a flat omnibus.

I watched this thing on Channel 4 last week
about these refugees from World War Two
left wandering in Italy for years,

the white hot pain of battle cooled to nothing.
It made me think of us, how now we shuffle
up and down this High street every fortnight,

displaced but numb, our cuts and wounds well scabbed;
the Happy Meals and Argos toys a bobbin
round which we wind our cotton-thin rapport.

Sometimes I take you into Roy’s for pie
my dad took me in there when I was young
our family’s lived round Hornchurch way for years

These streets are in my veins, they’re in yours too
I never thought we’d leave, I never thought …
But I can’t stop your mother and her fella

from moving down there, crazy though it seems
so I suppose I’ll see you there my boy
on every other Friday after school.

In truth, I wouldn’t want to seem exotic
I hope in time you’ll come to realise that;
that I was always there, and know it counts.