New Year's Resolution

New Year’s Resolution

When a boiler stops working

And the weather’s cold

A gas engineer’s worth his weight

In gold

When a car slows down

And its engine dies

A breakdown mechanic’s a sight

For sore eyes

When someone collapses

With pains in their chest

Emergency staff is

Humanity’s best

If you’re fixing a boiler

Or mending a car

It’s irrelevant to me

What your politics are

If you’re making me well

Looking after my health

I don’t care for your views

On poverty or wealth

When a tile needs replacing

And the roof has a leek

The hero of the hour

Is the builder we seek

When a lock is broken

And the door’s shut tight

The locksmith’s appearance

Is a wondrous sight

When a pipe has burst

And water pours out

A plumber’s a saviour

Of that there’s no doubt

If you’re fixing a roof

Or changing a lock

Or mending a pipe

Or unblocking a block

If you’re out on call

Any time day or night

I don’t care if you vote

For the left or the right

From today, my New Year’s

Resolution will be

To keep my mouth shut

If I don’t agree

With your point of view

Cos when all’s said and done

We all have to interact

Under the sun

And so (with my tongue

Firmly lodged in my cheek)

I pledge to be silent

(At least for a week)

About things political

All thoughts I’ll keep

To myself

As of now

From me

Not a peep.

Violent Right

Violent Right

Righteous, bright, wholly white,

All is strength, all is might,

Refugees deported, exiled;

Every father, mother and child.

Immigration will cease,

Immigration will cease.

Violent right, lions, we bite,

Calling Trump, morn, noon, night,

Come to England, be ARE king,

So that we may kiss the ring,

Lick his blessed ring piece,

Lick his blessed ring piece.

George ARE knight, flag in flight,

For his cause, we will fight,

Lefty liberals, hear ARE roar,

There will be forever, no more

Woke mind virus disease,

Woke mind virus disease.

Kahn of spite, flee in fright,

Oh Reform, heed our plight,

Nige, ARE saviour will be at last,

Resurrecting ARE glorious past,

Sing in praise of free speech,

Sing in praise of free speech.

Godcomplexity or Panic Attack (Zante, 2012)

Godcomplexity or Panic Attack (Zante, 2012)

I lounging lay,

One hazy day,

On holiday,

Idly watching,

People on vacation,

When all at sea,

It came to me,

These things could be,

Mere figments of

My imagination:

The sea, the sand,

The sun, the sky,

The air:

All of my creation;

And, quite distraught,

Upon that thought,

I felt and fought,

The urge

To leave

My body lying,

In view that I,

Forever high,

Might spirit - fly,

Unwillingly,

Gravity - defying,

Above it all,

Away from you;

And I,

Felt like I was dying.

From such despair,

I watched them stare,

But didn’t care,

My sanity,

To lunacy nigh ceded,

I leapt and fled,

In untold dread,

And lay abed,

There waiting,

In want of help, unheeded:

The air con breezed,

The waves,

Gradually receded…

That time behind,

These days I find,

I’m much inclined,

When fear

Of expiration

Comes a calling,

To take a seat,

Go with the beat,

Endure the heat,

That is to say,

It’s far less appalling,

For after all:

If here’s a stage,

Then who can stop

The final curtain falling?

Connoly

Connolly

This is less a poem, than a view in rhyme,

Pertaining to a racist, doing time

For posting online, her evident desire

To see asylum centres set afire,

With the occupants still inside; leading

To a jail sentence, upon her pleading

Guilty to inciting racial hatred;

A “Category A offense” the judge said,

Before giving her 31 months no less;

And media barons of populist press,

Along with purveyors of far-right reach,

Henceforth decried the law on free speech.

However: her time inside was decreased

By sixty percent; and she was released,

Albeit still under supervision,

Upon having spent ten months in prison.

And very soon after, the self-proclaimed

“Political-prisoner” and unashamed

Racist, appeared on stage, at Reform UK’s

Conference, to rapturous applause and praise;

Attendees, raucously clapping along

To what sounded like a Gary Glitter song;

And then came a speech and an interview,

That I couldn’t listen to all the way through,

But it seems to me, from what little I heard,

She obviously didn’t regret one word,

Of her inflammatory tweet; which led

Me to conclude: maybe instead

Of jail, she should have done community

Service, and had the opportunity

To meet the innocent recipients

Of carnage, starting with the residents

Of Southport; helping to clean up the mess

She helped create with her thoughtless address.

As it is, jail time for posting racial hate

Has led to a deflective debate

On free-speech, an increase in racism

And an outbreak of faux patriotism,

Akin to celebrating being a Brit

By sticking a flag in a pile of dogshit.

(Can You See) The Real Me

(Can You See)The Real Me

Though lately less liable to lose control,

I struggle still with toxicity;

sometimes I can’t help but be an arsehole.

My default position is, on the whole,

that of a chauvinist monstrosity;

though lately less liable to lose control,

if I inadvertently play that role,

indulge me a humble apology;

sometimes I can’t help but be an arsehole;

it’s like I’m ascending a slippery pole;

a climber with a split personality,

though lately less liable to lose control;

self-awareness is a faraway goal,

I’m often my own worst enemy,

sometimes I can’t help but be an arsehole.

If eyes are the window to the soul,

when you look through mine, can you see the real me?

Though lately less liable to lose control,

sometimes I can’t help but be an arsehole.

A Way Out

A Way Out

A fascist teed off at the eighteenth hole;

And as the ball toward the fairway fell,

An aneurysm burst inside his skull,

The fascist died, and his soul went to hell,

Where it resided in a lake of fire,

Dragged down by unendurable torment,

Through depths of despair, progressively dire,

With each passing, agonising, moment,

For infinity; inexhaustibly

Increasing, in mockery of the screams

From the furnace, burning remorselessly;

Fuelled by the seemingly endless streams

Of immortals, damned in isolation;

Each tightly crammed beyond suffocation.

In Hell there’s no time; no morning, noon, night;

Infinity is the sum of all fears,

But if one could measure the time in spite:

A span of fifty millennium years

Passed, during which his immortality

Progressed, augmenting pain never ending;

Blinding in its white-hot intensity;

When there came a narrow thread, descending

From above; and he heard the voice of grace

Say: “If you sincerely repent, take hold,

And we will lift you from this cursed place

And gladly welcome you into our fold;

Lovingly rejoice upon your release,

And lead you to joyful, eternal peace”.

“Oh I repent”, he desperately cried,

Grabbing as a drowning man would a straw,

The thread, barely more than a shoelace wide,

That nonetheless raised him up off the floor

Of white heat, toward the heavenly light;

Glowing brighter and brighter the higher

He went, all the while renouncing, greed, spite,

Selfishness, callousness, envy, desire,

And every temptation known to mankind,

Of which he was guilty, in abundance,

And which he presently had left behind;

Traded in exchange for his repentance:

Clinging to the thread of his salvation;

Free of pain, and in anticipation

Of heaven, presently within his grasp.

But something was tugging him from below:

A soul, whose equally desperate clasp

Might break the thread, if he didn’t let go;

And worse: there were many more; a whole chain

Of souls, stretching all the way down toward

The flames. Was his ascension all in vain?

“Get off me” he cried, “Lest you’ll break the cord”;

So saying, he kicked out, with all his might

Till that soul, along with the others fell;

And with but an inch away from the light,

The thread snapped, and he followed them to hell,

As a golf ball long ago descending,

Encroached on his thoughts of doom impending.

Sestinia (a sestina)

Sestinia (a sestina)

Every time I see memes pertaining to 1984

on SM, lamenting the loss of free speech,

I’m reminded of the little-handed dictator

in Oceania, dismantling freedom, little by little;

all the while doubling down on doublespeak;

prompting the proles into believing the opposite;

demonising people in the party opposite;

rousing rage, reminiscent of hate week in 1984;

firing up the flock with blatant doublespeak;

condemning free speech, in the name of free speech;

preaching Christian values, whilst pointing his little

digit at a Democrat, denounced as a dictator,

by the absolute epitome of a dictator;

threatening to sue media outlets of opposite

opinion, who dare to highlight the suffering of little

kids, killed daily since the completion of 1984;

three years after a denier of free speech,

via the expertise of a manipulator of doublespeak,

died in a bunker, along with the doublespeak

manipulator, before the army of another dictator;

with his own twisted view of free speech,

leading a party as extreme, yet opposite;

and very much an inspiration for 1984;

fought their way in, and found little

more than ashes and teeth, from what little

is known; upon deciphering the doublespeak,

alluded to in the, not then completed, 1984,

that could’ve been written with either dictator,

in mind, each being identically opposite

in their approach to curbs on free speech;

but in any case, both dystopian, free speech

denying, totalitarians, along with their little

minded followers are long deceased; the opposite

number expiring shortly after doublespeak;

predominantly that of the longer lived dictator,

was coined in a fictional account of the 1984,

on the telescreen opposite; as doublespeak

destroys free speech, and the little

handed dictator, makes 2025 equal 1984.