“Gombeen Men”

 

 “A Smuggler’s Song”

“If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by.”  (Kipling)

"From first class Hull Train carriages

The Art 'elite' -

Sleek Gombeen men

In Renaissance man

Hugo Boss

Linen suits

Jaunty pitched fedoras

And hand made leather shoes

Step squeaking onto Paragon

Samsonite luggage wheels clatter

Down along platform three,

And out.

 

The gombeenery afford

A passing nod to lucky Larkin

Scuttling from town

And wish they were scuttling his way too

 

But Hull is this year’s pukka pie

Where the cherries are ripest

The pickings are plumpest

And the living is easy

 

Ahead lies serious

Business

Meeting local dignitaries;

Cultural (non) entities

Civic receptions

Cheese and wine swilling

Glad handing

Back slapping

Porcine fingers

Plundering funding

Ripping off

Sodding off

With bellies full

And wallets fuller

 

Jetting to the summer sun

In Tahiti, Rio or Cancun."

 

(Hull is City of Culture next year - hasn't the city suffered enough?)