vs the haters

Political and media rhetoric bleed into society, creating at atmosphere where it's OK to openly hate, first on the basis of race and religion, but it spreads as the haters feel increasingly confident... This happened yesterday.

Transphobia

I hear shouts out in the street –
not the boisterous hollering
of schoolkids just released or hormoned teens,
but an altogether uglier “oi, come ‘ere”,
“leave me alone, go away”,
“wot the fuck did you say?”
So my ears prick, I look and see four against one –
the one, a middle-aged man,
a transvestite (yes, in broad daylight!),
skirt and leggings, not a dress –
it’s winter, what do you expect?
The four look like a walking stereotype –
trackies, trainers, crap tatts
and though I try hard not to judge beyond behaviour,
it’s not easy – they’re twenty-something,
way beyond the playground
and still hunting for someone to bully,
their victim’s difference used to excuse
the urge to deliver a kicking.
For a moment I thought about not getting involved,
it was the first time I’d witnessed transphobia first hand,
but I’d heard the stories, none with happy endings
and so I chose to intervene.
By now the four have chased the one
into a local shop where the owners,
a quiet, friendly couple, hide behind the counter,
shocked by the black-hot bile.
I push through to where he’s cornered
and stand doorman-style between parasites and prey,
tell the hate-quartet they’ll have to leave
and won’t be hitting anyone today.
They try to have a go, yell about what he called them,
like that’s the way round it happened,
rant about what he wears,
some rabid shite like ‘it shames real women’,
though through the shower of spit-thick vowels,
I cannot work out how,
nor what makes him dirty, pervy,
worthy of their spite.
I give them my best ‘whatever’ face,
reiterate I will not let them translate hate to hurt,
though I can’t retract their words, and we all know
the sticks-and-stones rhyme doesn’t really work.
The alpha-bigot thinks about bunching a fist
and taking a swing,
meets my gaze, thinks again –
they monkey-walk away,
leaving insults and finger-flips as litter in their wake,
and once across the road, they run.
The one tells the police ‘no need to come’,
nothing to report, to him it’s just an ordinary day.

The tarnishing of our jewel-in-space

I recently heard the phrase 'blue shit' meaning the foul activity of the Tories. Here I explore what 'blue' should be and what they have done to it.

Blue Shit

Blue should be the colour of clear skies,
of water-scattered light,
but you pollute it,
plunder and abuse it,
floating factories stripping the seas
of life, dirtying the aquamarine
with greed and the last gasps
of those tossed aside,
world overboard,
ignore the cries,
focus on your dividend size.

Blue should be the colour
of a tropical lagoon,
a pure mountain tarn,
or ancient ice,
but you put a price on it,
asset-strip-mine it
for a fragment of hedge-fund,
an extra week of winter sun,
or to treat your aspirations
to a reupholstered urban-tractor 4X4
where you primly sit when you drive off
to get your arsehole bleached,
singing "me-me-me"
from your perfect peach.

Blue should be the colour of depth,
profundity and wonder,
but your arbeit macht frei,
consume-or-die
vision of the world
pulls it under, turns everything into
plastic landfill's methane hiss
and the fake nappy-ad piss
drunk en masse
by WKD lads' shagging-shirt hordes,
tears condensing on the chilled steel
of empty wards
where the poor ones kneel,
no hope, so beg for the rope,
for you refuse to feel
the ripped-away smiles
and cold dead lips
of your ideology's vampire kiss.

Trying, and failing, not to say 'shit'

He's an unpleasant, self-interested, mean-spirited person who should be nowhere near the reins of power and influence. Being unable to vote him out, I decided to attack him swearily, doggerel-style instead...

I.D.S.

I’ve got Irritable Duncan Syndrome,

that nasty little shit

takes pleasure from the harm he does

while getting paid for it.

He’s like Chucky’s dirty uncle,

with tiny nipping teeth,

biting monetary morsels

from those who have the least,

and every time the corporates

pass laws of gain and greed,

he laughs and pumps his evil fist,

sowing devil-sprouting seeds.

His claws, they grasp at benefits,

the Welfare State’s his wallet,

he steals from old and young alike

to line his greasy pockets,

he failed at everything he did,

got everything for free,

now paints the poor as lazy oiks,

spits on their hopes with glee,

so if the touch of I.D.S.

gives you anguish of the bowels,

flush him with the other turds,

and feed him to your flowers.

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-election and it's time to get spiky

So, Britain's gone Tory and it makes me feel physically sick. Why anyone apart from the uber-wealthy 1% votes for them I'll never really understand, but those who did are responsible for the evil that will follow - destruction of the NHS and loss of the Human Rights Act to name just two of their foul intentions. So, in the spirit of feeling very angry indeed, here's some taking-it-personally-so-making-it-personal doggerel. If you're reading this and voted Tory, you are unlikely to enjoy the experience, but that's nothing compared to the harm such ballot-box short-sightedness will end up causing countless others...

Blues

A Tory will not love you,
they think only of themselves,
no time to care for others
when they’re worshipping their wealth.

Their parents are just sources
of inheritance and coin,
and short-term gain even outweighs
the fruit of their own loins.

“Surely they love their own dear kids”
I hear you all exclaim,
but no they don’t, not deep inside –
the reason I’ll explain.

They throw away their human rights
and healthcare on the sly,
their own descendants’ futures sold
for a slice of selfish pie.

They care nothing for the consequence
of the cult-of-self they follow,
a quick tax-break this afternoon
and the world could burn tomorrow.

They’ll kick a cripple on the floor,
destroy the air we breathe,
for every vote placed next to ‘blue’,
lay someone else’s wreath,

So, if you love a Tory,
even if your heart is true,
unless you’re made of money,
they surely won’t love you.

I don't write songs but I wrote this one

I write poems, lots of poems, and occasionally short stories. Songs, really not. But, information coming out of Palestine about what seem to be unquestionably Israeli war crimes (I'm not planning to discuss the issues here - go have a look beyond the mainstream Western media if you're not sure what I'm talking about, and visit the Palestine Solidarity Campaign), upsets me in a way that very little does. Angry, yes. Energised, yes. Rantsome, definitely. But proper, tears-welling-up, frustrated-at-the-sheer-brutality-and-injustice upset? Not often, but this does it. So I've written a song - it's a bit of a work-in-progress, but is easy to put chords to, and I hope you like it.

Free Palestine

The wall must fall, send the settlers home,
close the checkpoints, regrow the olive-groves,
doves over Gaza, not drones and jets,
missiles-v-fireworks is not self-defence,
Palestine’s unarmed, it has no armed forces,
like charging down tanks on cavalry horses.

Chorus:
Free free Palestine,
you can’t get to Zion by genocide,
Free free Palestine,
bombs on the beach,
dead kids on the strandline.

Netanyahu, like Sharon before,
stop your war crimes, close the door
on billions of dollars of military aid,
killing civilians with every raid,
tying children to the front of jeeps,
I hope it haunts you when you try to sleep.

Israel tear down the giant screens
broadcasting atrocities for all to see,
feeding your populace fear and hate,
dehumanised by a terror-state,
destroying hospitals, schools and homes,
is the devil’s work, built on bones.

Repeat chorus

So we boycott, march and protest
for human rights in a land once blessed
with sun, sea, milk and honey,
now blown away by guns and money
and the prejudice of politicians
who think extermination’s their God-given mission.

But on the streets of Tel Aviv,
ordinary people just want peace,
shootings and torture not done in their name,
warmongers and media steeped in shame,
refuse their propaganda, resist the lies,
show solidarity, and organise.

Repeat chorus to fade

BNP, then EDL, now this...

After the BNP and EDL, now we lucky denizens of Britland have Britain First (whose loathesome webpage I'll not grace with a hyperlink) pretending to defend us. Just the latest far-right bunch of fruit-loops ranting about brown people and Muslamic Rayguns, they differ only by wearing bin-liners and flat caps instead of the usual Nazi memorabilia, piss-soaked sportswear and tinfoil hats. Here they are mocked appropriately in verse. I await the usual incoherent rage and impotent inbox abuse.

Blithering Fringe

BNP fragments
begin faulty
binary fission,
breeding fools
bleating formulaic
belligerence, forming
Britain First,
bottom feeders
belching forth
bulldog faeces,
barking fiercely
‘ban falafel’
but finding
burqas frightening,
‘bloody fatwas’.
Being fervent
baby-Fuhrer
Belsen fans,
bullyboys foster
brownshirt fetishes,
bugle falsehoods
blindly from
behind flags,
broken Furbies
becoming furtive
beacons for
bitter failures,
bunglecunting fucknuggets
breathing fallacies,
believing fearmongers’
brittle figments
because fables
bolster fragile
bigots’ feuds
by feeding
bad feelings,
blaming foreigners,
blackening friendships
between faiths.
Bastards. Further,
boasting fake
bonhomie for
‘brave fallen’ –
big fail;
berks forget
battling forefathers
beat fascism
back – flaunting
bullshit finds
barely flinching
Brits feisty,
bringing fisticuffs.
Benevolence foremost,
better find
bloodless finale
before fights,
boots, futile
beatings, faces
bruised, fatalities.
Benevolence foremost,
brew fruity
beverages for
bozo foes?
Bake fairycakes?
Build friendly
Bollywood festivals,
blending families
by familiarity
bridging fear,
brown-flesh
blinkers flung
beyond far.

Britain First’s
brown-trousered force?
Brief farce,
best forgotten.

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.

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.