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.