Earlier This Morning

Earlier This Morning

Earlier this morning, I reflected,

On having shared warm laughter with my wife;

Have things turned out more than I expected,

When first we joined, along the path of life?

Thinking back, did I take it for granted,

Nigh forty years together we’d still be

Laughing now, the same as when we started,

Lovingly, engaging mutually?

My answer is myself is surely yes;

It’s more than I could dream of, so much more;

All things considered thus, I ever less,

Take love for granted like I did before;

Another’s time was never better spent;

I’m happily and gratefully content.

Hoodwinked

Hoodwinked

The black-clad, brutish patriots are here:

Stone Island Christians, nationalists proud;

full of rage, hatred, and Wetherspoons beer.

Mums, daughters, sisters, wives, welcome with cheer;

(if they but knew they maybe would’ve cowered),

the black-clad, brutish patriots are here;

“We come in peace”, comes a voice, crystal clear,

masculine, deep and so very loud,

full of rage, hatred and Wetherspoons beer.

RNLI volunteers, pack their gear,

bombards of” Fuck off you traitors” showered;

the black-clad, brutish patriots are here.

Compassionate, kind protesters appear;

the antithesis of this rowdy crowd,

full of rage, hatred and Wetherspoons beer,

but current law being labelled two-tier,

decency’s, disallowed, disempowered;

The black-clad, brutish patriots are here,

full of rage, hatred, and Wetherspoons beer.

King of the Brexiteers

 King of the Brexiteers

“Fortune seeking foreigners

Are welcome here no more

Muslim refugees will be

Returned to zones of war

Open borders will be shut

And shut they will remain

When Europe splits

And Britain’s GREAT again

We’ve turned our backs on Eurocrats

Made a great escape

Let’s strike a deal with the USA

Cut away red tape

The will of the people’s spoken out

And made its feelings plain

Together we’ll make Britain GREAT again”

All hail the dandy man

Three cheers; hip hip hooray!

It’s June the twenty third

Our happy Independence Day

Raise your glasses everyone

And toast with liberal tears

The greatest Englishman alive

King of the Brexiteers

He said, “Your quality of life

Will surely be improved

Once free movement stops

And human rights have been removed

Those rules imposed upon us

With Europhile disdain

Will disappear when Britain’s GREAT again

Bulgarians, Romanians won't

Be coming here for sure

(I wouldn’t want a family

Of them living next door)

Entry to this country will

Be harder to obtain

We’ll lock it down when Britain’s GREAT again”

All hail the dandy man

The rightest of them all

He’s right so far

He’s so far right

He’s Strong and masterful

He drives us on to greatness

This man who has no peers

And we will gladly follow him

King of the Brexiteers

“Yes the will of the people’s spoken

What more can I say?

Very soon from now

All immigrants we’ll turn away

And then we’ll have a row

With France or Germany or Spain

We’ll thrash them all

When Britain’s GREAT again

We’ll sell arms to the Saudis

To the Chinese we will crawl

If Brussels doesn’t like it

Then we’ll offer them a brawl

Not a soul will dare to stop us

Terrorize us or restrain

They’ll be in awe

When Britain’s GREAT again”

All hail the dandy man

He’s British through and through

He’s got a bulldog spirit

And he’s red white blue and true

He’s heaven sent among us

He’s the answer to our fears

Scourge of invading foreigners

King of the Brexiteers

All hail the dandy man

You forty eight percent

Can moan as much you like

We’re determined and hell bent

We’ll offer him a knighthood

In answer to your sneers

He’s the greatest Englishman alive

King of the Brexiteers

Saccharin

Saccharin

Sour saccharin sentimentality

fed to the masses by the Epstein class;

more Soma, deflecting humanity.

A tattooed, tad too twee banality,

plays, and the murderers get a free pass.

Sour saccharin sentimentality,

equating to Nero’s insanity,

the crassest of MOR superstars;

more Soma, deflecting humanity.

A call for peace deemed a profanity,

insipidness continually jars;

sour saccharin sentimentality.

But it’s complicated apparently.

Sorrowful tears and acoustic guitars;

more Soma, deflecting humanity.

Entitlement, mammon, and vanity,

turned scripture into a biblical farce.

Sour saccharin sentimentality;

more Soma, deflecting humanity.

Paddington Went to Piddington

Paddington Went to Piddington

Paddington went to Piddington

To buy orange marmalade

And there by a pack

Of hard men-in-black

Was overly long delayed

Being too slight to pick a fight

He curtsied graciously

Requesting would they

Move out of the way

Lest he be late for his tea

We can’t comply came a curt reply

With nary a trace of sorrow

We’re guarding our kin

From strangers within

By order of Danny Tommo

Paddington fled from Piddington

And far beyond the station

A shred he spread

On slices of bread

Whilst pondering immigration

And from his plate a sandwich he ate

Thoroughly chewing it through

Upon which he chose

To keep his cards close

Regarding his birth in Peru

An Idiotic Incel in a Cell

An Idiotic Incel in a Cell

Down in the rabbit-warren he fell;

took a right turn a bit too far,

an idiotic incel, in a cell;

the subject of this villanelle,

pertaining to a fallen YouTube star;

down in the rabbit-warren he fell;

the occupant of a hermit shell,

in solitary, where the nonces are;

an idiotic incel, in a cell;

a pawn in a fascist tech-nerd hell,

pondering the title of his memoir;

down in the rabbit-warren he fell,

sentenced justly to a lengthy spell,

for hitting a girl with a metal bar;

an idiotic incel, in a cell,

with a sore, sorry, story to tell,

and a claim to Christian faith bizarre;

down in the rabbit-warren he fell;

an idiotic incel, in a cell

See

Lost

Lost

Tell me the way to anywhere,

And it will be unremembered

By the time I’m less than halfway there,

My brain being encumbered

With directional dyslexia,

Rendering such information

A source of amnesia,

Topographical disorientation,

Anxiety and often panic.

When you see me walking somewhere bound,

Looking decidedly more manic

Than a man who knows his way around,

Feel free to offer your assistance;

But when I’m alone behind the wheel,

I’d urge you to keep your distance;

Even with satnav I’m struggling still,

Never more than fifty percent,

Certain I’ve set it up correctly,

And I don’t want to receive a rear dent,

Due to having changed lanes suddenly.

But fear not: these days I take the bus;

A longer journey, at little cost,

Cheaper than the train, and much less fuss,

Though, on occasion, I still get lost.

Take the other day, for example:

I went by bus to Dovercourt

To visit a mate from my old school,

And, for reasons unbeknown, I thought

I’d reached my destination, and hence

Vacated, upon which I saw

Landmarks that made no sense

In a place I’d never been before;

And I hadn’t a clue as to what

Route or direction I should take, this

Being an unfamiliar spot,

I didn’t know whether I’d missed

The stop or gotten off too soon.

To proceed or not to proceed, that

Was the question, on the morn (or noon?)

I got lost on the way to his flat.

“Excuse me, is this the right way

To Dovercourt, and the Bathside estate?”

But no one local was out that day

“Sorry, don’t live here can’t help you mate”,

They mostly said, apologetically,

All except one, who with kind intention

Said I’d get there eventually

If I walked in the opposite direction.

But lest this story too goes astray;

Long ramble short, I found the abode,

Though the timetable dictated my stay;

A bus wanker’s lot is a limited mode,

More inconvenient than a car;

But a self-imposed ban’s all for the best

And public transports safer by far,

Not knowing North, from South, East, or West.

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Social Media is a Curse

Social Media’s is a Curse

Facebook, TikTok, X, or Twitter,

Makes you anxious, angry, bitter,

Overfeeding vanity,

It turns your personality,

Into a ranting avatar,

Misrepresenting who you are;

An actor on a global stage,

Poet, warrior, prophet, sage,

Or whatever; take your pick;

A self-opinionated prick,

Chucking their two penn’orth in

The algorithmic data bin,

Is all it ever amounts to

For the most part, in Myspace view,

Unless you’re POTUS, posting mental

Consequential Tweets, on Truth Central,

In which case: Facebook, TikTok, X,

Or Twitter, and whatever next,

Are a source of tribal division,

A textualized war of attrition,

Fought in the interests of the self,

In pursuit of followers, and wealth;

The theatre having been designed by

The puppeteers of the orange guy,

Deliberately/inadvertently,

Nocturnally tweeting World War Three...

D’you think so too? Or is it just Me?

If the latter, I surely would be

Vlogging, with no little vanity,

All for the sake of humanity:

SOCIAL MEDIA IS A CURSE:

(Another cliché, written in verse).

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Vote For Binface

Vote For Binface

Little people, what have you gained?

Union Jacks flying everywhere;

I hope you won’t get fooled again,

By a Crypto fake who’s never there.

If you think he cares about your town,

Have a look around at all the rot

St Osyth & Jaywick still run down

Clacton-on-Sea’s a crime hotspot.

Vote for Binface,

Ring in the changes now you can,

Vote for Binface,

Au revoir to the dandy man.

Do you really want an MP

Who rarely speaks on your behalf?

He never once held a surgery

Only appeared for a photograph

He’s less anti-establishment,

More a stooge for multi-billionaires,

A pillar of self-entitlement,

To profiteering company shares.

Vote for Binface

Nigel’s not a people’s bloke

Vote for Binface

Super yachts will make you broke

Vote for Binface

Like you’ve never done before

Vote for Binface

Take the trash out, sweep the floor.

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Plasticine Attraction

Plasticine Attraction

I hope one day plasticine will be free,

That one might build to their satisfaction,

A riverbank and a strip by a sea,

Of Plasticine waves, frozen in action.

But there’re no Plasticinians here,

So, what’s the point I’m trying to convey;

Using ambiguous language for fear

Of having my liberty taken away?

The landscape of clay has my full support,

Being albeit an allegory

Of an unwritten and unspoken thought,

Kept in for the sake of legality,

Along with words, rhyming with homicide,

Scientist, violinist, insecticide…

The Minister for Misogyny (thoughts on the byelection)

The Minister for Misogyny (thoughts on the byelection)

As neoliberalism derails

UK infrastructure, services, health;

The politics of the gutter prevails,

And the travesty, that should’ve been shelved,

In favour of higher taxes on wealth,

(Beneficial to all, not merely the few),

Accelerates toward being seen through.

Whether Farage, Lowe, Reform or Restore,

I wonder, what would the cabinet be,

If a populist party won the floor?

Each being far-right, and emphatically

Capitalistic, fanatically.

Henceforth, by way of a rhyming lecture,

Indulge me the following conjecture

Of a fascistic cabinet, no less;

Including: a minister for straight men,

ICE, DOGE, de—regulated business,

Evangelists; anti- lesbian, gay, trans-gen;

A minister for being “Great Again”,

Tax-havens, class superiority,

Remigration, Crypto, misogyny

And anything else, pertaining to fear,

Division, prejudice, hate and scripture,

That I’m inadvertently missing here;

But in any case, you get the picture:

A poisonous patriarchal mixture

Of all the above, at least to my mind;

Toxic to all but the wilfully blind.

The project, neoliberalism’s

Puffed up to the extent it’s fragmented

Into a series of extremisms,

Persistently overrepresented,

Championed even, by biased news hacks;

A kind of warm up to the main event;

A barrage of written and vocal attacks,

Slogans and tags of a cynical bent,

Such as “Woke” “Two-tier” “Lefty” “ANTIFA”,

Countered with a blend of nostalgic spite,

Or manufactured verbal diarrhoea;

Mindlessly parroted by the non-bright,

Chorusing their blame-fuelled lamentations,

At oligarch-funded demonstrations.

I mentioned above, a minister for

Misogyny, with a plumber in mind;

How many voters will choose to ignore

His sexist remarks against womankind?

Are the economically left behind

Desperate enough to vote someone in

Who blatantly doesn’t know where to begin?

In view of my urging you to reflect:

If he comes second, will you feel relief?

Or if, on the night, the MP elect

Is the plumber with a nationalist brief,

Will you cheer, like your commander in chief?

If yes; and if all that’s written comes true,

I’ll stand with “ANTIFA”, obstructing you.

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Unite the Kingdom

Unite the Kingdom

Cuts to funding for the disabled

Anxiety poor mental health

Minorities scapegoated labelled

Smeared by the hoarders of great wealth

Tax evaders basking offshore

Parroting lies to keep you poor

Unite the Kingdom

Leave your brain at home take the train

Unite the Kingdom

Make your prejudiced feelings plain

Private health like in the USA

Cancer treatment means poverty

Throw all your hard-won rights away

Asylum seekers lost at sea

Illegal wars and genocide

Jail cells with lefties locked inside

Unite the Kingdom

Tel Aviv Tommy’s here again

Unite the Kingdom

Less a Christian more a shit stain

Praise the oligarch your king

Is pisshead culture being replaced?

Wokeology is not your thing

The nationalist creed should be embraced

Raise the colours in your hometown

Roar like a child when they’re cut down

Unite the Kingdom

Racist misogynists march to church

Unite the Kingdom

Would you turn your cheek upon research?

Unite the Kingdom

Said the patriot who lives in Spain

Unite the Kingdom

Link your arms form a fascist chain

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Don't Ever Vote For Lowe

Don’t Ever Vote For Lowe

Never fall for Reform

Or Restore’s bald lies

Don’t be led astray by Advance

For the friends of Reform

And those other guys

Are schemers of the tunes of their dance

If populists win

For coterie gain

Will your means be tossed and blown

Don’t vote, don’t vote

For Habib, or Farage

And don’t ever vote for Lowe

Don’t ever vote for Lowe

Nearly all of Reform

Was in days gone by

A blue tory playing a part

Like Advance and Restore

It’s the same old lie

Austerity will tear us apart

If populists win

For coterie gain

The wealth gap will still be grown

Don’t vote, don’t vote

For Habib, or Farage

And don’t ever vote for Lowe

Don’t ever vote for Lowe

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Spot The Difference

Spot the Difference

Wherever we’re born is an accident;

The luckless among us condemned from birth,

To live a life term of disparagement,

Where charmed born others whose sense of self-worth

Enables the largest prison on Earth;

Open or maximum security,

Dependent on whims, and who holds the key.

Everyone’s different, so it’s been said,

But human behaviour seems much the same;

Youth the world over’s prematurely dead;

Killed by authoritarians, who came

Enforcing the cause of whatever name;

And often, the news related to you,

Is bound by and skewed to that cause’s view.

Do you remember Tiananmen Square?

The protester stood in front of a tank?

His anger in mind, I urge you: compare

To despair in Gaza or the West Bank;

And if there really is a God to thank

For your blessings, ask of him: where were you

When the bombs rained down and the missiles flew?

If a child of Palestine isn’t slain,

As a man he’ll be deemed a terrorist

By those intent on bombarding my brain,

With tripe I feel duty bound to resist;

His anger is justified I insist!

If not as much as I did yesterday,

Now there’s a minefield of things we can’t say.

Man Flu

Man Flu

Arthur coughed and sneezed all night,

Not at all to Dawn’s delight;

Come the morn she rose in spite

Of never having slept,

Brought him breakfast on a tray,

Flushed his Kleenexes away

Left him there to sleep all day,

Cantankerous well kept.

Tired and uncomplaining, she

Worked a shift from six till three;

And after, automatically,

Shopped for milk and bread,

Drowsy still and slightly ill,

Popped a cough and cold pill,

Poured a gin prepared a meal,

For him upstairs in bed;

And upon that spirit downed,

She ascended bedroom bound;

From within came not a sound;

Had he been deceiving?

Wake up Arthur please she cried;

Though his were open wide,

He was lying on his side,

Cold and stiff not breathing.

At the inquest she was told:

Arthur, having caught her cold,

Something grim had taken hold,

Alpha male exclusive:

Dawn from the inheritance,

With a friend at great expense,

Took a well-earned recompense,

In Baros all inclusive.

Death Cult

Death Cult (a sestina)

There’s a death-cult occupying my mind;

a congregation of doomsday optimists,

eternally hopeful of a nuclear

chain-reaction, linked to the apocalypse,

whereupon they wish to bear witness

to a riot of mushroom clouds, prior to dying,

fully freed from the fear of dying;

a condition achieved by the hive mind

of the cult, in line with being witness

to events long ignored by optimists

and deniers of the apocalypse,

brought about by hubristic nuclear

powers, embarking on a nuclear

arms race, at the cost of frameworks dying

on the altar of the apocalypse,

at the behest of an out of his mind

felon, empowered by evangelist optimists,

and the want of a credible witness,

or, at the very least, a witness,

unafraid of metaphorical nuclear

fallout and evangelist optimists;

not to mention the risk of dying

from a shot, guaranteed to blow their mind,

fired by a biblical apocalypse

fanatic, whose view of the apocalypse,

they themselves are hoping to witness,

differs from that of the cult in my mind,

inasmuch as whether it's nuclear

or not is of no consequence, when dying,

according to the evangelist optimists,

is but the beginning, for optimists

with faith enough to know: the apocalypse

heralds the resurrection of the dying,

and the rapture, on which all will witness

an event dwarfing all others, nuclear

or elsewise, at least for those with Christ in mind;

whilst fear of dying, prompts a wish to witness

the end of such optimists, via an atheist apocalypse,

spectacularly nuclear, in cultists occupying my mind.

Bus Wanker

Bus Wanker

Driving is overly stressful these days:

Everywhere speed and traffic-light cams,

Pothole plagued A roads, and motorways;

Pile up related delays, traffic-jams,

Deserted roadworks; inevitable

Detours down country lanes, dangerously dark

And light years away from residential

Streets with barely anywhere to park;

The constant cost of tyres - offside and near

Refitted from only a week ago,

Not to mention the tracking - front and rear,

Realigned, following a costly tow,

Courtesy of torrential rain

And a caved-in, neglected, blocked, storm drain.

Upon the crossing of a toll bridge too far,

And subsequent fine for paying late,

I gave up on driving, and sold the car;

Arriving as such at a happy estate,

With no insurance, repairs, MOTs,

Or fines, not least for encroaching the lanes

I frequent for fair, affordable fees,

Oblivious to potholes, neglected drains

And cameras, such as mentioned before;

And if the journey takes longer, who cares?

I’m able to read or watch YouTube more;

My only concern’s an increase in fares;

I’m a bus wanker, when all’s said done;

And car trouble free; I’m glad to be one.

Commoners like us (an acrostic)

Commoners like us (an acrostic)

Theology strives to solve religion,

Rocket fire furiously falls from the sky,

Utopian dreams, are a fool’s mission;

Monsters maim millions, school children die,

Pummelled by patriot missiles misaimed;

Accidents happen, the offender shrugs;

Naturally terrorists will be blamed;

Doubtless the lies will be swallowed by mugs.

Never again, again, and again:

Ever get the feeling you’re being cheated?

The reels are rolling, the theatres remain,

All the old films are being repeated.

“Never again”, wrote Meir Kahane,

(Yitzhak Lamdan coined that phrase).

Archaic laws in biblical vein,

Herald in make believe Halcyon days,

Unlawful settlers, occupation,

Aided and abetted, often by

Rightist elites, of fascist persuasion:

Epstein associates, easy to buy;

Callous, filthy-rich, paedophile

Rapist, self-entitled, feckless

Idiots photographed and kept on file:

Multiple heirs, in states of undress,

Invested in power and wealth creation;

Narcissists, basking in immunity,

Allied with leaders of a rogue nation,

Lying and killing with impunity;

Silencing critics via default

Accusations of prejudice;

Naysaying every truthful report,

Decrying their murderous recklessness.

Gone is international law

Ensuring advances in view of world peace;

Nuclear arms threaten once more,

Oligarch wealth is on the increase,

Crimes against humankind’s normalised,

Industrial prisons are amply built,

Demagogues, rarely criticised,

Answer to no one, despite their guilt;

Like mafia bosses, Dons by name;

Monetary rule’s the name of their game;

Arrogant arseholes united are they;

Nourished by greed, impervious to shame;

Insatiable beasts; and we are their prey.

All but obliviously lost at sea,

Commoners like us, one day will be

Sharing a dinghy, literally.

Take Down the Flags, Hang Flowers Instead

Take Down the Flags, Hang Flowers Instead

Early one morning, in my dressing gown,

I, having opened the curtains, espied

A Union Jack, hanging upside down,

Atop the disused old lamppost outside;

And later that day, I saw many more,

Hanging from nigh every post in the street;

I strolled on, perplexed: what were they all for?

A celebration of Windsor’s elite?

A final I’d missed, that England had won?

Impossible news, of a Brexit deal,

Highly beneficial to everyone?

Or an armed forces memorial drill,

In remembrance, announced by a bugle?

Ours is a garrison town after all.

Or, was it a foolish interpretation

Of patriotism: a misguided

Zealousness, fuelled by misinformation,

Nostalgia, prejudice, lopsided

Media, gullibility, frustration;

A magnate manufactured culture war;

A celebration of tax evasion,

Greed, billionaires, the broken rule of law;

Repeated use of the adjective, “GREAT”

Applied to a past that was anything but,

When wealthy landowners governed the state,

Purses were jealously guardedly shut,

To your GREAT GREAT grandfathers and mothers;

Their sons and daughters, sisters and brothers?

Pondering this, a ladder I ascended,

Cut the ties; and the “Made in China” flag,

Crowning the obsolete post, descended,

Landing beside a council black bin-bag

And some plastic flowers, that, for all I knew,

Could have been made in the same factory

Yet, being prettier than red white and blue,

Beautiful even, comparatively,

I hung them and made a statement that day,

With a view to, maybe starting a trend,

And after the colours were thrown away,

I hoped that mine had been left till the end,

If only to sow a seed in your head:

Take down the flags, hang flowers instead.

If Souls Were Fish (For Whom it May Concern)

If Souls Were Fish (or, To Whom it May Concern)

If souls were fish, yours would be a minnow,

Residing in a waste infested lake;

Or, a paedocypris, in a slow-

-Flowing, brown stream of raw-sewage outbreak.

If hearts were sand, yours would be a particle

Far smaller than a quark; impossible,

To view, through all but the most powerful

Lens; and even then, barely visible.

If minds were spheres, yours would be a highly

Toxic, orange gas giant, more poisonous

Than sulfur mustard and reliably

Likely to wipe-out every one of us.

If life was a dream, yours would trump those

Of all the scapegoats, living guardedly,

In a world where prejudice daily grows,

Along with division and disharmony.