In l987, Channel 4 caused controversy by broadcasting V, a haunting meditation on the provocative use of language in the l980s by the English poet, Tony Harrison

The language of this graveyard ranges from a bit of Latin for a former Mayor or those who laid their lives down at the Somme, the hymnal fragments and the gilded prayer,

how people ‘fell asleep in the Good Lord’, brief chisellable bits from the good book and rhymes whatever length they could afford, to CUNT, PISS, SHIT and (mostly) FUCK!

Or, more expansively, there’s LEEDS v. The opponent of last week, this week, or next, And a repertoire of blunt four-letters curses On the team or race that makes the sprayer vexed.

Then, pushed for time, or fleeing some observer, Dodging between tall family vaults and trees Like his team’s best ever winger, dribbler, swerver, Fills every space he finds versus Vs.

Vs sprayed on the run at such a lick, The sprayer master of his flourished tool, Get short-armed on the left like that red tick They never marked his work much with at school.

Half this skinhead’s age but with approval I helped whitewash a V on a brick wall. No one clamoured in the press for its removal Or thought the sign, in wartime, rude at all.

These Vs are all the versuses of life From LEEDS v. Derby, Black/White And (as I’ve known to my cost) man v.wife, Communist v. Fascist, Left v. Right,

Class v. class as bitter as before, The unending violence of US and THEM, Personified in 1984 By Coal Board MacGregor and the NUM,

Hindu/Sikh, soul/body, heart v. mind, East/West, male/female, and the ground these fixtures are fought out on’s Man, resigned to hope from his future what his past has never found.

The prospects for the present aren’t too grand When a swastika with NF (National Front)’s Sprayed on a grave, to which another hand Has added, in a reddish colour, CUNTS.