Category: Contemporary

And now, Here is the News

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administration articles bank black and white
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And now, here is the News

A breakthrough in diplomacy
Has ended months of feud –
In internat’nal politics,
The tension has subdued.
The PM hailed this landmark
As a crucial stepping-stone,
The opposition blamed him
For neglecting peace at home.

A leading civil servant has
Announced the stats on crime,
While the manhunt still continues
Throughout Ashton-under-Lyme.
A pension fund is audited
While lawyers cut a deal,
And a man remains in custody
Awaiting his appeal.

The dockers are on strike again
To call for better pay –
The railways threaten sympathy,
The postmen vote to stay.
The markets took a tumble,
And inflation rose point three –
Redundancies have been announced
In heavy industry.

United lost two-nil at home,
The third test was a draw.
A Rembrandt fetched a record sum,
And rain tonight for sure.
And finally, a scientist
Has found the laughter gene.
That’s all for now, we’re back at six
With tips for going green.

To be a Rock and not a Roll

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audience band concert crowd
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To be a Rock and not a Roll

I know you want to be yourself,
I know you want to quit the dole,
I know you want some easy pelf
To split from squares for rounder holes,
You want the sex and drugs and fame,
You want to slay them at the Bowl,
But dude, the nature of this game
Is Rock, not Rock & Roll.

There ain’t no Elvis hereabout
So put away your blue suede shoes,
Don’t tutti-fruit, don’t twist & shout,
Don’t hit the road to G.I. blues,
Don’t rock around the clock tonight
With Johnny B and King Creole –
That stuff’s so old, it’s outasight,
It’s only Rock & Roll.

I know it is a mongrel beast,
That blends the pixie with the troll,
I know it often loves to feast
On blues and swing and folk and soul,
Yet from these breeds a diff’rent stock
That bends the riffs it stole –
So what you’re playing, dude, is Rock,
And Rock ain’t Rock & Roll.

So roll over Peggy Sue,
Smoke gets in my eyes for you,
Good golly, sweet sixteen,
It’s only Maybellene.
Amazing Grace, Chantilly Lace,
But this isn’t who you are –
So dude, put down the double-bass
And plug in your guitar !

Pens Down !

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Exam Hall

Pens Down !

For all our tappy-typey lives,
For all the keyboards we must pound,
Still ev’ry Summer there survives
A world of scritchy-scratchy sound:
Ev’ry Summer, ev’ry school,
The wriggly-ragged spiders rule !

It seems we do not think exams
Are punishment enough –
Who cares if they know volts from grams,
Or pantaloons from ruffs ?
Their future jobs lie in the grip
Of under-pressure penmanship !

You know, I reckon if we’re honest,
Few of us could truly claim
Our efforts wouldn’t look the same.
For all they pressed upon us
Their italic script or copperplate,
Calligraphy was not our fate.

To all the pupils suffering
From writer’s cramp and knuckles rapped,
Your talents ever under-tapped –
At least you’re not alone.
To all ex-pupils struggle‘ing
With inky hands that biros give,
Our meanings lost in hieroglyphs –
It’s time that we atone:

It’s keymanship that should be taught,
So crisp upon the pristine page,
With fingers fast as any thought –
It’s time to write the modern age !
For all that pens have served us well,
Let’s end their scribbly-scrawly hell.

Equality

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worm s eye of white and black inside basket
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 Equality

There’s a glassy ceiling above me,
Way up the greasy pole
But I’m still down in the basement
Just pence above the dole.
A fraction of us may hammer the ceiling,
Always demand more,
But most of us working stiffs are afraid
Of the rise of the quicksand floor.

The Last Post

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The Last Post

You used to be the kings of dawn,
Who brought us word from far beyond.
My friends, your greatest time is gone,
However much we’re fond.

You used to cause the heart to spring –
The letterbox’s breakfast clunk.
Alas, now most of what you bring
Is soul-destroying junk.

And all the parcels we still get ?
It’s never you nor Santa’s elves –
For all those gifts of internet
Will simply send themselves.

Alas, no more for Postmen Pat –
We must admit, you’re future’s frail.
Just keep you on through guilt ?  Why, that’s
The blackest kind of mail.

St Random’s Day

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appointment black calendar countdown
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St Random’s Day

The 6th of June is ev’rywhere, it seems,
It turns up all the year.
This av’rage day has gained the fate
Of ev’rybody’s av’rage date.
The 6th of June has crept into my dreams,
The Swedes have whispered in my ear –
Or maybe D-Day’s up to tricks ?,
Or the Devil claimed oh-six-oh-six ?

I guess we each of us have such a day,
For tripping-over, bric-a-brac finds –
It pings our sonar, winks our eye,
And scores us another proof, we cry !
So patternless-patterns will work their way
Into the slots at the back our minds –
We know they’re wrong, but still they fix,
Just random rolls of double six.

Reflected Glory

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Paparazzi
Paparazzi Celebrity 1 by Backdrops Beautiful

 Reflected Glory

We can always wish
For your easy charm,
And your good right arm,
And your follow through.
We can always wish
To be just like you –
And we always do,
For it does no harm.

And who wouldn’t want
To have fun like that,
Or to run like that,
Or to ride or to drive,
Or arrive like that –
And who wouldn’t want
To excite like you,
Or to fight like you,
Or to think or to gaze,
Or to blaze like you.

And who wouldn’t want to,
Who wouldn’t want
To be just like you
And the dreams you flaunt ?

We can always wish
For your matchless skill,
For your carefree thrill,
And your tried and true.
We can always wish
To be just like you –
And we always do,
Yet we never will.

For we shall never get
To attract like that,
Or to act like that,
Or to play or to sing,
Or to swing like that –
And we shall never get
To romance like you,
Or to dance like you,
Or to live or to dine,
Or to shine like you.

And we never shall get to,
We never shall get
To be just like you,
But we’re dreaming yet.

Now When They Heard About the Resurrection, Some Began to Scoff

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Oak Pulpit
Oak Pulpit by E E Cowan

Now When They Heard About the Resurrection, Some Began to Scoff

“The Church of England expects its attendance to continue its decline for the next thirty years.”

– The Sion Times

Here I stand, in my pulpit,
Looking down on yawning sands of empty pews –
And in the Sunday papers,
The stats and graphs and surveys tell the news.
Of course, we know the culprit,
This modern life is secular and on-the-go.
The Devil’s at his capers –
And yet, he seems to lack the will to spread his woe.
So year by year and prayer by prayer,
The congregations slowly cease to care.

We’re mocked and feared and left behind –
The faithful die, the faithless breed, the undecided shrug,
And life goes on.
Some are anxious, some are angry, some are smug,
But most are happy, most are kind.
Thirty years from now, then who will save their modern souls
When we are gone ?
But then, they will not need our help, according to the polls.
Can I begrudge their proof and doubt,
When Satan’s reign is peace and love throughout ?

The title come from Acts 17:32, slightly paraphrased from the various translations.  Of course, the world isn’t quite ‘peace and love throughout’, but as both Harold Macmillan and Steven Pinker point out, we’ve never had it so good.

Tags: Poetry Poem Religion Christianity Church

Administralia

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photo of sticky notes and colored pens scrambled on table
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Administralia

Sometimes, no matter how hard I try
To pay attention to the little things
That happen anyway,
Sometimes, it seems, I simply can’t apply
My wayward focus to the nuts and springs
Of yet another day:
I stare into my screen as numbers fly –
The day-long daydreams dream, the maybes sing,
The permutations run…
I couldn’t tell you how or when or why,
But even as the tangents loop and swing,
So still the work gets done.
I’m barely here, but still my seeing eyes
And typing fingers track and dart and ping
Throughout each random trance.
My mouth is talking – am I telling lies ?
I couldn’t say, I wasn’t listening…
But oh, how the dust motes dance !