The Water Cycle
The rain returns
Like we know it will,
Like we know it must.
It’s only rain –
The sky shall spill
To wash the dust.
So rain returns,
And gutters rill,
And railings rust –
But thanks to rain
The wheat-heads fill,
The green shoots thrust.
The rain returns –
It cycles still,
On this we trust.
Mutiny on the Waves
“Caroline had to sing before London could swing.”
– Arthur Holford-Twigg
One hour per week, that’s all they give us –
One hour for Shadows & Beatles & Stones.
Just take what we’re given and don’t make a fuss
Of the hours and hours of classics and drones.
But lo ! Here come the free-marketeers,
With long hair and old spice and fresh new ideas !
And the great ship of state is under attack,
She’s running aground and unable to tack –
Her deck-chair arranging
Is only estranging –
The times are a-changing and cannot change back.
And into this fray comes the Gentleman Comrade –
What can he tell us to settle the storm ?
Sharp as a cutlass and slick as pomade,
And surely he favours free speech and reform ?
But lo ! It turns out that the new guard are blackguards
Their postmen are flatfoots, their viscount are braggarts.
The great ship of state is a quivering wreck,
With us in the galleys and them up on deck.
But the Spring tide is swelling,
The crew is rebelling –
The white heat you’re selling can’t keep us in check.
So who is the cutthroat and who is the tar ?
We’re hated by Churchill and hated by Marx.
We’re strung from the yardarm and lashed to the spar,
The system is rigged and we’re thrown to the sharks.
But lo ! The victory’s ours in the end,
And even these turncoats will learn how to bend.
The great ship of state has now squandered her rum,
So lay off the fiddle and bang a new drum.
A hard rain is falling
The future is calling
You’re only forestalling the booty to come.
I wrote this shortly after Tony Benn’s passing, and was reminded how BBC Radio 1 only came in existence due to his inability to shut down the (legal) pirate stations. Such mixed legacies we leave behind.
The Knockers
Buckled-up backbones and crippled-up lungs,
Slag-covered faces and slag-covered tongues,
A long social ladder with negative rungs –
Who’d want to be a miner ?
The pit-pony sappers and donkey-work crews,
Collapses, explosions, and cancerous ooze,
Loyally coughing up union dues –
Who’d want to be a miner ?
Better to sweat in a mill or a diner,
Why, even the farmhands live finer !
Who wants to trudge out for an hour each way,
For a pitch-black and unpaid damn hour each way –
Well, maybe for Orwell, but hardly today,
For much has got better since then –
There’s gadgets that monitor gases, you know,
There’s baths at the pit-head, there’s lights down below,
And children were banished a lifetime ago.
So much has got better since then.
Of course, I’m just an outsider,
So what can I say ?
And yes, I see all of your pride
In your hard-digging day –
But is this your hopes for your kids
When it’s their turn to play ?
From Maerdy to Maltby, from Pittsburgh to Perth –
The sweatshops of Hell in the bowels of the earth.
Much has got better, but much is the same –
It’s ev’ry bit deadly and harsh as they claim,
And given the choice, who would stay in this game ?
Who’d want to be a miner ?
They’re breaking their backs as they’re earning their brass,
And working the hardest of all working class,
To lose out to the North Sea and natural gas.
Who’d want to be a miner ?
Ton after ton till your body is done,
And when will you next see the sun ?
Jet-black the spade-men – yet shining, their eyes,
From the guts of the planet they’re grubbing their prize,
In filthy conditions and filthier skies,
Let’s bring them back into the light.
They’re digging-up carbon from safe in its berth,
They’re warming our hearths as they’re warming our earth,
They don’t need to kill us to show us their worth.
Let’s bring them back into the light.
Of course, I’m just an outsider,
So what do I know ?
And yes, I see all of the pride
That your town has to show –
And were all the pits to close down,
Well then, where would it go ?
For deep underground there lies captured your soul,
With nothing left topside ’cept bleakness and dole.
I wrote this a few days after Margaret Thatcher died. As one of the first politicians to take climate change seriously, can we imagine her destruction of the UK coal industry was all to save the planet – or a cynical piece of union-busting ?, particularly when it resulted in having to import coal from abroad to keep the lights on.
The knockers of the title were spirits in the mines who would knock the walls ominously just before a cave-in.
Sex & Death
“Sex and death are the only things that can interest a serious mind.”
– William Yeats
Expunge from mind your blue-remembered hills,
Put out your tyger tyger burning bright,
Dig up your host of golden daffodils,
And walk no more in beauty like the night.
Don’t take the golden road to Samarkand,
Or raise a lamp beside a golden door,
Don’t meet with trav’lers from an antique land,
Or laughing fellow-rovers anymore !
Ignore the stately pleasure-dome,
Forget the lays of ancient Rome,
Don’t hear the steeple peeling its half-chime.
No Raven or ascending Lark,
No Jumblies or the hunted Snark,
In rose-red cities half as old as time.
Don’t fill the unforgiving minute
With a nightingale or linnet,
Hiawatha or Macavity.
And wish not cloths of Heaven,
Nor for Player Queens or Seven-Woods,
And do not rise and go to Innisfree.
Undone Town
I rarely go to Walthamstow,
I never visit Hayes,
I’m seldom seen in Parsons Green,
Or Catford Bridge, or Grays.
It’s not their fault my doings halt
This side of Pimlico,
But now the thrill of Hampstead Hill
Is one I’ll never know.
You see, the catch with Colney Hatch
Is that it’s far away,
And Belvedere is not so near,
And nor is Harringay.
It’s quite a trek to Tooting Bec
To tax my weary feet –
To all who dwell in Camberwell,
I guess we’ll never meet.
I’m at a loss beyond King Cross
In Wimbledon or Cheam,
And hopes to race to Enfield Chase
Are but a wistful dream.
My view is dark of Belsize Park,
No matter how I look,
I’ll never gain on Rayners Lane,
Nor wade in Stamford Brook.
My plans to rove in Arnos Grove
Will never come to good –
I can’t head down to Kentish Town,
Nor fly to Falconwood.
They’re much too far from Temple Bar,
Though hardly by design –
It’s just today I rarely stray
Beyond the Circle Line.
I was aiming for a modern version of Bow Bells, but what with property prices these days, it’s already thirty years out of date.
September Showers
Acorns crunch beneath my boots –
There’s far too many for the looting squirrels, howe’er keen.
Are these too green ? Are these too brown ?
A breeze shakes down a hail of fruits –
I pick a fresh one up, and pop it from its birthing cup,
And wonder if an acorn dreams
Of pleated barks and soaring beams –
And what if ev’ry one of these took root ?
This lane would be athwart with trees !
Just think of how a trunk might shoot
From ev’ry acorn, where they lay:
At most an inch or two apart, I’d say –
How long before their saplings start
To touch, and merge, from verge to verge,
Until a hedge of oak will choke
This ancient right of way ?
But if I take one home with me,
Perhaps that wall will bare a gap
Where flows no sap and grows no tree –
But as I turn to leave, I see
Another drizzle fill the lane,
And when I try to find my spot
I cannot – all is acorns once again.
Just Another Face in the Choir
She rises to the golden glow
From ev’ry cloud beneath her feet,
And curls her hair in ringlets so,
In waves of strawb’ry, loose yet neat.
She pins each blossom into place
To form a halo round her tress,
And adds a paleness to her face,
And dons her fine and pleated dress.
She plucks her harp and tunes its strings,
And warms her voice to sweetermost.
And so, with flexed and polished wings,
She clocks-on to rejoins the host.
This poem was written in response to the painting shown above (sorry she’s so blurry).
Forever Second Place in a Beauty Contest
An evening in with friends ?
Looking for a game ?
No not, repeat, do not suggest
Monopoly – the game that never ends !
And even though it takes all night,
It always seems to end the same –
With one much richer than the rest,
Though still there is no end in sight.
We’ve bought up ev’ry street and station,
Built up ev’ry damn hotel,
Yet still we never reach cessasion –
Guys, I swear, they must play this in Hell !
Monopoly – it never ends –
Just peters out to boredom
At the pointlessness of taking part.
So dog or boot, let’s make amends:
Let’s ditch these streets, not hoard them –
And let’s stop right now, before we even start.
It should be pointed out, however, that we’re all playing it wrong:
– Have to go round once before buying any property ? Not in the rules.
– Collect £400 for landing exactly on Go ? Wrong.
– If you roll a double, you can ignore the square you land on and roll again ? Nope.
– You can’t collect rent while in prison ? Actually, you can.
– All fines go in the middle until someone lands on Free Parking ? Uh-uh.
The original rules worked to restrict the money supply. Most house rules, while making the utterly pointless squares of Go and Free Parking actually interesting (and why can’t we think of something for Just Visiting as well ?), do the opposite. But even when played correctly, it still has no end-point. So go and play Wingspan instead…
Oh, and why are the Chance and Community Chest decks identical to one another ? Oh, wait, I get it – it’s to symbolise how lazy and unimaginative corporations are. You know, the more I think about it, the more I reckon Elizabeth Magie’s original intention of designing a game to demonstrate the evils of capitalism is still doing a sterling, if subliminal, job…
September
Birds are flocking,
Doors are locking,
Autumn’s knocking once again.
Seeds are podding,
Berries nodding,
Workers plodding from the train.
Skies are frowning,
Leaves are browning,
Hats are crowning, coats are on.
Days are cooling,
Rains are pooling,
Kids are schooling –
Summer’s gone.
The Blobfish
Clearly a fish,
Clearly a blob:
Big of hooter,
Wide of gob,
Beady eyes and bloated head,
And very, very dead.
We trawled the net to rake the murky depths,
And up your mugshot popped –
For once, an ugly bugger who’s unplugged,
And not the usual “cropped & ’shopped”.
But wait.
No, this feels too easy –
All too gawpy, snide and cheesy,
Facts and heckles both unchecked.
But what can we expect, hey ?
We snatch you out from miles-deep
And leave you rotting on a slab
Where density is not so steep –
No wonder, then, you’re looking drab !
Gelatinous skin is just the thing to help you float –
But do we care ?
Oh, how we grin and how we gloat,
As you bloat in our low-pressure air.
But away from such shallows,
Away from our narrow lies –
Deep down and dense,
Where you raise your callow fry,
So you suddenly make sense
Amid sea-pig and anglerfish and barreleye.
Rhyming Couplets 