I never learned the rules they played by here
Where play goes on at length and play is slow.
I know, it's felt to have been made quite clear
About these rules, I heard about them, once.
Your every slip is prey on which to pounce.
Goal posts? They move them nightly in a team.
The sweat you wake from more than a dream.
The bruise on your cheekbone??s from a blow.

Now faded down to a pretty saffron yellow,
Not quite there at all, yet not entirely clean.
A thrashing leaves you feeling low and mellow.
Philosophical, it's called, by those who say
They taught you the terminology of foreplay.
In this borough of the sighted blind, the one-eyed
Au pair might as well desert North London
As live in her monocular world of dreams.

What else? If you don't like it, you can stick it
So runs a faded motto on the wall of the town hall.
They hand you a red balloon, a pin to prick it,
No prize for jumping quickly when the scythe
Sweeps by at noon to cut off the feet of the lithe
And toss them into an ever-munching bucket.
Each flower's yours, if you can stoop to pluck it,
Growing on its stem of wire, on its bed of gall.

Each dog must have his day, each cow her stall.
They see your life as a journey starting where
Each newborn's nappy rash predicts her fall.
The clocktower winds these streets around its thumb
Whose kettles spout and witnesses keep schtum.
I'm a stranger here myself, I saw nothing, nothing.
You might suspect that winking fool of bluffing
But he's the fool who pays your wages, dear.

John Muckle