The Uniform Factory

Louise Fazackerley

• Publisher: Verve Poetry Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781912565412
• eBook ISBN:
  9781912565900
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Finally, in printed form, the poems from Louise's BBC3 commission 'Love is a Battlefield' make a wonderful pamphlet

The Uniform Factory is modern war poetry marching to it's own syncopated rhythm.

Anti-war. Pro-soldier. It documents and dreams the after-affects of economic conscription, war in Afghanistan and PTSD. Gallows-humour standing shoulder to shoulder with bitter anger.

The collection is punctuated by landays- a Pashtun poetic form, traditionally spread woman to woman, changing, rebelling and re-mixing in the telling.

Written from the perspective of the families left behind in Northern England

Remembrance Someday

ticktockticktock

See the sterile clock with it’s can-can legs,

the frou-frou ticking of the red second hand,

no, the third hand, seconds are amputated,

only 3 fingers, a capital letter T. Tut tut tut.

Time disagrees with your use of it.

It clicks as a horse clops,

as the plack plack of the princess shoes

of a child on laminate floor.

Shhhh. Be quiet. Daddy’s in bed.

Daddy’s been asleep for a long time.

Jam a pen in the march of that clock

and turn it, turn it. Turn it forwards,

wait, Daddy’s in the bath.

Body temperature, where blood

like egg yolk flowers

in bathwater.

The poppy, dropped on blue lino

at the side of the bath.

A prick of the pin, a rake of the knife,

that plastic green stem is whirring round

and round, tickticktick,, twitching, defibrillating,

the raw red paper of helicopter blades

begin to hum and roar- men scream in relief,

an hours wait, the morphine’s wearing of,

this man, this boy is still alive, handover to the doctors,

they can fly away without jumping

from the white of the bath like the white of the

ward like the white of the eyes of one, two,

one, two, one, two, one, two, three boys

who you saved, who were supposed to survive,

like the white of the poppy the pacifist wears

like the white of your anger, like the white

shrouds of Afghan dead, like the dirty, white

of my wedding vows, like the white teeth

of Azad, haggling for chickens,

like the white of the fallen feathers, like the

white of divorce papers in the shredder,

like the white of the skirting boards

you scrub and scrub, like the white of the

toothpaste on your daughter’s cheek

like the white bone of the domino

Clock face. About turn. Left march.

Remembrance Sunday.

A service, a cenotaph, Ince shopping precinct.

watched by William Hill and Nisa,

watched by Tattoos by Lisa,

watched by the Colonol, you know, the KFC.

The kids made bucketful

of the clots, at school.

Mummy, look!

She wears it as a garland.

You won’t wear your medals.

a spattering of soldiers,

old, old soldiers,

their spines curve,

the ramrod frames of them

sink ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Passing Out Parade (1998)
• Another Place
• factory
• uniform
• Landay
• Street Life
• Front Line
• Souvenir
• Daddy’s boat
• Landay
• Weather Report
• Landay
• Bolton’s Party - (a response to Kipling’s Recessional)
• Landay
• Remembrance Someday
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• About Verve Poetry Press