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New Rage Poet

In dead of night, by grace, I chanced on Pope
whose unctuous spleen instilled a boundless hope
that this life, unfulfilled, if not too late
might find unbridled joy in crafted hate.
I learned his lot was not a happy one
but god or devil – who cares – gave him tongue
through which, with joy, to serially lambaste
friend, foe, and fig – a true iconoclast.
Aware that one so young excelled this art
not out his twenties, loosed the sharpest dart;
at seventy, and sometime thrice his age
with proxy pedigree I find new rage.
So to the Pope of poisonous discharge
I own my guilt in every word writ large
that endless rosary might be decreed
with rounded insult in each fingered bead.
Then existential - outside time and space
beyond contempt of that inhuman race
in Nihilist Nirvana, Pope and I
bestow a negacy that shall not die.

13.7.08

Time Embroidered

The time that once was ‘once upon’
has gone and I am through that portal
no mere mortal ever more regains
but slowly drains thereafter of life-force
on downward course to timelessness.

Time that was once additional with
fetes, traditional in embrace of growth;
now loath to find its tally yet advanced;
frame disenhanced as years take toll
and goal concedes to aimlessness.

Universal Time, with space entwined
your face unlined, eternal ingénue
by you, is all encompassed since the Word;
our mark: inferred ineffability.
And me: a petty point of pointlessness.

13.7.08
 

Console

I could have built a Universe of spirit
no physical dimension
just abstract thought’s invention
exultant at my art’s infinity
through undiluted homage paid to me.

I could have done without the gross intrusion
of matter’s messiness
evolution’s guessiness
where DNA’s haphazard filigree
has branched out to your fickle family tree.

I didn’t need mankind’s half-wit emergence
where animal substrate
locks your mind in crass debate:
your capacity for wonder seeking me
while your procreative base just wants whoopee.

I had no need of Eden or that apple;
of flaky snaky Adders
forking up Life’s Snakes and Ladders.
No two of your religions can agree
they’re all man-made and naught to do with me.

What’s done is done – I’ve set it all I motion
that fine shambles you have made
I observe and am dismayed.
Try not to blame yourselves; I won’t blame me
When I press “delete” for all eternity.

25.11.07

Not Flowering but Arranging

If words were blooms and poems vases
the gamut would be run
botanic bliss to “nothing parses”
composed, or all undone.

So diverse now the poem’s corpus
bones all in contention
before this spleen becomes more raucous
let’s craft new invention.

Though phrase and flower form, by nature
pleasing juxta – posies;
both word and bloom in painful fracture
disjoint knowing noses.

Yet, forgers all, constraint eschewing
p-words shunned as strangers;
no writing wronged – the mangled truing;
forward - “Word Arrangers”.

28.5.07

Mourne Free

Oh Mary now London’s a quite different place
With the Hoodies all waving a gun in your face.
I told them we’d put all our guns beyond use
And they made clear their view that the move was obtuse.
They asked for my phone and I’ve not had it back
But I felt quite at home when they offered good craic.
I was high as the clouds on the stuff they sold me
Like the mountains of Mourne that sweep down to the sea.

We Irish no longer will lodge in dank holes
As each nook and each cranny is filled up with Poles.
In their work they contrive to eclipse English blokes
But the English are missing the old Irish jokes.
No Pole kissed the Blarney; he’s not “life-and-soul”
In truth he’s about as much fun as a pole.
So I guess that old London was glad to see me
Once more leaving those mountains that sweep to the sea.

I got Lottery funding to busk in The Crown
And received compensation for just falling down.
In England today as a minority
Divinely, my right is to everything free.
Apparently now they’ve more money than sense
And do-gooders outnumber the feckless and dense.
So I signed up for uni – sure: I’d get no degree
Where the mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.

I didn’t do learning but had lots of fun
They just can’t throw you out - that’s discrimination.
I swaggered my stuff with a fake Paddy brogue
And was soon taken up as a lovable rogue.
Then, would you believe it: some media bloke
Decided to hire me to tell the odd joke.
More demand here for my idio-syncrasy
Than where mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.

Now I’m a celebrity – got me own show;
Dumb guests at their ease with the stuff I don’t know.
I have millions of fans and they all love my style
With me wild Celtic hair and pan-o-ram-ic smile.
I’m up with the stars looking down from on high;
“Hello” wants me story – so it’s Ireland “goodbye”.
My “wild rose” can wither – floribunda for me
Nor I’ll mourn for those mountains that sweep to the sea.

28.5.07

Losing The Will

Shakespeare held up a mirror
it entertained and laid bare;
showing to those with wit to see
all human truth was there.
Now Will is a god undisputed
and true The Word flowed from that head
but for all we absorb of his wisdom
his words might as well stay un-read.
No matter the times he’s enacted
and discussions long into the night
we progress in our ways not one tittle
we cheat - and we lie - and we fight.
What benefit man if he study the Bard
aspiring to scholarship’s goal?
If I knew my Shakespeare I’d make ready quote
of some scholar bereft of his soul.
And what would this Playwright have written    
to illustrate our fell malaise?
No shortage of pomp and of posture
while society round us decays.
Now stage-craft is all innovation
constraints to the four winds are tossed
his words in reworked repetition -
and his message consummately lost.
So join me in ponderous silence
as we bow down our heads to the Bard;
in describing, he gave us a warning
but still with the old brush we’re tarred.
Even he, despite wisdom, embellished;
our mind’s eye quite drawn from the nub
we’re transported by trappings and wrappings
but humanity’s lost – there’s the rub.

28.5.07

Second Centenary

20-07 and Wilberforce is on the public lip;
he knew no rest till British men
no more for slaves took ship.

But government was not averse to taking Satan’s Shilling.
We had a National Lottery -
enslavement of the willing.

So Wilberforce stood tall again; this “national sin” addressed.
’26 saw gambling off -
Great Britain passed the test.

But yet, in 19-93 we took Sin to our heart
John Major’s Lottery was born
befouling sport and art.

When 20-26 comes round shall Wilberforce be lauded?
Or with government hand in pauper’s purse
will silence be “afforded”?

14.04.07

Taking a Sicky

Steven Hawking went space walking
In the vomit Comet
He declared mankind should uplift his behind
And ascend like Wallace and Gromit.
But he should know to boldly go
Like Kirky and his crew
Means Bones and Sulu – (crass and lulu)
Quirks and diversity too
Who represent Earth’s experiment
That’s all gone quite awry
Should not be let out to go wand’ring about
Across the endless sky.
So clever Steven, though you have reason
The rest of us are thick
If the human race should get into space
The space-folk will all get sick

May 2007

Film Noir

As if from nowhere he entered our lives
charismatic it seemed – with that smile.
In some mystical way his dentition revealed
the root of his being with nothing concealed
and he swore that no truth he’d defile.

The next smile seemed darker - or was it his friends?
Not anything you could define.
As he smiled from high places at home and abroad
delivering speeches that all could applaud
we still felt that the future was fine.

The third caught the eye - there was something amiss;
it was not that the smile was strained.
But a front lower tooth set back from the rest
standing back from that smile, subverting its zest
appeared to be slightly stained.

The fourth smile with Azna and Bush in a row
was a clench in Madrid’s dark despair.
He was doing his best to be one of the group
but knew that back home he was well in the soup
while that brown tooth looked out - like his stare.

Smile five was a great leader’s smile - no less;
three time winner, he just could not lose!
But the tooth - ever darker - surveyed his demise
as stress dulled his hair and the light left his eyes
and dark deeds put his neck in a noose.

Smile six looks the confident smile of a man
who leaves with the job truly done;
in the knowledge that he is a Straight Kind of Guy
rictus grin painted on, Heaven’s truth to deny;
save one tooth - black as night - just the one.

When at last he is called to the judgement halls
he will grin that damned grin unaware
that his life was not smiley and whiter than white
it was run from the rear by a black hearted sprite;
that one tooth saying: “I’m Tony Blair.”

20.02.07

Climate Change

Would it be so bad
if the climate changed
and we all went back to the caves?
For it seems to me
interglacially
is precisely where man misbehaves.

Would it matter at all
if the fire went out -
should it rain incessantly?
For man’s fire has smelted
the earth till it melted
in the furnace of industry.

Would those acres mourn
if the farming ceased
and the furrows no more cleft that brow?
For the soil lost all heart
turned to farming’s dark art;
as his earth-right man claimed, through the plough.

Would it count as loss
if once more we had need
of all cerebral skill to survive?
No time to digress
into facile finesse
yet successful - just staying alive!

21.2.07

Bad French (Modern Architecture)

 
Dominique Perrault
Pauvre homme - it's not his fault
After all, his ancestors could n'er prevail.
But it goes against the grain
He still wants to cause us pain
With a carbuncle that's quite beyond the pale.
 
Dominique Perrault
Poor man - ne pas son faux
All that ancestral defeat has made him fiery.
But whatever else is wrecked
By this Gallic architect
He must put no garlic blight on Reigate Priory.
 
Dominique Perrault
Once again you are the foe
But eight hundred years of Heritage won't yield!
We have architects galore
Brits to make our own eye-sore
Go!
Find a corner of some other foreign field.
2006
 

Art Wacko

Ellsworth Kelly, he took a pot of paint
He painted a panel, they said he was a saint
Then he painted another, this one was yellow
And they hung it on a wall where you have to be a Fellow.
Ellsworth said: “I’ve not done yellow that big before.”
Ellsworth felt satisfied and vowed that he’d do some more.
He painted a black one – his chum said: “Like a punch!”
He knocked it out in no time, and then he went to lunch.
When he came back he realised it suffered some small lack
There is real and there is ersatz . Don’t mess around with Black!
So he rollered off a white rectangle and another in vermillion
And sold them as a job-lot for a cool one-and-a-half million.
Ellsworth Kelly will go down in painting history
But I’ve got a bloody ceiling so he won’t get much acclaim from me!
13.4.06

Autumn (Sans everything.)

Milk teeth in the wind;
precursing Winter’s full bite;
contrasting my dental decline.
Hair-loss stalks the northern hemisphere.
The knuckled twig will know Spring;
mine only arthritis.
Mist obscures the far walked-out hills
and those lap-loved lines of poetry.
The gnarled tangle of death, ill defines.
Something is in the air – missing.
Birdsong elusive – or do none sing?
Of sap I make no mention.
And seeds mock.
2006

Black Light

At the Moon’s subtle insistence
Woman ebbs and flows as a siren sea,
inexorably calling to Man.
As the Moon cycles
Woman waxes and wanes in harmony,
loosing her bounty.
Beneath Selene’s shape-shy sheen
ill-defined Man’s works come to naught -
except he serve Woman.
What dark beam now shines,
leading Woman to forget she is Daughter;
seeking things of the Son
in the Sun’s harsh glare;
complimenting with the frown-shadow of man-days?
Misled, She has lost Her way
and neither orb, it seems,
can now enlighten.

5.10.06

Bricked Up

With reservoirs low they urged us all
To put a brick in the toilet
(A few simple souls thought they meant down the pan –
Where nasty sharp corners would spoil it.)
So as the craze spread that familiar whoosh
Reduced to a splurge and a trickle
Descended below from myriad loos
Into sewers – mean spirited – fickle.
Our Great British Drains lack that Romanesque flair -
Relate to no Leonardo sketch
They are bunged in the sod by the laissez faire hand
Of a sub, sub, sub-contracted wretch.
For drains to perform with Victorian style
You need apposite fall and smooth bends
Lest a build-up of that which dare not speak its name
Defies what each flusher intends.
The summer grew hot and the water dried up
Happy brick - in idyllic submersion
How could you, or your dunker, have any idea
Of sewerage lore - its perversion?
Like arterial furring – insidious – slow
The pipes gathered memorabilia
Shreds and strings all clinging to life
No goodbye in the wave of these cilia.
The summer wore on, no rain fell from that sky
The truth of the matter ironic
For ingress of rain, though forbidden by law
As a purge might have proved quite a tonic.
By the time summer broke and flash floods ensued
The pipes just gave up saying “sod ‘em”
Then sewage welled up as phone-lines conveyed calls
for another sub-wretch to come rod ‘em.
On a tale such as this it is meet to append
A moral – a cute mental trick
“Behold: though Metropolis, Babel-like towers
It can fall to one misapplied brick.”

10.11.06

Crap Game

The man who gives his life to curing cancer
Is not the man who leads us into war
For one a death is loss and ignominy
The other - almost - what a life is for.
The healer mourns the loss of one who passes
The great war-leader hails a hero’s death
One quietly contemplates a life truncated
The other breathes to own that last lost breath.
As science and understanding vanquish illness
So science and cleverness equip the knight
Physicians - budget strapped - unseen and hampered
While wars - uncosted - sparkle in the light.
Yet still we cannot see that war is failure
As brutish-being swamps humanity
Deep in us all a glory in destruction
Of “them” of course, who are not you and me.
As future leaders look to their advancement
Our science will one day take us way past Mars
All records for achievement we’ll keep beating
And the crap out of each other round the stars.

17.7.06

Daring

Beware, beware, the bogus bard
dressed in the Emperor’s clothes;
all hung about with accolades
cheap chandelier with wonky shades
who: the very soul of verse degrades
And every true muse loathes.

Beware the ragged, un-tag-ged, line
iambic counterfeit
that tread on deft directed toes;
uncontrolled thrashing of Baby-Grows;
putting out of joint every knowing nose
with the smell of nappied deceit.

Beware lest you fall in that cash-baited trap!
Pledge your tongue to the sweet savoured line.
Though an unstructured poem with little to say
bamboozles the judges (as none will gainsay)
who dares, wins reward - that the Gods alone pay;
Done right – it’s as water to wine.

5.10.06

Fail With Extinction?

(Mother Nature examines the current state of mankind)

Why do you thwart me at every turn you human abomination?
Throw in my face the wonderful gift, of sexual procreation?
Eons have passed since division’s clone pinched off as progeny
And I strove to improve, bringing sex to the world; the delight of a he and a she.
By mindful selection you strengthened your coil, to turn out uncommonly smart
But now as you daily uncover my laws, you reward me by twisting my art.
Be aware! Each new birth will grow, fruit and die, for such is the price of your fun;
In life, death resides, as the adage affirms; sexed-up life must get old from day one!
Eggs - and sperm - are best when they’re fresh; like a new day all dewy and dawny.    
If I didn’t mean you to go at it young, why on earth would I make you so horny?
Forget this desire for more income and goods, attend to some sweet redirection
Lust is a dish best served hot you fools and the same goes for rampant erection.
Desist from dumb waiting till ovaries creak and sperm has no in sting in the tail
You must take at a run this whole human race, unless you’re content with a “fail”.

12.10.06

New Warmth

(Winter Solstice)

Rudolf  leading Donner and Blitzen
In a Woking shopping mall
Plastic trees any colour but green
No peace in that unhallowed hall.
All the stuff that money can buy
And debt can underwrite
With the Spirit of Christmas-Present called “Bland”
No crib – no Holy Night.
It’s enough to gladden a Pagan’s heart
They have waited in darkness so long
For return of the Sun in majesty
Invoked when the night is long.
And they might have a point for when all’s said and done
Our gods just look on - while we’re fighting
But the Sun shines on all, illuming the way
With very agreeable lighting.
Come into that light, dance with flowers – enjoy!
The Sun brings all beauty and life
Join hands, be as one, and in the new Year
Forsake all your god-given strife.
Behold! all ye earthlings: one planet – one life
Unite and let living be fun
Let’s bask in the glow of each other’s goodwill
As we wait for new warmth from the Sun.

11.12.06

Pious Hope

The pie chart says that Christians are 33%
Whatever it is that the rest believe, it wasn’t Heaven-sent.
The Muslim segment covers less (though ladies cover more)
Allah comes second best to God; he scores 19.4
You’d hardly think 13.4 was all Hindus could muster
With all those gods – such wide appeal – they’re quite a meagre cluster.
At 6% the Buddhist’s seem as though they might unravel
But maybe that’s the fate of those who contemplate their navel.
Then China, for all her billions: just 6 – a modest fist
Confused Confucian, wayward Taoist, Shinto animist.
While down in southern continents, with the killer bugs and bees
You find another 6% revering rocks and trees.
One really must admire the shear tenacity of Sikhs
Having “cut the crap” quite admirably, all they got is .36
The poor old Jews at .22 deserve a better deal
The Christians owe them everything – how about a cash appeal?
And finally the also-rans, standing around quite idle
They fornicate their lives away with a phallus for their idol.
Here ends the lesson, mark it well, I speak no word of lie.
With luck - and stubborn certainty - you’ll get pie in the sky when you die.

28.10.06

Rotten Reception (John Betjeman speaks)

I’m reading my poems on the wireless
From churchyard grave, both sleeping and tireless
All set to raucous thumping piano
And tooting fluting so loud and shallow
As if the BBC would say
“Better augment him – he’s had his day.”
Meanwhile in other graves around
Decaying ears pick up the sound
And all blame me – would you God-fear it?
Saying their old ears just can’t clear-hear it!
They claim that the music, so intrusive
Is causal in their words-abusive
As older hearing lacks hi-fi reception
To separate background racket from Betjemen.
But I disdain and say them “nay”
“Your audio-centres have rotted away.” 

2006

Told By an Idiot

I could scarce contain a snigger;
What was all the fuss about?
The man was like a hurdy-wurdy:
Crank him up - and poems came out!
So who adjudged his stuff so great;
Dubbed him Poet Laureate?
                                                                                                                                                                                                 Bloodline skilled in cabinetry  
Name-finial with a double “n”.
He might have carved politic status
Departing “Lord” - to stroke - ‘neath Ben.
But he resolved a life one “n” less:
A writer; risking dying pen’less.

To Dragon School, Oxford; a-spiring;
Had that been Hogwarts – who can say?
His destiny - poetic justice;
With words not spells his mind would play.
So seed was sown within this boarder
To line 'em up in pleasing order.

Then via A4 to Marlborough College
New broom swept to ancient pile.
Perhaps such close embrace of tarmac
Yielded this trunk-route-o-phile?
As road-outrageous and quite quirky
Came: “Meditations on the A30”.

Then – bless the man – he failed at uni
Divinely dunced Divinity.
I clutch this straw against my drowning;
His sinking gives me buoyancy.
But Ireland saw him back - not off
And he rose to be a poet-toff.

Then poems came like oysters leaping
More and more and more appeared.
With warmth and wit he stood among them
Lauded, loved and long revered.
At last laid low, his living yet
Robs Reaper of that epithet.

Now condemned to futile satire
I must chew what I bit off
And as hors d’oeuvre to piety
My edible chapeau I doff.
Then must I dine on humble pie;
He was a Betjeman than I.                        

21.9.06

Never a Bridge When You Want One

(BBC 2005 - “Ballad for My Town” - Joint winner of 4. 
Recorded and performed by the band 'Supergrass')

New-bu-ry where maids are so fair
All falling out of the stuff that they wear
The river runs right through the middle of town
And there’s never a bridge when you want one.

Wherever you stand in New-bu-ry
You are never too far from History
The past left its mark on this old market town
But its all on the other side

Chorus

New-bu-ry where maids are so fair                               
All falling out of the stuff that they wear
The river runs right through the middle of town
And there’s never a bridge when you want one.

We have places to visit in New-bu-ry
The Wharf and the castle - a park or three
And I’m told the developers left us a tree
But it’s there on the other side                                             

When Cromwell chose Newbury to fight the King
His generals said: "Now there’s a funny thing
We’ve got powder and shot ‘nough to win us the day
But its all on the other side"

The taxis in New-bu-ry serve one and all
For door-to-door service just give 'em a call
They shouldn't be long, they are not far away
But they’re all on the other side

They built us a bypass round New-bu-ry
Opposed by some snails and chap called Swampy
A road to the East would give access for trade
So they built on the other side.

When New-bury folk die the spiritualists despair
They cry to the ceiling: “Is anyone there”
But no one can answer the call to return
They are all on the other side.                                 

Posted  Sep 2006

---

---

Nose Job

I’m taking this bag of poo for a walk
The dog’s run off and left me.
He caught waft on the wind of some silly bitch
So now I’m quite bereft - me.
As mementos go, it’s not all that bad
But I feel like some poo-posied bride
I’ve been left in the lurch by a lurcher - no less
Though companionship - I’m not denied.
I’m on my way home with my warm doggy gift
To be placed on that patch of the lawn
That I view from the window to see if he’s been
It’ll seem like he's never been gorn.
They say its a wise dog that knows his own
So I’ll wait for a wind change and then
When he’s done with that bitch and he catches the scent
I reckon he’ll come home again.

5.9.05

---

Got a Light?

Some better understand Life’s ways
But more of us avert our gaze
And turning away from Natures Truth
Submit to an eternal youth
Where none grow to maturity
And Nature has no sanctity.

Professor Winston on TV
Makes plain the stark reality
That we are born in needy trust
(So often set in train by lust)
And thus deserve attentive nurture
If we’re to have a stable future.

But politicians see us all
As units who must heed the call
To Mammon’s mindless industry
Filling their trough with GDP
That they might swagger the World Stage
Extolling trade - inciting rage.

The race is on to kill or cure;
Which doctrine has the more allure?
To fully comprehend our nature
Harmonise a Global Culture
Or eat and drink then, falsely merry
All hope of Wisdom’s flowering - bury.

The Rat Race long has run its course
The threat is now far greater force
We are subverted from within
Disguised by “War on Terror” din
This board-game played by Power-Mad Few
Has for its pieces - me and you.

So here I impotently call
To Hat and Boot, to one and all
Wake up! Take stock, and clear your eye
Before we kiss all good - goodbye
Forsake this nihilistic game
Rekindle Natures stifled flame.

20.2.05

---

 Gall Stones and Grand Children

“Though the world is full of genocide, binge drinking and derailments

All those maddening folk want to talk about is their Grand Children and ailments.”

These words she spake with vehemence while stopping one in three

One screamed and ran, another died and the third poor sod was me.

“Do they think I know nought of Children Grand?” she cried with staring eye.

“Why any of mine’s worth their whole damned lot - a truth you can’t deny.

But I hold my peace - ask ‘em what they think, of the famine in Sudan

Or the terrible scenes from Guantanamo Bay - or flushing the Koran.”

Then she rent her clothes with a terrible oath and cried to the Gods of Reason

“Release me from this living hell, where bowels are open season.

Require no more that I sit beside the nutter on the bus

Who, when I speak with gravitas, describes his oozing puss.

Release these chains which never link their answer to my address

Let me know just one erudite response, my psyche to caress”

Her plea had the power of a thousand souls in deep damnation bound

And I pondered what I - a peasant lad - could usefully expound.

But I hadn’t the wit and I hadn’t the art to rescue this tormented soul

And bowed to those words spoke to Adam, by God: “Stop digging lad, that’s a big hole”.

24.6.05

---

Freedom (worth fighting for)

I am free to be cheated by high-street and government
Free to be fooled about just what that contract meant
Free to be told by all those with perverse intent:
Free! I am free - I am free.

I am free to go marching with those who resemble me
Free in this land blessed with right of assembly
Free as a target to those who'd dismember me
Free! I am free - I am free.

So raise Freedom’s banner and fight the dictator
Where-ever he’s found in his opulent nest
Remember we’re British, whatever the evil
We did it first and we do it best.

I am free to be bought at General Election
Free to be tempted by some false confection
Apply my free vote with pathetic direction
Free! I am free - I am free.

I am fully informed by Great Britain’s free press
Freely-owned by “dictators” ‘gainst whom - no redress
Their views - as my own - I am free to express
Free! I am free - I am free.

So raise Freedom’s banner and fight bombing terror
Either you're with us or else you're "the rest"
Remember we’re British our bombs sell world-over
We make 'em big and we make ‘em best.

I am free to vote wisely on false information
Free in democracy’s noble “First Nation”
As freely we all follow Blair to damnation
Free! I am free - I am free.

Rise up! Cry "New Freedom” New Labour goodbye
This free-fall hypocrisy - giving the lie
Good people break free from this crass call to die
Free! To be free - To be free.

So raise Freedom's banner and let's all get saner
Jack Straw’s jingoism but straws in the wind
Defence of our decadence - that’s a no-brainer
Let’s own all our faults. In Christ’s name - we have sinned.      


24.7.05

---

Fooled

Einstein put scientists in a lift and dropped them down a shaft.
He urged them: “Go find Gravity, please exercise your craft!”
The scientists could find no trace as down they plummeted
“Our world is free of Gravity” just ‘ere they died - they said.

Now Western Culture’s in free fall and those outside the box
Wish to remove us from the world - a planetary de-tox.
Hermetic'ly sealed in our truth, we cry: “We make the rules”
And fail to spot the gravity of righteous angered “fools”.

19.7.05

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Euro-paean

Afghanistan grows poppies
While Europe grows tobacco.
One is heinous in our eyes
The other one we subsidise.

Africa we brand corrupt
The EU audit goes unsigned
One deplored with wringing hands
The other un-assailed stands.

The US kidnaps “evil men”
And ships them off to torture
The godly Bush says that’s OK
It keeps safe the “American Way”

Leaders engaged by climate change
They fly the globe half round
Urging the planet to its doom
So they might all sit in one room

When oil lies beneath the land
Those who walk above have worth
Then we all rush to their defence
Trusting our God will recompense.

Our leaders join for mutual good
The European self-help group
Then once they’re in they strip the shelves
As they proceed to help themselves.

---

Dogs of War

As war’s abrasion strips his fine veneer

Man’s inhumanity his ilk defines.

Bi-pedal dog, scent-primed, unleashed, packed off

He brings a licking to some wrong-tongued foe.

While back in civvy-street, his leaders rise

Short-slept from tasting civilised excess

This day newborn in sinless rectitude

To castigate the fell post-modern “Few”.

In blissful ignorance of Conqueror’s Creed

Which sets men free from hypocritic bond,

Commanders set their armies where they will

And savour thoughts of famous victory.

Unheeding they send mortal men to war

Yet heed the call when time comes to deplore.

6.5.04

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Desperation

Oh no! I’m conceived
Where’s the free will in that?
Multiply - then go forth
To hormonal diktat.
Have no say in gestation
Little voice at the birth
If my family tree’s blighted
Inherit no earth.
Tame my limbs and my bow-els
Learn language as well
While storing confusion -
My own Private Hell.
(I may go there later
if this gets too tough
I’ll be called schizophrenic
And do crazy stuff.)
Be shipped out to school
To learn Mammonnish lore
Be groomed for high income
Yet always want more.
Get a life - get a wife
And if no one cries halt
In the fullness of time
Have a child by default.

Written 25.7.04
Posted mid May 2006

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Dark Side

The Moon feels nought in futile circling

Far off in bland acceptance of our plight.

While in that feeble light we half-blind stray

To places we would shun in light of day.

Her beams afford us sight attenuate

Allowing indiscretion’s - thought and deed

And poets then, that cold dead orb invest

With subtle attributes no whit possessed.

As folly nightly blooms we pollinate

With light sufficient to achieve our aim

As shadow blends with shadow - sweet, soft-edged

There is some small remit of human pain.

So cold pocked Moon your moody cycle run

Your mute imposture serving by default

The tide of men’s affairs flows ever on

Till that far day when you - and we - are gone.

Written 6.11.04
Posted mid May 2006

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Cry

What have we done to this sad blue orb,

How much more can our world absorb.

As polar melting brings submersion,

Violence and sex are our diversion.

Comes a ghostly cry from the men of Mars

"You will make your planet just like ours"

But man’s response is “Oh P-lease!”

As he suffocates and fells the trees

Then the women on Venus call to their kind

“Men are killing your planet - don’t you mind?”

“Use your feeling your intuition

Woman! Where is your sense of mission?”

Then the women of Earth reply with pride

“We’ve won our rights we’re not denied

We are no longer the farmyard hen

Now we are cockerels - just like men!”

So the Earth weeps on and the ocean grows

But how it will end, yet, no one knows.

Written 2.12.03
Posted mid May 2006

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Cruise Line

Blair’s Holy War came to London today

A cowardly act, I heard someone say

No warning - just suddenly all blown away

So much fairer to use a Cruise Missile.

You can’t kill your Granny who’s begging to die

And no fish must suffer, not even small fry

Go slaughter Iraqis on back of a lie

It’s quite fair if you use a Cruise Missile

The pre-emptive strike now accepted worldwide

Guilty till innocent - nowhere to hide

Evil-doers can be bombed where their families reside

But play fair and deploy a Cruise Missile.

Make poverty history - cancel the debt

But what of the poverty lingering yet

In the hearts of those men whose ambitions are met

As they launch that cowardly Cruise Missile?

Written 7 July 2005
Posted mid may 2006

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Child Minder

When I was small they gathered round

I had no hope of privacy

They messed about with all my bits

And watched me daily poo and pee.

We’d have a day down on the beach

With all of me unclad, on show

Thus by default preparing me

For stuff a young chap ought to know.

I got some more months on the clock

I mastered tricky Smartie tubes

They hid my willie in some trunks

And my sister's non-existant boobs.

I tried so hard to understand

This dark and twisted Gordian knotty

You never see them go to wee

They never mount the yawning potty

Though no one said - the clues are there

Some parts of us are quite tut-tutty

And as you grow it is decreed

They graduate to really smutty

Well now I’m older - seen more stuff

I’ve taken in late night TV

And magazines near the comic-rack

That all make this so plain to me

It seems that when the hidden bits

Have grown to truly monstrous size

Exposing them excites grownups

Though some will still avert their eyes

It's clear that something's going on

The word "sex" plays a special part

I know it's a dodgy area

Because I’m getting really smart

When I grow up and leave behind

The candy floss and sherbert

I think I'll shun the world of sex

And get by as a pervert.

Written 31.3.05
Posted mid May 2006

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Bull Rush

I looked up the meaning of “bush”

You could say it’s “dense shrub” - at a push.

Now this thick vegetation

Is leading a nation

We’ve all gone to war in a rush.

Written 17.11.03
Posted mid May 2006

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Blenheim  Revisited

(With much respect for Robert Southey)


The Global Warming lulled him                    
No work had Tony done                                 
And he before his plastic door
Scanned page three of the Sun
And by him fiddling with some junk
His little grandchild Kevin-Punk

He saw his sister Tracy-Cher
Roll something small and round
Which she beside the wheelie-bin
In playing there had found
She came to ask what sloshed around
Inside this thing so smooth and round

Then Tony snatched it from the girl
Who stood expectant by
He said: "Give me the effin can"
And made poor Tracy cry
In reverence the stuff he swirled
Declared: "This runs the Civilised World

You’ll find cans in the garden
Where I chuck ‘em when I’m pissed
I slung this at some stupid cat
But being pissed I missed"
He said that thousands more are hurled
To celebrate the Civilised World

"But tell us what you drink it for"
Young Tracy-Cher she cries
And little Kevin-Punk looks up
>From making sump oil pies
"Now tell us of this sloshing stuff
Which makes your chucking quite so duff"

"It is the British Tony cries"
With rare lucidity
"Blokes have to do it - it’s required
It makes the Man you see"
His xenophobic lip then curled
We British civilised the World

"My father lived in Shepherd’s Bush
Above the Blenheim Arms
And there he bought me that first beer
Extolling all its charms
While blokes whose wives denied them bed
Bragged of where they’d lay their head"

Each beer or alco-pop consumed
Sees reason quite defied
By absent dad and single mum
With farmed-out kids denied.
Yet alcohol needs must flow free
While Britain guards civility

And Saturday’s a shocking sight
After we’ve all consumed
Smart suits to cheats on benefit
The liquor has us doomed
Yet we march proud with flag unfurled
Resides in US the Civilised World

Enobled names span brewing halls
They serve the nation true
What Parliament can’t drink they tax
A Right Royal National Brew
"But doesn’t it make their conscience curl?"
"It’s CIVILISATION you silly girl"


On every side blind eyes are turned
To the cost of drink and drunk
"So Grandpa - whats the point of it?"
Asked little Kevin-Punk
Lord of his pigsty Tony pearled:
"It helps us forget we’re the Civilised World."

Written 11.8.05
Posted mid May 2006

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All is Flux

We are trying to straighten the river

Carried away with our omnipotence.

First we constrained its meanderings -

“Run straight” we told it.

Then we drained its swamplands

Saying, one to another: “Clear flow is Godly”.

Through technology, we harnessed its energy,

At some - acceptable - cost to its fauna.

Now we are improving the source -

Tinkering with the wellspring.

Some day the river will re-assert,

And we shall - again - be carried away.

Written 28.06.04

Posted mid May 2006

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Abandon

The gentle art of mothering
Endowed us from the mists of time,
All but extinguished - fading now
As we approach the midnight chime.
Crude masculine malaise holds sway
With nurture lacking in esteem.
A dwindling few still serve the young
As nightmare overcomes the dream.
Let politicians strut and pose
To mould us to the ordered life;
The damned massed ranks of motherless
In spite, assure us endless strife.


Written 22.11.04
Posted mid May 2006

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© 2006 Barrie Singleton. All rights reserved.