They’re packing up their space rockets and leaving
Britain is bleeding billionaires
But they can’t take their fixed assets with them
So nobody but Rachel really cares
Category: poetry
Fascist By The Numbers
Elon is a fascist, who knew?
Does that mean that Donald is a fascist too?
Well, let’s count the ways, starting at one
Does he keep the company of fascist chums?
That’s a given, what about two?
Does he blame people who don’t look like me and you?
Absolutely! The enemy
Simultaneously powerful and weak, at three
At four, the opposition
Who he keeps threatening to put in prison
A messianic hero, at five
An assassin’s bullet and he’s still alive
Okay, but what about six?
Does Donald have any other fascist tricks?
Plenty, like the cult of tradition
Typical of a man in his position
Six? Okay, now is that all you’ve got?
At seven his obsession that there’s some kind of plot
You must remember QAnon and all that jazz
Conspiracies like every good fascist has
At eight, action, for action’s sake
“It’s gonna be beautiful”, is Donald’s take
With macho, macho weapons at any excuse
He already said he’s gonna let all hell break loose
If another nation doesn’t tow the line
Which, if I count correctly, brings us up to nine
Authoritarian, that’s in at ten
At eleven, gender limited to women and men
Twelve, there’s no sitting on the fence
Anyone not for him is counted as against
Thirteen? Well, he’s a populist
And fourteen is the end of Umberto’s list
Is Donald a fascist? Let’s count the ways
Brace yourselves people for dark, dark days
If We Had Won The War
Oh, how different, if we had won the war!
There’d be no Nazis in The Whitehouse, that’s for sure
We’d all have homes for heroes, provided by the state
Free healthcare at point of need, without having to wait
Refuge for the needy and the poor
Oh, how different, if we had won the war!
Oh, how different, if we had won the war!
We’d want for nowt, and never need for more
One nation under God
Even if you think that’s odd
And everybody welcome at our shore
Oh, how different, if we had won the war!
Oh, how different, if we had won the war!
Working would never be a chore
We’d all know fair is fair
And millionaires would pay their share
There’d be no Nazis in The Whitehouse, that’s for sure
Oh, how different, if we had won the war!
Hold Fast
We turned them back in Walthamstow
Then turned them back again
We turned them back so hard
That we made the News at Ten
So come the Farage Riots
In our thousands, we held fast
In Walthamstow, across the land
We said, they shall not pass
Mickey Mouse vs. Elon Musk
(How corporate greed beats ethics every time)
The great replacement got blue ticked
Mickey screwed his courage to the sticking place
Switched off; that’s antisemitic
Elon doubled down with a say it to my face
Donald got elected, Elon’s main squeeze
Now on the populist power track
Easy as baiting with a piece of cheese
Mickey came scurrying back
Mary and Joseph
Mary
She pulled her shawl tighter around her
A mother should never have to outlive her child
Be there at the beginning and the end
She thought about her ex
A gentle man, good with his hands
Who never questioned her unexpected pregnancy
There’s nothing more working class, he’d laughed
Than giving birth in a barn
She pulled her shawl tighter around her
And remembered the starlight
The smell of fresh hay
And the warm comfort of the animals
On the day that he was born
Joseph
I’d have made a better job of that manger
He watched over his new-born son
One day, when he’s older
I’ll teach him to saw straight and to nail true
To value form as much as function
And be the master of his craft
But it wasn’t to be
They couldn’t survive the recriminations
Should they have kept him from the temple?
Who put those revolutionary ideas in his head?
He thought about her in the starlight
The smell of fresh hay
And the warm comfort of the animals
On the day that he was born
The Man Who Built The Burning House
The man who built the burning house
rubs his hands, his fingers laced
The order for a million more
is ready to be placed
He flexes fists and wrists
like he’s choking the supply
He knows the tricks that keep demand
and profit-making high
New homes for all, the promises
of ministers and kings
The man who built the burning house
is waiting in the wings
Henry and the Tractors
Henry parked his tractor in Whitehall
Turned to the camera to explain
My lifestyle is under threat, he said
It’s causing my accountant great pain
The only way to farm this land, he said
Is if your father was a farmer too
And if your granddad owned it before him
Then farming’s what you’re born to do
Like being a millionaire, I thought
The bit that was going unsaid
Why’s the right to own and work the land
Restricted to the born and bred?
Henry and the tractors were holding up traffic
Like Just Stop Oil in tweed caps
Barbour coats and green wellies
A Reform UK uniform, perhaps
Like mustard-trousered Farage
Defending the interests of his class
Henry parked his tractor in Whitehall
What a fucking arse
A Better Mousetrap, Part 3
Build a better mousetrap, people said
And the world will beat a path to your door
So, we built a better mousetrap, like they said
And the fat cats beat a path to our door
People bought our mousetrap, happy to choose
Between a cheaper, worser mousetrap
And a dearer, better mousetrap
That everyone was giving rave reviews
The fat cats were happy, ‘cause they had shares
In our mousetrap firm, but also in theirs
It turns out that moneymen never have to choose
If you have shares in everything, you never lose
But one day they said, those worse mousetraps
You’re gonna have to sell them for more
And the firm that makes the better mousetraps
Will have to make them cheaper than before
Mousetraps soon were all the same price
And none of them were very good at catching mice
But in the boardroom, there was little concern
The fat cats were getting a better return
Now people often could be heard to say
Mousetraps were so much better in my day
Now a mousetrap doesn’t even do what it says
And everything’s just so expensive nowadays
We told the fat cats that people were sad
With worse and better mousetraps both
The fat cats said, well they really should be glad
Because we’ve given them economic growth
Economic growth, they said’s of high import
That’s why it’s always daily in the news
That bit that you ignore just before the sport
It’s the measure that all governments use
Economic growth, that’s all well and good
Economic growth, well that’s nice
But if economic growth is so important
How come it only benefits the mice?
The River
The river slapped against the dock,
unpleasantly,
incessantly.
We stood under the bridge
where Walworth once
had Tyler’s head displayed.
A revolt betrayed
by a misplaced faith in kings.
It’s not enough, she said,
to pull men from the river.
We must also go upstream
to see who pushed them in.
Upstream, the palace,
its sunlit terraces,
its privileged view.
We knew.
As Tyler before us knew too.
Steve White & The Protest Family 