I Mae, I will, I did

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a Woman Scream poetry event and was frankly inspired. I wanted to write something appropriate, but feminist poetry from a male perspective... would it go horribly wrong? Hopefully not. Am I a feminist? Well, I'm a humanist pissed off at injustice and exploitation, so that's a yes I guess. Anyhow, some fellow poets who were there on the night are fans of silver screen goddesses, and that's something I can relate to, so having passed through a brief and informal editing period (thanks Angela and Carrie), here's what I produced. Hope you like it.

Diamond Lil

In sepia days,
Kardashians were still
Armenian migrants, workers,
not orange and shrill,
silver gelatin and celluloid reigned supreme,
Photoshop, silicone and carotene
were just bad dreams
and Mae West was Queen.
All satin hourglass,
mink and bat-wings,
she could cause a commotion,
a trouser-motion
in any fellow’s slacks
with regal quips about chaps
and bad girls teasing,
life being pleasing,
coming up and seeing,
being a sex-symbol
where anything went,
but those weapons were aimed
at freeing sisters from bit-part dead-ends
as baby-machines and housework slaves
to get their own space on screen,
not just vehicles for romantic leads.
Pushing boundaries, she’s
jailed for penning a play
deemed corrupting to youth,
banned for supporting
the rights of gay men,
spreading truth in a wicked age,
and buys a whole building
just so she could let her
black lover through the door,
up-front and centre-stage
while the US wallowed in its racist ways,
stampeding towards censorship
of supposed obscenity.
But real women don’t need to be good,
and Mary Jane had more colour
in her monochrome domain
than any modern Z-list mayfly,
Towie clones gasping their last
in ranks of talent-vacuum
spray-tan vans –
way back then,
She had class.

Stupid George

It's National Poetry Day, so two posts today. This one is a brief response to the T*ry budget and its corporate friendly, let's-suck-up-every-last-drop-of-oil message, delivered with maybe just a whiff of E J Thribb and 'bad poetry' stylings...

Stupid George

Greasy gormless Osborne,
fossil-fuellers’ budget friend,
trying to get us out of the red
by soaking everything in black –
if you want to drill
for gas and oil,
let the North Sea be,
just tap Eric Pickles like a rubber tree –
not only save the poor pork pie,
but get your latex
from a man who needs Playtex,
take his empty pelt and reinflate
to create
a lifeboat for the rising tide.
You can stay outside.

Photo: Greenpeace

When love comes to drown

Something for World Poetry Day: relationships...

Flood

When you cry,
I try to hold on
but you are racked with sobs
so mediaeval
you could be a thousand years away.

When you cry,
I get angry
but I don’t know what at,
because I can’t see what’s upsetting you
so, for all my tools and skills,
I don’t know how to fix it.

When you cry,
I move in to hug you,
but my strong arms
dissolve in your tears –
my legs follow
and we both start to fall.

When you cry
my world floods
and I forget how to swim –
submerged,
all teardrops are lost,
indistinguishable
in the saltwater surrounds.

Pointing and laughing

UKIP live in a world of playground politics - ganging up, pointing and name-calling - so I decided to wade in and do the same, but I hope more humorously. UKIP - mock them hard, then mock them some more. And there's a nod to one of my favourite poems. A recorded version can be found here.

Naming of prats

You portray playground politics,
all name-calling, throwing sticks
and stones
at easy targets,
rich kids more than old enough to know better
getting off on being dinner-money bullies,
good training for creepy little wankers
who grow up to be bankers
and bigots,
en masse victim-pickers.
Well, I can play that game –
no, not bludgeons today
but getting murky with words
and messing with your name,
‘cos I’ve spoken to one of your
old-school classmates,
not a friend, you don’t have them,
and he was more than happy to get low-brow,
said you were a twat then and a twat now,
a direct quotation,
first hand, no edit, unabridged
from someone who knew you
as Nigel Farage
‘til you were fourteen or so
and decided everyone should know
you as Farage.
What an arse.
Since then, 35 years of verbal discharge,
so it’s time we voted you in a new label,
a monicker more fitting,
I’ve got a few options to put on the table
so we’re able to pick what’s best
to rebrand a kipper,
a prejudicial pest
with an overactive bile duct,
sucked up to
by Nazis in carpet-slippers –
let’s see how well you stand, plucked
tarred and shamed,
named like a 70s krautrock band,
a poorly translated takeaway
or a disturbingly alternative stripper,

for today we have naming of prats.

Negro Farrago, Nudger Phalange,
Niggardly Fridge, Nougat le Flange,
Nigerian Farmyard, Numbskull Fubar,
Nasally Fidget, Knee-jerk Fucktard.
Nein-schnell Faux-fuhrer, None-shall Fear-race,
No-naff-all Frau-urge, Own-goal Frog-rage,
Nacho el Fart-arse, Nutjob Forecast,
Knickers-from-France, Unnatural Farce.
Nautch-girl Far-ugly, Nodule-of-Lard,
Schnitzel Most-flaccid, Knuckled Visage,
Nile-edge Farooq, No-go the Hajj,
Nazgul Vajazzle, Nine-hells Fromage.
Nach Eine-pfennig, Nickel For-forage,
Unchilled Flaneur, Nastier Frottage,
Nightgown Foul-fudge, Night-soiled Finger,
Nincompoop Large, Niggly Frigger.

Though I like ‘nazgul vajazzle’,
I figure
the last one suits
a purple-badged fruit-loop –
I want to niggle you with it,
jiggle it about
and watch as you wriggle.

Niggly Frigger NiggleNiggleNiggleNiggleNiggle
Niggly Frigger NiggleNiggleNiggleNiggleNiggle

Niggly Frigger, you’re right there’s something rotten
in the UK, but you’re wrong on what’s the problem,
it’s your bat-shit gang of National Front-bottoms,
but it won’t be long ‘til you’re gone and forgotten
by everyone, from Timbuktu to Totton
and their pets, all watching you lose the plot on
sex, race and climate – it seems you’re not too hot on

science, rationality or reason,
have you got some sort of cerebral lesion,
foaming at the mouth like you’ve swallowed caesium
you try to censor the world, treat evidence like treason
when it doesn’t suit, though you must have a lot on
your plate, so much to hate, when you’re not on
this planet, not a party, just a virulent blot on
our political landscape, a bigotry dot.com
bubble that’ll burst like a pus-filled spot on
some spoiled brat’s chin, dripping your ill-gotten
votes, grabbed by fear-mongering any old clot on

the electoral list,
hunched over Maggie’s grave with an aching wrist,
every day another gaffe piling up the grist
for my satirical mill, from the ramblings of your pissed
youth wing (one zitty little twit who’s never been kissed)
to your life-long loathers in their white-tinged mist,
who need knocking down with a lyrical fist
and mockery, make sure they’re thoroughly dissed
online, on our doorsteps, wherever they exist,
you cite freedom-of-speech so listen to this –
the public is awake, not somnambulists,
you’re rumbled, done, nowt more than a twist-
ed bucketful of isms, no libertarianists,
getting a ballot-box order to cease and desist.

You get the gist?

Who knows what's out there?

For a change, a little bit of micro-fiction...

Planet Esca

At first it was nothing more than numbers – subtle patterns rhythmically describing the dimming of already faint light from its parent star. Later, after untold terabytes of data were crunched by the SETI 2.0 quantum super-computer, the tell-tale specturm of modulated emissions proclaimed the presence of liquid water, clouds and even the red/infrared interface suggesting large-scale vegetation. Seas or large lakes, a functioning system of recognisable weather and abundant photosynthetic life – key indicators of a potentially habitable exoplanet.

Following desperate decades of debate, recrimination, invention and construction, it crystallised as the destination of the Granule, humanity’s first and only sporecraft, created with the last available energy and resources. The Sun still burned, and our but we had wasted too much to be able to build machines to harness its output.

Now, during the last expected generation before planetfall, our mathematicians tell us we are moving too fast, and have flown too far into the Great Maw to slow or turn sharply enough before it closes behind us. Escape is impossible, the ‘planet’ a bright dangling lure in the abyss. If only our ancestors had recognised that pair of fiery red giants for what they really were, watching our inexorable approach.