Inspired by Strummerville

Performing at Strummerville didn't only induce me to write about evil spaniels, it also got me writing some more political fare, a follow-up to this one. Audio version here.

Social surgery II

I’ve got a criminal mind but not criminal intent
and the sorts of convictions that’ll never be spent
on sucking up to bosses just to pay the rent
‘cos my sharply worded mockery’s sincerely meant.

When the law becomes a gag it’s our duty to defy,
shout out official secrets, broadcast far and wide,
expose the Selfservatives, the ConDems’ lies,
they only represent themselves, we’ve no reason to comply.

So, I fought the law and the lawman threatened,
winked at a crony and then a second,
there was no-one watching they must have reckoned
but their truncheons went limp when YouTube beckoned.

The powers-that-be, they like to throttle
out the life from dissent until they’ve got all
of us cowed, so whack ‘em with a champagne bottle,
a posh cosh to show that not all

Magnums are the same – ice creams, Dirty Harry,
Guy Fawkes in the Bullingdon, clubbing all the barri-
caded toffs, Moet on cranium,
crowds gather round, mushrooming like uranium

clouds – dark skies over Eton,
larval future ministers lie buggered up and beaten
by a black-masked man like Michael Keaton,
but not the sort of batman they expected to be meeting,

doesn’t care about the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler
when there’s bricks to be lobbed at smarmy cufflink-fiddlers
like Hugo Boss ads made flesh in the middle of
Whitehall, soul-less suits who should consider a

change of career, break their drone-programming
like Red Dwarf’s Kryten, Ed Snowden, Bradley Manning,
pick up a spray-can, get culture-jamming,
give the world something more than fake orange tanning

and TV – reality’s much better
than game-shows and Noel Edmonds’ sweaters,
so don’t worry about whether ‘they’ will let us,
permission’s not required, and they are not our betters.

Hound of hell (with the softest ears)

Spaniels are all docile and friendly, right? Wrong - this one hails from the fiery doom-filled depths and manifested at the Strummerville all-dayer in The Joiners last weekend... Audio version here.

Hound of Hell (with the softest ears)

Sir Teddy Devil-Spaniel
swallowed the manual
on evil, and he liked the taste –
don’t let the soft ears fool you,
he’ll eat your face,
if you don’t offer him snacks,
he’ll bite and Darth Maul you,
piss on your remains
and in dog-speak call you
‘breakfast’, ‘cos that’s how he rolls,
a blood-sucking demon who’ll drain your soul,
then look at you like a harmless pup,
but approach with caution or he’ll fuck you up,
if you stare into his eyes you’ll pay the price –
give him onion rings as a sacrifice
but never let him get his fangs into your wrist,
so wear gauntlets and bring an exorcist.

Tell me a story, frackanory

At the weekend I was invited to perform at a wonderful all-day benefit gig for the Frack Free Solent campaign group. This happened about the same time that residents around Fernhurst in Sussex had effectively surrounded a fracking project with 'No Fracking' pledges despite creepy C*meron's attempts to lie, bribe, lie, cajole and lie about the pros (there aren't any) and cons. So, a good example of NGO and grassroots campaign groups working well together - and an excuse for me to write a poem especially for the event. Enjoy!


Frackanory

Oil-and-gas executives,
mosquitos in dengue-fever pinstriped suits
seek to pierce the earth,
to suck out its lifeblood
through a mechanical proboscis –
like malaria
they cause tremors
and make bad air,
pissing their toxins into the water
to create
an ungreen,
unpleasant land.

Hiding behind their
first-past-the-post parapets
and waving frackers’ flags,
politicians are Neros,
fiddling while our home burns,
spouting their free-market rhetoric
of selfishness and greed,
spilling lies about fuel bills,
land rights,
pollution,
climate change –
dinosaur minds
and tunnel-vision eyes
that can’t see
beyond the next
share-dividend report,
fossil fools whose fingers-in-the-ears
la-la-la-it’s-not-happening
means they can’t hear
the approaching roar
of the people –
we are their doomsday meteor,
and it’s time the Cuadrillasaurus went extinct.