Category: poetry

Dear Natalie

My dearest darling Natalie
I really like your style
Your tenacity defending
This green and pleasant isle
Your hard line on asylum seekers
Coming over here
Our match was made in heaven
That’s obvious, my dear

We’re so alike, dear Natalie
It’s very plain to see
Your votes against equalities
And for Voter ID
Those rights for workers, I agree
Will really have to go
And never mind the mishap
Shame on you and P&O

Dear Natalie, you’re very right
As far as I can see
Nobody could question
Our compatibility
And it’s fair, dear Natalie
To tap up Honest Bob
Your sex pest ex’s sentence
Clearly was a stitch-up job

I’m so glad you crossed the floor
Natalie, my dear
Welcome to the party
With all my love
Sir Kier

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Elections 2024

Susan Hall in a ULEZ car
Andy Street on the street
Conservatives out in Blackpool South
And rare in a council seat

Sunak’s disappointed
But says that the plan is working
Meanwhile back in Rochdale
George Galloway is lurking
(Pro-Palestine but anti-woke
It’s somewhat disconcerting)

Rotherham, confusingly
Is back in Liverpool
And Coronation Street’s in Yorkshire
But Teeside’s under the Baron’s rule

If you want all the stories
Laura only talks to Tories
Still squawking Stop The Boats
While just not getting many votes

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Transphobia

There’s the seaside postcard transphobe
At their bawdy best
Please don’t take me seriously
It was only said in jest

Then there’s the sporting transphobe
The level playing field type
You can’t give back the muscles
Their explanatory gripe

The old school transphobe’s prone to say
It wasn’t like that in my day
When men were men and men were best
And you can probably guess the rest
And almost none were gay

Like the won’t-think-about-it transphobe
Who just doesn’t understand
It used to be so simple
You’re a woman or you’re a man

And the it’s-just-common-sense transphobe
Because everything’s binary
Two eyes, two ears, two hands, two feet
Just common sense you see

And then the internet transphobe
The Rowlings and Linehans
Dead name campaigns are their domain
Denying that your trans

Pick your type, there’s more than two
And each demands to have a say
You might call it a spectrum
Which transphobe will you meet today?

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45 Days to Save the Cheese

The Queen said pace yourself
But in the end she chased herself
Out of office fast as lettuce could rot
It’s so unfair she died
And getting groceries supplied
Was so much harder with the new job that she’d got

The Downing Street fleas
Would’ve tanked Air BnB’s
Johnson’s dog must’ve had quite a lot
And there was nobody there
To make appointments for her hair
To help her stop it from getting in a knot

She said that it was worse
The strings on the public purse
Despite her own ten years in the slot
And took no interest in the lives
Of presidents’ wives
There’s only so much info you can swot

When she had her say
She made Friday budget day
And gave her enemies the whole weekend to plot
Like a game of Tetris
She inevitably let this
Keep her up before removing Kwasi’s spot

And Hunt did not pick up
When she tried to ring him up
Because her number was one that he’d forgot
And now she’s got a book out
Better keep a look out
A bestseller I suspect that it is not

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Al-Rashid Road – a villanelle

In the land where Goliath once strode
With the whine of a drone overhead
There’s an air strike on Al-Rashid Road

The targeted vehicles explode
And seven aid workers lie dead
In the land where Goliath once strode

In soft-skinned transport they rode
Too easy for missiles to shred
There’s an air strike on Al-Rashid Road

Where the lifeblood of charity flowed
Good Samaritans now fear to tread
In the land where Goliath once strode

With shelling the alms they erode
Denying the starving their bread
There’s an air strike on Al-Rashid Road

A ceasefire now surely is owed
As blood-soaked the path lays ahead
In the land where Goliath once strode
There’s an air strike on Al-Rashid Road

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Eating People

When the economy won’t grow
And there’s nowhere else to go
It’s not considered evil
For the rich to just eat people

They don’t want to eat you up
But over runneth their cup
And when it’s this unequal
The rich will just eat people

They can’t live in all the houses
But they can own all the houses
Which turns out to be legal
When the rich start eating people

And when the rich start eating people
Some of them will be quite gleeful
Saying it’s a rising tide
We’re just waiting for our ride

Which of course will never come
Because when all’s said and done
It’s simply medieval
For the rich to just eat people

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Women 0-1 Oh, East London

Not my bus
Not my people
Oh, East London
Is not for me

Stock sexism
From stocky sexists
Raucous drunks
Bray look at me

Oh, it’s your day
A clap hooray
The boys’ derisive
Repartee

Tits, fanny and Orient’s
Big day out
Goes back in time
Oh, referee!

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Non-Binary

Everybody’s got
Two eyes, two ears, two hands, two feet
That’s why some think that binary is right
Well, it might be alright for George Galloway
But people ain’t as simple as night or day
And we’re all on a spectrum like light
Electro-magnetic radiation
It’s true we’re all members of a rainbow nation
And it ain’t as simple as identification
Because everybody has a right
Not necessarily to be who they want to be
Or I’d be Che Guevara in a racing car
Or at the very least a massive rock ‘n’ roll star
But we all deserve to burn bright
And everybody has a right
To be who they are

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The Art of Looking Away

Dead children
Funny cats
Dead children
Our ten best hacks
Dead children
Suspicious activity
Dead children
Click here to see
Dead children
Meghan and Harry
Dead children
Are they really unhappy
Dead children
How to get an upgrade
Dead children
Review and get paid
Dead children
The great game
Dead children
It’s always been the same
Dead children
Buy or sell
The burning man cries Free Palestine
Perhaps he wasn’t well

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Just Another Day at Elbit

There’s a man in a factory in Leicester
Fixing wings onto military drones
He breaks at eleven for coffee
While they bomb Palestinian homes

She smiles as he hands her a cuppa
Looking up from her targeting grids
She likes it when he brings her coffee
While they shoot Palestinian kids

He waits as she blows it cool gently
And wonders if he should just ask her
What is she doing this Friday
While we watch the destruction of Gaza

There’s a man in a factory in Leicester
Dreaming of romance and love
Through his nine to five military systems
Assembling death from above

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