The Policy Unit, Westminster

by Martin Hayes

the Prime Minister has told his ministers
that they need to find out
who it was
who while coming up in the lift with the potential new donors
said
‘here we go again
up to Mickey Mouse land’
and who when questioned by the potential new donors
as to what he meant
said, ‘whadda yer mean
it’s like Disneyland up there man
there’s Donald Duck the Defence Minister
Peter Pan the Home Secretary
Winnie-the-Pooh the Prime Minister
and Rapunzel and Pocahontas in charge of Social Housing & the NHS
none of them know what the fuck is going on
I went to see Disneyland with my mum once when I was 8
not the proper one, like in Orlando, but Paris
it’s just like that
a fake little Disneyland’

Donald Duck, Peter Pan, Rapunzel and Pocahontas
all stormed into the commons room together
screaming and shouting
demanding to know who it was
that had shown up the Government

no one said anything
no one looked at anyone

if you don’t tell us now, Donald Duck said
we will get the CCTV footage…
suddenly
Tinkerbell – head of MI5 - flew out of Peter Pan’s pocket in a rage
did four circuits of the commons room
spreading stardust everywhere
then landed back on Donald Duck’s beak
(she’s only small)
…and we’ll find out who it was, Donald Duck finished

and when we do find out who it was, Rapunzel and Pocahontas said in unison
we will not be very nice to them

Tinkerbell screwed up her tiny nose
turned away from us
then bent over letting a shoot of stardust out of her arse
before jumping off Donald Duck’s beak
and flying back into Peter Pan’s pocket

then they all disappeared
like when a concert with Taylor Swift is over
or breakfast with Cinderella ends
went into the cabinet room
and tried to log on to the CCTV camera on one of their pc’s

everyone in the commons room knew
that the CCTV wouldn’t have captured who it was
even if they could find the username and password to get into it
because like everything else in the Policy Unit
it didn’t work
it was all make-believe

the drone

by Martin Hayes

first it came in the idea of a big balloon
the way the wind could pick it up
move it across the battlefield
before its cargo being suddenly dropped

First World War Balloon Armed With Incendiary Bombs

then when the wind
got so infuriating and too unpredictable to live with
the propeller was invented
and attached to it, it was easier to guide the balloon
over where it needed to drop its cargo

(a lot of progress tends to happen
so that cargo can be dropped, propelled or deposited)

but the propeller could only make the ballon go forwards
something else needed to be done
if only for when there was still cargo left
and all the creatures on the board game below
hadn’t been killed yet
you could back-track
or swing in a wide arc back around to the target again
to finish them off
and win!

so thrust was invented, I don’t know either
it was something like a big powerful fart
that you could keep coming out of your arse for hours
that’d eventually lift you up off your couch
then spin you uncontrollably around your front room
without needing to use your legs

obviously this wasn’t helpful for the depositing of cargo
or to win a board game match
it needed to be contained and attached to something
which wouldn’t fly around the world depositing its cargo
on just anyone

so the balloon was turned into an aeroplane
that had wings instead of a dumb flat oval like surface like a face
with a basket case of cargo attached to it
which just glided wherever the wind decided to take it
with no care or consideration of the cargo it held
which, let’s face it, was holding everyone up who wanted to get on with the game
and finally fucking end it!

the wings were aerodynamically only 4% less efficent than a pigeon’s
who were well known for being able to deposit their cargo
but the best thing about them
was that they could hold these big round barrels of whirring fire
which could contain then direct the thrust
taking the aeroplane around the world wherever it was needed
before dropping its cargo all over the place

the trouble was
the people on the ground
were getting pretty pissed off with having all of this cargo dropped on them
so why the balloons were being turned into aeroplanes
they were also turning their catapults into rockets
with their own idea of thrust
which normally took around 48,000 of them to die along one strip
before they could launch even one

then one day
after they’d managed to launch one amongst all of the blood and dust
it hit an aeroplane and split it apart in the sky
4 creatures died, one from New Jersey, one from Connecticut, one from New England and one from Alabama
this caused a major news tsunami on the tv channels
and outrage in the provinces

‘men, our men, are being blown out of the sky!’

everyone started to buy all of the bottled water, toilet paper and microwave meals from the supermarkets
in Wisconsin a crowd of people turned up at the local Costco
stole all of their pre-cooked chickens
then torched the gaff

The Reaper Drone Dropping Off Its Cargo Of A Hellfire Missile

and that’s why we now have drones
because the fewer creatures who die on one side
the more creatures you can get away with killing on the other
without risking riots, poll-swings, assassination attempts
or anything else generally considered
as bad publicity

BOOM!
BOOM!

WIN!
WIN!

who knows what the next level of progress will bring

This poem is from a new collection of Martin's poems called Machine Language, published soon by Smokestack Books

Here are a couple of poems from a new collection by Martin Hayes for Smokestack Books, called Machine Poems. 

the definition of a machine

something that is made from following the instructions of a blueprint
rather than the pure mistakes of lust
something non-binary
with legs or arms that have been assembled
rather than grown
something that cannot learn but only repeat
something that can make or mend things
as easily as kill or break things
something whose mothers and fathers cannot be identified
apart from the manufacturer’s tattoo on their skin
something that is not singular
but one of the many
something that doesn’t eat
anything but electricity
that needs to be hooked up to some kind of power source
so that it can reflect back its light into the people’s faces
when they are sat in the dark
something so cunning so manipulative so addictive
it can turn you into one of them
without you even knowing it

the definition of what’s not a machine

when the curve of her back means more to you than anything
when a tree
or a group of trees
like a wood or a forest
stand for something
when you want to kill something
like a politician or a bailiff or a traffic warden
but use reason not to
when you have a trinket or an artefact
left behind by the dead
that means something to you
immeasurably more than its appearance
when animals become your neighbours
rather than your trophies
when stars remain a mystery
rather than a solvable puzzle
when after eating beetroot
your pee comes out red
and you daydream for hours
about how everything is connected
when you can measure
evil or good
by the instinct inside your guts
rather than by a calculation
when there is an urgency
in the things that you do
because you have the knowledge of death

a healthy return

by Martin Hayes

there was this place
and it wasn’t a town or a city
but people lived there
and there was one shop and one pub
they all went to
and the shop had eggs and beans for the people to buy
but the shop shut down when the distribution company
couldn’t get the eggs and beans to them
without a healthy return
and then the busses that came through that place
twice back and forth everyday
also stopped coming
because there was no healthy return in it
and then the people got sick
because they couldn’t get to the doctor or the dentist
or the one library left or the one swimming pool left
and in the end
there was only the people left
in this place
and the pub
to which they all went
to drink the landlord’s homemade gin
to talk about how they had all been
forgotten by the machine
until they all died out
and nothing existed anymore
in that place
or any of the other places
other than the rumour
that there’d been a people who once lived around here
but they’d all died out
because there was no healthy return
to be had from any of them

the screams of the supervisors

by Martin Hayes

you can’t always decipher what the screams of the supervisors mean
so numerous are they
sometimes they sound like moos from within a herd
drowned out by the rest of the heard
then other times they are like the beatings of a silverback’s chest
charging into a clearing in the forest
before just standing there
looking for the surprise and shock to appear on all of our faces
so that it can make him feel hard and relevant again

sometimes they are like the bite of a hyena into the back of your neck
other times they are like the annoying whimpering of a chained-up dog
and sometimes they are as ferocious and directed as a snake bite
leaving you feeling anxious and nervous
from how much poison they might’ve injected into you
and yet other times
they are like the howl of a lonely wolf
howling at something unknown
unheard
alone

but mostly
they are like the coughing-up bark from some hideous animal
afflicted by a great disease
coming from somewhere far off
in the dense electronic wood

they want all our teeth to be theirs

by Martin Hayes

they want from us total commitment
they want from us our blood and our hunger
they want from us our flesh
inked with the company's logo on our chest
they want our knuckles to our brains
and all the nerve-ends in between
switched off
they want our sinews and our muscles sewn together with steel thread
so that we can only move when they pull their levers
they want all of our teeth to be theirs
so that we can only chew when they chew
ache when they ache
they want us to show them where we keep our guts
so that they can sneak in under the radar
and pull them apart
angry thread by angry thread
until nothing is held
or stitched together anymore

and what do we want?

we want to be able to walk through the park on a Saturday afternoon
without feeling anxious
we want to be able to lay out on the grass
drinking ice cold beer while looking up into the sky
without worrying about office politics
we want to swim in the ocean once a year
and know how we are going to pay for it
we want a mouth full of teeth
that we know we can afford to get fixed or capped
if ever they should go rotten
we want to be able to enjoy the laughter and song
that comes from having food in the fridge the electricity bill paid
a car taxed and full of diesel
a medicine cabinet filled with floss sticks and Sudocrem
paracetamol and hand cream
Bonjela hair-bands Diazepam and Ansol

we want to be able to live in our block
without the fear of being redistributed
hanging like thick drool dripping from a councillor's panting mouth
because an entrepreneur took him for a £500 dinner
and promised him a place for his kid in the prep school
that will take our council flats place
alongside the £65-a-month gym business units
and 1.5 million-pound lofts

we want to feel
be able to say to ourselves
that we are human
and not have to give everything of that away
just so we are allowed to work
just so we are allowed
to exist

This poem is one of the winners of the 2021 Bread and Roses Poetry Award, sponsored by Unite, and they want all our teeth to be theirs is the title of the forthcoming anthology.

Martin Hayes presents 5 poems from Ox, his new collection. All images by Gustavius Payne

Ox trust

the oxen bought tickets to the annual oxen versus goats football match
which though having stellar meaning in the ox and goat world
nevertheless had to be played in a secret location
because oxen and goats are not allowed to play football anymore - silly

none of the goats were as forward thinking as the oxen
who because they were armed with infinitesimally bigger brains
had gone and got themselves a coach

the coach was not an ox
or a goat
but an ex-Farmer
who had fallen foul of The National Bank Of Farmer’s interest rates
losing everything

being on hard times
he’d answered an advert in the paper
and after one single clandestine meeting
landed the job
of becoming the oxen’s new football coach

he coached at a higher standard
than any goat or ox had ever done
and tactically
he was aeons ahead of all the goats and oxen
who all had clods for brains

all of the oxen were so happy and excited
they felt sure that with the ex-Farmer’s help
they were going to inflict the heaviest defeat on the goats
in history

on the night before the match
just after the team had been selected
it was revealed to the ex-Farmer
the secret location of tomorrow’s match
and as soon as the coast was clear
the ex-Farmer dialled the manager of The National Bank Of Farmers
offering him information
that would make him very important indeed
but only if The National Bank Of Farmers
gave him back
his farm

at the secret location
all the oxen and goats were slaughtered on the spot
and the only evidence
was the following unfinished sentence
scraped into the floor in blood
by what looked like an oxen’s hoof

once a farmer
always a far…

***
 

 
Ox in hunger worries about his colleague Mole

the starter
a torn-out tongue
tender with the years of grubby language
softening up its muscle

next
the Earth’s platter
spread with the scorched heads of its occupants mouths agape
stuck in charred-black laughter
from the high temperatures of a sudden cooking

loosened teeth
to be sucked clean of their leftover gum-flesh
hanging on to their upturned roots
as an ache inherits the mouths of all those that are left

the wine
blood upon blood
deep as the dark of Moles’ eyes
after culling

then later
dessert
the cream of white fat opened up at Orgreave beautifully rendered
beaten soft and silky
to drip like victory down their iron throats

the feast is never over never done
Ox’s tail still wags within its bones
but he knows it won’t be long
before Farmer will work out a way
to snap it open get in there
and lick at the marrow of his insides
too

***

a night in the leaky barn

this Ox and this Cow ate each other
it wasn’t ordered or planned or anything
they just became bored one night
and stoked up a hell of a hunger

gradually he chewed up all of her smiles
kept them in his intestines like eggs in a nest
she delighted in teasing his words
into the microwave
where she nuked them
into seeping bulging-eyed monsters
he munched on her eyes until all she could see was the back of his throat
she steamed away his tongue for that
he filleted of her womb to get her back
she peeled back the rind of his sternum
and licked on the marrowy insides like it were an ice-lolly
he uprooted both of her legs
then sank in up to his neck, the Hyena
she just laid back and laughed louder
sucking clean the mango stone she’d found in his head
he put his hands inside her stomach
and clenched them to fists as tight as he could
she jumped up and down on his eyeballs
as though she was beating meat
he put in the oven her nails and teeth
she brought out her blender and blitzed his penis

he said he was full now
she said she was tired
and besides
it wasn’t fun anymore

so they fell asleep
what was left fitted tightly up against what was left
and never woke up again

until morning
when the strapping into their ploughs
diverted their hunger away
from each other

Ox gets a visit from social services

they visited him once
never needed to knock
the leaky barn not being his
doors were left off latch
inside the filth afflicted
no pictures nailed the wall to yearn a lost heart
and not one but sixty of them stood
swishing their tails staring
at what the walls might bring their still beating hearts
language was not chucked around this place uselessly
everyone knew only one word none of them could quell
none of them!
they were prisoners of their own song
Hunger it was called

***

Ox dealing with the light

when light comes in through the cracks in the leaky barn
it hurt Ox’s eyes

when light reflects off the steel handle of Farmer’s thwacking stick
Ox’s flanks quiver and tremble

when the low morning light of the sun
reflects off the puddles in the yard
Ox’s heart sinks

when moonlight
bathes the dusty roots with its magic
Ox tosses and turns
thinking that a great spell is being placed upon him

and when the lights of the abattoir
burn through the night from a distance
looking like a search party
coming to the rescue
Ox hasn’t a clue
that is where it will all end

which all helps to prove
when you see an ox
momentarily pause in a field
swishing his head from side to side
like in a great struggle to set something free
there’s no need to worry
about the revolution starting anytime soon
because all it is
is Ox pretending again
that he’s got something going on up there
when really there is only blackness and fog
and the pain from all of this light

Ox is available here.

where we got the importance of peas from

by Martin Hayes

there have always been jobs
ever since we were able to stand up
and grew hands
things to clean things to cook
things to count things to watch
things to tie up
like shoes and birthday presents
things to iron
like shirts and petticoats
things that need fixing things that need sorting
things that need making and things that need breaking

but the jobs I’m talking about
are the jobs you see the dustman doing
and the doctor doing
and the fireman doing
and the woman at the checkout in the supermarket doing
and the man behind the counter who brings you your chicken nuggets doing

those jobs are not household jobs
but jobs that people get paid for
so that they can pay for a roof
to go over your head
or for water and electricity
to keep you warm
or for food and fruit
so you can eat
or a train set
or a bicycle
so you can play
or a trip to the cinema
or a new pair of shoes
so you can live

those jobs
believe it or not
we’re created by the pea

I know
it sounds impossible doesn’t it
but when a pea is born
it is born in a pod
along with lots of other peas

and one day
it was realised that peas were very special indeed
so everyone set about trying to get as many peas behind them as possible
because the more they had
the more it made them feel safe and warm

so important did the peas become
that competitions were set up
to see who could build a pile of peas
the highest

some were very good at this
and won competition after competition after competition
until they had so many peas
that nobody else had any left

so the winners of the competitions
created jobs for the losers of the competitions
to do

and when they’d been done
they paid them with a few peas
but only enough
so that they could eat
or rent a roof to live under

and when they ate
or paid for their roof to live under
they paid for them with peas

the same peas they’d been given
for doing their jobs
until they had no peas left again
until they had done more jobs
and earned a few more peas

so the winners of the competitions
always got their peas back

and this has been going on for centuries
and doesn’t look like
it will ever change
in the centuries to come
unless someone does something
about the importance of peas

the employed poor

by Martin Hayes

they have a car a job with no contract they work for a company that has
a zero-tolerance policy on sick days and non-attendance they have a
flat with heating and food they have a bottle of wine of a night
they cook a pasta dinner for their two kids they try to buy their
kids’ new clothes and a mobile phone but it’s never the right
ones always 2 or 3 generations behind they are healthy but
nervous strong but fragile they have nothing in their
hands or tucked away under their beds they
are only one withheld monthly pay cheque
away from disaster one boss’s decision
away from hunger one unfortunate
accident away from annihilation
one unplanned bill away from
tipping point one illness
away from seeing the
whole edifice of
their lives come
tumbling down
with no one
around to
help put
any of it
back
together
again

This poem is from a new collection from Martin Hayes called The Things Our Hands Once Stood For.

Martin Hayes is the only British poet who writes consistently and seriously about work, and about the insanity of a society where employees are seen as mere ‘hands’ whose sole role is to make money for the employer.

The publisher and poet Alan Dent has contributed an illuminating introduction. He says, 

Hayes speaks for those whose lives are supposed to be not worth speaking about. He is intent on revealing the significance of the lives of ordinary people in the workplace. When current employment relations are consigned to the dustbin of history, and are viewed as we now view the feudal relations between lord and vassal, will people wonder why so little was written about it?

Martin’s poems are direct and simple, and full of black humour. Like the grainy black and white images that illustrate them so well, they expose and express the simple, terrible truth – that the human relation on which our society is based, that between employer and employee, is morally indefensible. The clear message of his poetry is that those who do the work should own, control, and benefit fully from it. They should, in the last words of the last poem, ‘start the revolution that will change everything’, and show that

all of our fingertips combined
might just be the fingertips
that keep us and this Universe
stitched together.

The booklet is priced at £6 (plus £1.50 p&p), and is available from here, Manifesto Press and the usual outlets. ISBN 978-1-907464-32-4.