I care not for your bejewelled headgear

A subject I rarely tackle as I'm no monarchist (inherited privilege and position = grrr), but equally have no love for the idea of a President i.e. another layer of self-serving politicking. However, the hypocrisy and mismatch between 'austerity' and ridiculous wealth couldn't go by without comment...

The Queen’s Speech

A billionaire in a fifty-million quid hat
sits on a gold throne
and tells us about austerity, tells us
“Serfs, kneel down,
kiss my fucking crown,
my velvet-pampered bum,
bow and scrape,
and if you tug your forelocks hard enough,
you might get thrown
some scraps and crumbs,”
forgets to explain
why the sixth-richest country
can’t afford a welfare state
but can buy bombs
even the army doesn’t want,
speaks about how now
if we try to organise,
they’ll demonise us,
stamp down hard
with heels ever more jackbootlich,
pretending it’s to protect ‘essential services’,
some vague idea of Britishness,
try to make us nervous,
too scared to take action,
keep us split into factions,
with distractions - horror-stories
of immigrants, the poor,
the sick and unemployed,
how our island’s full, shore to shore,
with those ‘other ones’
some are shades of brown,
follow different gods, or none,
some are anarchists – shhh,
we all know they’ve got black hats
and fizzing bombs, might protest,
disturb the wealthy’s cosy nest
and you can’t invest to get
fat dividends from informed dissent
while Take Me Out’s light-up Cupid,
helps keep everybody stupid
and tribal, like never-ending sport,
gameshows, fake reality TV and soaps,
political-slot comedy barely on fire,
state-sanctioned satire
pretending to have an edge
but there’s more revolution in a single veg
allotment-grown, free from Monsanto,
or meal given away on the street,
each witness borne
and DIY spark of creativity -
for every nose-in-the-trough
torn down from a lofty perch,
all Commanders-in-Chief,
CEOs and High Church,
takes us one step closer
to something better,
and you know, if this is the end
of entitlement-culture like you say, Liz,
get ready to live without the Civil List.

Post Black Friday feelings

When the sad sight of people fighting over cheap TVs brings on thoughts of shallow incompleteness...


The half-people

They hang dead-still,
split along their length
like pickled sheep and sharks,
each a Jekyll and Formaldehyde character
baring its innermost parts
for a sip of elixir,
a secret draught,
only half have hearts.

Joining in with 50th anniversary fervour

No, not a royal jubilee, but something more important by far - of course, it's Dr Who... here's my attempt at a poetical friend's challenge to write a Dr Who triolet (rhyme scheme ABaAabAB in case you're not familiar with the form). Enjoy! (and yes, I do own a Dalek head...)

Clara Oswald, the Impossible Girl,
Oswin the Dalek makes souffles in space,
echo in time, tumbling pearl,
Clara Oswald the Impossible Girl,
heart of the TARDIS, temporal whirl,
War Doctor’s saviour so full of grace,
Clara Oswald the impossible girl,
Oswin the Dalek makes souffles in space.

Well, it is Halloween (part 2)

Disrespectful Horrorshow

Pinhead,
you’re just a skinhead,
who’s been used as a dress-maker’s
tabletop accessory.

Freddie,
you’ve got finger-knives,
but frankly you’re already dead,
and though I like your jumper,
menaced Dennis all in red and black,
I don’t live on Elm Street,

and ghost-face guy,
there’s worse than you,
unmasked each week on Scooby Doo,
I’m more likely to laugh-in-your-mask than scream,
not to mention blue Grudge-boy,
and his croaking lank-haired sister –
J-horror’s fashionable ploy,
soon a Tokyo Z-lister,
Leatherface and Voorhees too,
I’ve seen things scarier than you too –
Anne Robinson’s botox-stung lips,
leftover bits from tucks and nips,
Stringfellow’s leopard-print man-thong
(in every way so very wrong)
the ‘Hoff all biker-trousered, putting out
another German pop-chart song,
but if ever something meant I might
need cushions to hide underneath
the unexpected late-night fright
of an ad for Meryl-as-Maggie –
that was real horror…

Well, it is Halloween

Things that are 'meant' to be scary aren't...

Unexpected creeps

Not fox-screams,
horror films,
graveyards or fog,
not even when accompanied by theremins,

but:

lime-tree branches stridulate
against bus-shelter perspex,
pigeons echo-howl through chimney cowls,
taxi brakes cry out in the night,
anguished X-Factor faces captured as stills,
Atlas of Parasitology,
CGI babies-in-adverts gyrate,
landlady half hidden by an architrave,
light-bulb reflection (bathroom mirror),
space behind,
next door’s stone garden menagerie –
they stare so benignly,
some fish at certain angles
(Lovecraft knew about angles),
collections of old dolls
tiny porcelain teeth,
pretty much all dolls,
including Resusci Anne;
empty corridors,
abandoned doors,
trash-to-treasure TV presenters,
hydrangea petals so like peeled skin,
monochrome wind-sway of tall grasses,
dark cumulus in summer –
press ‘pause’ to shudder.

I tri to univocalise

ibid.

Bring crisps, chips, drinks in tins,
fight-night is nigh,
fit fists hitting chins, TV-bright –
Biff!
Spit split lip-bits, pink, thick.

I sit with misgivings,
sipping citric gin,
wishing it’d finish – tick tick tick,
minim-clicks.
I’m missing BBC’s rib-tickling skits,
sci-fi films, British fright-flicks.

Living with dimwits is shit,
six chimps igniting spliffs,
yipping, big-dicking,
swilling Pils (bits spill),
pissing Klimt-lit drips
(in mind: shivs, picks, flinging bricks).

‘Ring-ring, ring-ring.’
‘Hi’ – it’s Irish Jim with skins, trips,
limping,
flicking blim,
iThing whistling Limp Bizkit.
Inviting him in, civil-ish,
I skip-zip lightning-quick,
quitting this tip right-swift, midnight flit.

Kip in Tim’s Civic? Fritz’s Mini?
Siri’s ringing – it’s Jim, livid,
Tirpitz sinking in villi.
Dicing with risk, inciting plight - think,
climb in big bin,
flip lid,
piri-piri whiff,
filing piling high –
shitting it, chill-pills kick in,
silent, I rigid-digit Jim.

First thing, switch limits:
Hiding in hills?
Ritz?
Mississippi tipi?
Flight it is.
Sigh.

Out of the oven

A poem triggered by a friend's prompt to start with the line 'He had his head in the bread' - so, here is the result, squeezing a metaphor for all it's worth - and a nod to the old Madness song 'Cardiac Arrest'...

Out of the oven

He had his head in the bread,
The 80s were kind to him, he thought –
Bish-bosh, more loaves of lucre,
Du pain, du vin,
Gold-plated-signet-ringed white-van man,
Now besuited, fake orange-tanned,
But it would soon forsake him,
An empty tin vessel,
Risen, bubbled, burst,
Half-baked and sourdoughed,
Yeastlessly listess and collapsed in the street,
Stone-ground down,
Too stale for even Paul Hollywood’s
Apricot-tinged brand of cheer-batta
To rejuvenate.

Strangers’ faces peer concernedly,
He’s kneaded awake –
“Can you hear us, mate?”
Time to face the whole grain of truth;
He’d been a good bake –
Hadn’t he?
A proven asset?
No - oh, F*caccia!

But surely buttermilk wouldn’t melt in his mouth –
His crusty little heart would for sure,
Coughed up,
Indigestible,
If he’d just leave the bread behind,
Switch off the Maggie-mix,
And dump the dough –

A true artisan would fix him.