Friday, 30 June 2023

Scarredforlife

Scarredforlife
A glass distorted my features one day;
Reflecting a living kaleidoscope;
A visage in patches, melting away,
Like Dorian Gray, in sulphuric soap.
My face, cut-up, not with a surgeon’s knife,
Was haphazardly stitched back together,
Leaving me distorted and scarred for life;
Burdened by a past, that lasts forever;
And while the future accommodates change;
The scars remain a constant reminder;
Timelines I can’t rewire nor rearrange,
Yet often retrace, if only to find,
Pathways, leading to the back of my mind.
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Monday, 26 June 2023

Angioplasty

Angioplasty

Entering a radial artery in a man’s wrist; a thin wire, a stent,
and a tiny balloon, travelled through a catheter,
to a blocked coronary artery, whereat, the balloon,
was briefly inflated, deflated, and removed,
along with the wire; the stent having been opened
and left in the artery; thus ending the procedure,
after which, the man was placed in post-procedure
recovery; the wound on his wrist, where the stent
began its journey, now TR banded, lest it be opened:
presumably this was fitted after the catheter,
having served its purpose, was finally removed,
following extraction of the thin wire and tiny balloon.
The surgeon who’d inflated and deflated the tiny balloon,
in the man’s coronary artery, during the procedure,
bade good morning to another: a surgeon who removed
and replaced old pacemaker batteries. Fitting a stent
seems minor, by comparison, although the catheter
used isn’t as long and, once the old scar’s been opened,
replacement is relatively simple; the freshly opened
scar very rarely gets infected, and, instead of a balloon;
a new battery is sent through a shorter catheter,
in order to replace the old battery; the whole procedure
taking roughly the same time it takes to have a stent
fitted, supposing the old battery can easily be removed;
and yet: a patient in a bed opposite, was nearly removed
to intensive care, because after the patient’s opened
wound was stitched, the man with the newly fitted stent,
concernedly observed, events appearing to balloon
out of control, post battery replacement procedure,
necessitating the insertion of a new catheter,
into the patient’s wrist, hence mirroring the catheter
insertion, performed prior to it being removed,
upon completion of the previous procedure,
involving the invasive insertion of a stent
into a coronary artery, succeeded by a balloon
exiting the coronary artery, “Successfully” opened,
during the "Minor" procedure, whereupon, the radial artery, opened
in order to allow the catheter, to be inserted and removed,
was duel-compression-balloon sealed, as lifeblood flowed through the stent.

Sunday, 18 June 2023

The Language of Dreams

The Language of Dreams
Floating adrift in subconscious streams,
our slumbering thoughts, awakened by sleep,
communicate, in the language of dreams.
Amygdalae shed chaotic themes:
trillions times trillions, epiphanies, deep;
floating adrift in subconscious streams.
Parallels, at infinity’s extremes,
converge, where secrets we no longer keep,
communicate, in the language of dreams.
I met there a ghost; she proffered sunbeams,
dispersed into air and caused me to weep,
floating adrift in subconscious streams.
“Here Comes Everyone!” an artist screams;
and scientists, having made a great leap,
Communicate, in the language of dreams,
with architects of immaculate schemes,
as emperors, in a blabbering heap;
floating adrift in subconscious streams;
communicate, in the language of dreams.

Saturday, 3 June 2023

SortnFinnegan

SortnFinnegan

Mickey came out, and had a stand-up row,
With Chaz, Ronnie and Reggie DeSantis,
As a bull transitioned into a cow,
Beyoncé dissolved a praying mantis
In a pint of Sam Smith’s premium ale,
And Roe, Wade, and Elon Muskrat a tat,
Herded TikTok and Twitter off to jail,
Where an orange billionaire, total twat,
Brought a star spangled spanner to the boil
And smelted it into a free speech crystal,
Marinated in hibble, bible, toil,
Dribble and a washed up old sex pistol,
Wearing a MAGA hat and boiler suit,
Supplied by victims of a high school shoot.
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Thursday, 4 May 2023

Superbus

 

Intro

Somewhere in Texas, in 2064,
As the war on woke reached its fortieth year,
A boot smashed in an old cabin’s front door,
A flashbang blew, a squad-member yelled “Clear!”
And Proud Boys entered the cabin and found,
Nobody home; their quarry gone; vanished;
Most likely aided by the underground
Rabble of degenerates; long banished,
By Trump, Rittenhouse and Dale, respectively;
QAnon’s most recent accusations
Of “Vegan terrorist activity”,
Leading to arrests and home invasions,
Left vegans no options, other than to
Start eating meat, or go into hiding;
Woke as they were, in the president’s view,
And jail-bound too, upon his deciding;
Hence the unoccupied status of Tom’s
Cabin, he having gone some place faraway
From the fallout of media hate bombs;
But not before a leaving a final say,
In the form of a relic cassette tape
And deck, along with a note saying “Play,
Listen; heed, how fascism takes shape”;
And of this since, “Classified”, document;
A memorised version I hereby present,
Although; please, let it be understood:
My Texas accent isn’t very good.

Superbus
This here’s the story of Tarquin Dale;
He followed Trump on the campaign trail,
And hanging on Donald’s every word,
He squawked ‘em, fair like a Myna bird.
Being too young to buy his own gun;
Tarquin had to play with daddy’s one:
An SA Carbine A15
Equipped with a hundred round magazine.
He was shootin’ cans in his spare time,
Long afore he learnt his first nursery rhyme,
And by the tender age of sixteen,
A finer young shot there aint never been.
And watching Trump most every night,
Sermonising the Christian right:
Republican Americans, born and bred;
He took it all in his pliable head,
And as he watched, his dry lips trembled,
Murmuring the mantra of those assembled;
It was like he was kinda hypnotised;
Or maybe even: radicalised:
“MAGA MAGA MAGA “, he said,
As Black Lives Matter filled him with dread,
Likewise, ANTIFA, gender transition,
And those of a communist disposition.
Anyways; Trump won in 2024,
And true to his word, he settled the score
With all those mentioned above and more;
Many folks found themselves breaking the law
Just by being themselves; no other reason;
Trump, all but declaring open season,
On anyone judged a chink in the chain,
While he made America “Great Again”.
And what weaker link could there ever be
Than heathens deriding biology;
Defying God and birth assigned sex;
Denying science, XY and XX?
Gender reassignment subjects, along
With their enablers, were just plain wrong,
And besides; gender was a made up thing,
In the eyes of the legion, Christian, right wing.
Doctors got fined, research was closed down;
Gender promoters were chased outta town,
Gender affirming care was revoked,
And the righteous right got evermore stoked;
Not least of all, Tarquin Dale; still underage;
At seventeen, he was a ball of rage,
And on hearing of a Trans demonstration,
He grabbed daddy’s gun without hesitation;
And daddy didn’t mind; no siree;
On the contrary; he was proud as could be,
Waving goodbye and wishing him luck
As Ma drove off in the pick-up truck
With Tarquin riding shotgun by her side;
Daddy would’ve loved to come for the ride,
But he had a Klan meeting that day,
And the truck only had two seats anyway.
Four hours and two hundred miles later,
The patriot, underage, terminator,
Left Ma in the truck and joined with a crowd
Of Fred Perry wearing boys strong and proud,
Facing off their foe: Trans people, standing
Out front of a gender clinic, demanding
A restoration of rights they’d won,
Cos overruling left ‘em with none.
And Tarquin, having swallowed the lies,
And the conspiracies that gave rise
To the mass paranoia, the kneejerk swing
To the right, and the mind-set that made Trump King,
Raised daddy’s carbine loaded with lead,
Took aim and shot ten human beings dead;
As the proud boys cheered, and when the police came,
And led him away, they yelled his name:
“Tarquin, Tarquin, Tarquin”, they cried,
Drowning the choking on the other side,
As, teargas canisters fired at will,
Dispersed the protesters he failed to kill.
Least that’s how I perceived it, when I watched,
The playback, Tucker Carlson claimed was botched,
Inasmuch as it didn’t tell the whole
Story; provocation, he said, played a role,
Namely, Trans protesters, burning the flag,
Along with a effigy of Trump, in drag,
And Tarquin opened fire after he got hit,
Cos them Trans was hurling all kinds of shit,
And at the same time, one of ‘em said they
Was gonna kill him, and the fence gave way,
And all hell was about to commence;
Long story short; it was plain self-defence!
And the righteous, full of fire and fury,
Along with the judge, and all the jury,
Were a hundred percent inclined to agree:
The verdict was read, and Dale walked free.
Guess y’all know the rest: Trump stayed president
Long past the time he should’ve been spent,
And when blood stopped being pumped through his veins;
Vice President Rittenhouse took up the reigns,
And, enabled by Trump’s commandment;
Scrapping the 22nd Amendment;
For twenty five years, Rittenhouse made
America Great as the Christian crusade,
Rounded up all the Trans people, and gays,
Along with those still promoting their ways:
They locked ‘em up in asylums and jails
And that being done, they followed new trails,
Leading to leftist, lecturers, teachers,
Abortionists, radicals, Marxist preachers,
And anti-Americans, ‘cept those who knew,
Keeping real quiet was the best thing to do.
Meantime our old friend, Tarquin Dale,
Was walking his own presidential trail;
Which led, hell you know where I’m gonna say;
And President Dale is there, right this day.
Yep; Kyle Rittenhouse is finally gone,
But the so-called “War on woke”, carries on
And demagogues, needing someone to hound;
Expedient scapegoats must always be found,
Hence Dale’s recent haranguing of those,
He and his regime presently oppose:
And that, dear friend, is where I come in,
Having committed the cardinal sin
Of, with animal welfare in mind,
Avoiding meat products of any kind;
The consequence of which choice I’ve made
Being somehow linked to a downturn in trade,
An imminent crash, sky high inflation,
A rise in poverty and deprivation,
A rapid decline in the nation’s health;
And curbs, including on freedom itself!
Being vegan’s all but a federal crime;
I know it’s only a matter of time,
Before the Proud Militia Boys come around
To cuff and take me prison bound,
So I’m gonna finish this here tape,
Leave it on this table, and make my escape,
In the hope, one of You Proud Boys hears
And heeds my account of Dale’s childhood years;
Of how he was radicalised like I said,
By right wing lies fuckin’ with his head,
And of how everyday folk such as I
Witness injustices, turn a blind eye,
Till they realise, albeit too late;
They may be subject to meet the same fate;
Cos when a dictator’s zealous and vexed,
You never can tell who’s gonna be next.
Outro
There the tape ended, as I recall;
And I guess you’re now wondering where I
Heard it and why did I relate it all
In a bad accent, punctuated by
A daft looking Stetson? Well, in the first case:
I was present during the raid; in fact,
I shouted “Clear!” having flash-banged the place;
Yes: I was a brainwashed, British, expat.
As for the accent and Stetson; I saw
A photo of Tom, in cowboy attire,
Hanging on the wall, opposite the door
Of the cabin we wrecked and set on fire;
And accent, I knew from having heard
The tape, he recorded and left behind,
In the hope a Proud Boy, might heed his word
Which I neither heeded, nor kept in mind,
Till the camel’s back broke,
When the president spoke,
And labelled British-born immigrants:
WOKE.
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