Category: poetry

Refugees’ Luggage

They came with orders
And transporters
Souls with borders
Who are you we’re moving you
Off you go

Tentative roots in a new community
Ripped out fast with the impunity
Of cruelty to the refugee
Being Party policy
Who are you we’re moving you
Off you go

From one uncaring mean hotel
To the next uncaring mean hotel
No pleased as man with man to dwell
No fond farewell
Who are you we’re moving you
Off you go

What you can carry’s what you can bring
What’s left behind you know they’ll sling
Don’t you dare say a fucking thing
Who are you we’re moving you
Off you go

And all that’s left is the refugees’ luggage
That the hotel will throw in the bin
This is England this is right now
These are the fascists that you voted in

Full story here

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Unambiguous Shoes

He wears flat-fronted trousers
And unambiguous shoes
He wears a watery stare
His sour breath hints of booze

He doesn’t like your poetry
And he wants you to know
He doesn’t like your words
Your meter or your flow

With prodding finger, spit-fringed lips
His ire is plain to see
It’s not your prodding rhymes
It’s your ideology

He despairs of modern life
But is disinclined to change
He despairs there’s little to be gained
From this ugly exchange

But the poet knows that friction
Makes the sparks that light a fire
And unambiguous shoes
Will just walk his craft higher

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Being a Princess Ain’t a Job

On your own is not a mob
Neat and tidy ain’t a slob
A perfect sphere is not a blob (or a glob)
Looking up is not a snob
Shortened Richard isn’t Bob
A sticking plaster ain’t a swab
A bread roll is not a cob*
A single pulse is not a throb
A fast ball is not a lob
Quietly spoken ain’t a gob
Me in it thou shalt not dob
The grill or oven ain’t a hob
The same suit’s king is not his nob
A giggle clearly ain’t a sob
Being a princess ain’t a job

*Yeah, I know

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The King’s Piss

Charlie’s struggling to piss
How did it come to this?
I should be pissing like a king
A king’s piss should be an impressive thing
A porcelain smashing
Splattering, crashing stream
In a magnificent cloud of steam
On these cold mornings
In draughty palaces

Charlie’s struggling to piss
It’s royally hit and miss
I’ve got medals, sashes and brocade
But I’ve got a trickle
When a king should cascade
And course and sluice and spurt
Not dribble in the dust and dirt
Of these cold mornings
In draughty palaces

Charlie’s struggling to piss
My majestic plumbing’s amiss
When the King gets the urge to go
Mine should be a mighty flow
A rush, a gush, a torrent, a flood
A fountain, a jet, a surge
Not the dribbles that emerge
On these cold mornings
In draughty palaces

Charlie’s struggling to piss
Summon the Royal Surgeon
The King says that it’s urgent

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Sunak’s War

Red Sea rebels
Holding up shipping
That’s a war to get on board
Excitedly says Rishi
A blind eye for genocide
But woe betide the other side
When the flow of capital
Starts slipping

We need our containers
Our box fresh trainers
Our TV’s deep freeze David Bowie LP’s
We can’t afford for them
To go missing

So now we’re bombing Yemen
He says in self-defence
Because a trip around the Cape
Of Good Hope is an expense
That the City boys
Would rather be skipping

Welcome to his Falklands
His khaki election
The flag-wrapped PM
Of navigation protection
The enemy of far enough away
Insurrection
Happy is the bloody hand
That’s dripping

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Wealthy People

Wealthy people: those with homes
Hairy people: those with combs
Royal people: those with thrones
Nosey people: those with drones
Music people: those with tones
Skinny people: those with bones
Traffic people: those with cones
Talking people: those with phones
Double people: those with clones
Gloomy people: those with moans (and groans)
Electric people: those with ohms
Library people: those with tomes
Garden people: those with gnomes
Hiking people: those with roams
Soil people: those with loams
Oyster people: those with zones*
Student people: those with loans
Rumsfeld people: those with knowns (and known unknowns)
Devon people: those with scones**
Sharper people: those with hones
Wiccan people: those with crones
Wealthy people: those with homes

*One for the Londoners
**Controversial, on so many levels

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The Stalybridge Tornado

It snapped my flagpole like a twig
Our John told the news
And a tree fell on the conservatory
Spoiling all our views

A whirlwind, literally, Kerry said
We couldn’t open our front door
The lampposts were all swaying
I’d never seen that before

A tree came right through Maisie’s roof
Pulled down the bathroom ceiling
The Liberal Democrats demand
The PM calls a COBRA meeting

Chief Superintendent Dexter said
Some people have been displaced
We’ve told them not to go back home
If they really want to stay safe

When the warm air hits the cold air fast
It explodes just like a volcano
Thirty seconds of Gaza
It’s the Stalybridge tornado

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The Holly King

The leaves fall in his presence
The ground hardens to ice
Shortened are the days
As long become the nights

Until the Oak King rises
When the wheel turns again
And the song of the robin
Is heard over the wren

A time to feast, to come together
To let the flames burn bright
A time to understand
Without the darkness, there’s no light

Since it turns, so he returns
When the oak leaves wilt and brown
A reminder that the holly’s with us
All the year round

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