FOR PETER SCHNEIDER by Richard Barrett

barrett.richard1@googlemail.com
produce crated
mystery of pyramid reproduction
liverpool dockside
a new life in a new the
dream-time world of transit
normal rules do not apply
where can and as well
never to be spoken of again
the end is no ending
just an interlude
a nissen-hut pause, outside town
a chalk-wipe erasure of yesterdays lesson
as no longer relevant
new set of rules to be learnt

already settled family members
or tentative spirit of independence
bring dispersal around quicker a
keeness for the new to begin

mature students attitude of
with especially high proportion
keeping themselves to themselves
the main body of their course-mates
carved-off from
cliquey cresent evenings the
toasty pub back-room, the cool box
seminar-room
at 23 development
of a language after 7 years disillusionment
with the world of work
finally learning to think understanding
that "the history of C20th britain
is the histiry of immigration"

planners and developers dreams
are of communities
typified by diversity
a levelling-out process
where those professional rub-off against
those downwardly aspirational
the black-hole of research
swallowing pounds by the millions
hundreds of hours of time
resources which no one
absolutely no one
thinks could have been better used
self-fulfilling prophecy
of proving what needs to be proved

"subjects have trouble switching
their point of view to consider what
someone else might know"

...yet come the morning
would be fair to say that
in 1989 not every berlin wall
fell