Gove makes me mockyswearywordy

The Education Secretary Michael Gove is an idiot. He doesn't get 20th century American literature, so he thinks it shouldn't be taught. However, while writing this, I found that, to my surprise, it's possible to create a Gove-poem that doesn't include the word 'twat'. Who'd've thought it...

To Mock a Fuckingberk

Arsegrapes to your petty wrath
over works you don’t enjoy –
this is how it starts,
just a step away
from making hit-lists of ‘degenerate art’,
modern, postmodern and contemporary
art you find too hard,
not the Classics you learned at school,
rote-recited lines by dead white dudes;
now you’re a blind mouse
leading blinded men-in-suits,
can’t handle The New,
no amount of rabbit or private over-education
can hide the fact that
you’re more ignorant
than Lennie and George were itinerant,
you’re fooling nobody –
we can see you coming a mile off,
the landscape of your mind’s tortilla-flat,
no peaks pierce the sky,
no scaling heights,
no scenic view,
no forests soar,
no flowers bloom,
the last songbirds shot and sold,
gardens grubbed-up and paved for parking,
you are nothing-small,
you are the least of Eden.

Passion playtime

Written to be performed at the Art House-hosted launch of Grant Sharkey's album Free Nuggets - the 3rd of 40 albums planned to be released over 20 years. The theme of the night was 'passion' and it landed around Easter...

Rhyme of passion

Passiflora edulis,
flowers' elaborate sex-organs,
botanical baboon-bums
on display for all to see
and sniff
and lick (that’s bees),
fruit split and parted
by deft fingers, practised thumbs,
sticky seed-mass probed with tongues,
while Easter Sunday mornings
are more fun
with tousled tumblings,
duvet bundlings
than Via Dolorosa sufferings,
a two-thousand-year old tale
used to summon church-roof funding
from ex-Brigadiers,
broad-‘tached and grumbling
that ‘eating’ wasn’t so messy in their time
but hey – pleasure isn’t guilty
and passion’s not a crime.

Three little letters

The BNP still exist, just. They need to be opposed, trounced and mocked wherever they try to go. In this case, via an oulipo-ish poem working on their own abbreviation...

B.N.P.

Bullies never prosper,
bankrupt Nick - perhaps
bigotry’s not paying,
breeding no profits,
Billy-no-pals’
bad-news peddlers
bringing nothing, pathetic
bloody Nazis parading,
barely nineteen participants,
bullies not ‘patriots’,
bull-necked plonkers
blaming non-whites, Poles;
blokes needing Playtex,
bloated numpties pulling
burqas, needling people,
browning nylon pants
because nearby person’s
black; now pitiful
boneheads nervously piss
britches, noticing plenty
Britons not pleased
by negro-phobes
belching neurotic policies,
beyond ‘not particularly
bright’, nearer Protozoa,
banjo notes playing –
best no platform,
block nationalist prats
barricaded, no – pigpenned,
broken noses perhaps.

I knew that First Aid course was worth it

A little bit of autobiography. It was a strange moment as I thought cars only slipped their handbrakes and rolled out-of-control downhill in vintage comedies...

The St. David’s kerbside incident

I turn at the sound of a crash –
a hatchback has slipped the leash
of its handbrake,
allowed gravity carte blanche
and mounted the pavement,
tumbling somebody’s granny
into a shop doorway
sprawled among a scattering of holiday tat
and ‘Welcome to Wales’ postcards.

Passers-by have gathered round
and begin helping her to her feet –
hurriedly I intervene
to check for concussion,
imagining hip fractures
worsened by well-meaning help.
Though bleeding from superficial wounds,
she is more worried about her lost shoe,
torn tights,
undignified re-arrangement.

As I hold up the requisite number of fingers
and ask quiet questions,
a voice from the small crowd
blocked off from proceedings
by my turned back
proclaims tersely –
‘we know her’.

Although I’m sure that later,
they will provide more comfort
than I,
as a stranger,
could ever hope to achieve,
I’m equally certain that familiarity
does not breed
medical expertise.

As the ambulance arrives,
disgorging paramedics and a stretcher,
I slope off
to rejoin my holiday.

Even on April 1st you couldn't make it up

Yes, it's April Fool's Day, but our current crop of politicians are almost beyond parody (only 'almost') - the things they do and say ought to be jokes, but sadly are real. One such is Education Secretary Michael Gove whose idiocy and refusal to acknowledge viewpoints other than his own are becoming legendary. Here's a little of what I think of him in only-slightly sweary poem/song form.

Mr Facepalm

Education ruined by Michael Gove,
ministerial stupidity, no brain, no soul,
turning schools into high-street chainstore academies,
teaching how not to question, tarmacadaming
over kids’ minds to make them compliant
drones, consumers, never defiant,
this is Newthink as Orwell would’ve said,
erasing troublesome concepts from children’s heads,
you believe you know best don’t you, by Jove,
though your policies mean teachers leaving in droves,
visiting classes you get Wham! Rappable,
but that doesn’t make your face any less slappable.

So get another job, get out of the House,
you’re incompetent, no sense, no nous.

An over-elevated knob promoting ideology,
you know nowt about nowt, let alone the ‘ologies,
with gormless reforms that’ll kill off the Arts
and creativity, leaving just the three Rs,
but you’re barely literate, can’t do the maths,
to ‘improve year on year’ is impossible you twat.
If you get your way, there’ll be nothing but reciting
‘two fours are eight’ but learning should be exciting,
knowledge for its own sake, not a business proposition,
so sit the fuck down, pin your ears back and listen,
there’s more to life than birth-work-spend-death,
the world is vibrant, not a giant Dragon’s Den.

So, Gove, it’s time to resign,
let ideas fly and youngsters shine.

You’re in the wrong post, mis-promoted,
spreading evil for a government that nobody voted
for, and you want us more like the Chinese
in the Tiananmen Square of your opinions, on our knees,
planning future generations who’ve never been taught
how to disobey, have original thoughts,
brave new epsilons, forelock-tuggers,
who roll over when approached by Etonian muggers,
you blame Blackadder for the way we see
World War One ‘glories’ as hypocrisy,
while in Westminster’s security officer ranks,
guarding you’s referred to as ‘walking the plank’.