More poetry;
Ken Smith wasn't born in Hull, but he spent his schooldays here, so I'll grant him honorary citizenship. In fact a mate of mine went to school with him. He reckons the young Ken was a James Dean lookalike, which impressed his contemporaries no end. James Byron Dean was a big deal in those days.
I've met three real poets in my life, one of them was Ken Smith. He was doing a poetry reading of other people's work. I remember the Vosnesensky poem, "I am Goya", which impressed me, and which will probably feature hereabouts in the near future.
But back to Ken Smith; the following is a favourite of mine. It's about national service -

PRIVATE SMITH

You shout. I jump. The body locks.
The world lies level with my nose.

Words snap to muscles.

You use my body,
but the dead are stumbling in my brain.

Whose gun is this I carry?

The unfastidious assassin bawls and I obey.
Who would he have me kill this day?
Cyps? Lithuanians? I hear Jews
are still in season.

The gun is smooth, clean. He didn't wear
a uniform who bored this spiral,
shaped this stock, fixed sights.

I put a stop to thought, and hate instead
all those who put me here, who shaped
me this blind toy, and taught its use.

They gibber in my brain. And all around
the blind unthinking dead are piling up.