Trigger Warning
Ev’rybody, get an offence to take,
You too can be just as special –
Your very identity’s at stake,
And now you are such a delicate vessel.
All the cool kids are getting upset,
While words are being redefined.
Remember, the world owes you respect
To spare your innocent mind.
Unspruced Pine
Ev’ry year, they foist an austerity tree upon Trafalgar Square –
Begrudgingly, they hoist it up with as few fairy lights as they can
Just straight-up-and-down, with no helter-skelter, or swags, or laissez-faire,
And only white, as if other colours fall foul of a bureaucrat’s ban.
It looks a bit like a deep-sea comb-jelly, wilting embarrassed under our gaze.
It even makes the Fourth Plinth look impressive – now there’s a paradox !
Haven’t we any goddam civic pride, or is that taboo these days ?
Honestly, Oslo, we treat your heartfelt gift like a packet of socks.
Thus the status quo avoids the threat of tinsel, and regulates ev’ry star,
So the branches are bare of baubles, and of candy canes there are none.
I guess it can’t outshine old Nelson, we need to remember who we are –
For we are stoic, joyless Brits, and we mustn’t have too much fun.
As to how come there’s a tree in the Square at all, see here.
Disco Demolition
Disco sucks
When it’s made by corporations,
Disco sucks
When it’s got no good vibrations,
Disco sucks
When it’s played to saturation,
Disco sucks –
On ev’ry bloody station till the end of the dials,
With mindless hedonism and compulsory smiles,
Just smothering with strings, suffocating other styles,
With too much of a good thing round the clock.
So if we just can’t face it,
Then that doesn’t make us racist,
Or homophobo hateist,
Just because we wanna rock.
Yet rock music sucks
When it’s made by corporations,
But all music rules
When it undergoes mutations.
So play your disco, sure,
But play other stuff as well,
To live in multi-Heaven and keep out of mono-Hell.
When I hear too much rock,
Then I mentally must clear it,
To find something else pumping
At a thousand kilojoules –
And if I don’t hear disco for a while,
And then I hear it,
That hearing is the time when
Disco rules !
The Opiate of the Masses
Poppies on dresses, poppies on golf-clubs,
Poppies on penny-for-the-guys,
Poppies on the grills of Beamers and V-Dubs,
Poppies on Mowbury pies.
Round-up refuseniks, I hate the lot,
Let’s paint poppies on their doors –
For the poppy is the sign of the patriot,
And mine is bigger than yours.
000
You think you’re it –
You think your charm enthrals,
You think you’re sharply dressed,
All cool unstressed –
But you ain’t to me.
You think you’re fit –
You think you’ve got the balls,
You think you’ve got the looks,
And the baited hooks –
But you ain’t got me.
You’re ev’rything masculine, powerful, and brutish,
Ev’rything blandly manly and disputish –
What you are is ev’rything wrong with the world,
Ev’rything murky with stealth.
You’re silent and strong and rigid and mutish,
You’re clumsy and loud and blunt and uncutish.
What I need is somebody saving the world,
By helping me to save it myself.
Is it too much to hope ?
Am I too naive and sucked-in ?
Can’t anybody save this world from self-destructing ?,
When not all of this world can be reached along the ducting,
Or humbled with instruction,
Or conquered with seduction –
We need a man who’s handy, not a grope.
And don’t think me too incessant
If I find the world more pleasant
When the other half is present, and can cope.
Is it really, really too much that I hope ?
You got the moves,
And you got the toys –
Karate and kendo,
And endless innuendo –
But you ain’t got me.
Cos all it proves
Is you’re naught but noise –
You’ve got no clout
Once your bang’s gone out –
You are so not me !
You’re ev’rything spying, lying, and deceitful,
Ev’rything crooked and counterfeit and cheatful –
What you are is ev’rything wrong with the world,
Ev’rything cocked and askew.
You’re ev’rything uncool and tepid and debacle,
Ev’rything Oxbridge and Tory patriarchal –
What I need is somebody saving the world –
Saving from someone like you.
Is it too much to ask ?
Am I being too demanding ?
Won’t anybody save this world by understanding ?,
When not all of this world is corrupt and underhanding,
Or divvied-up and branded,
Because of what the Man did,
As if it’s only men perform each task…
So I trust it’s not too queeny
To insist you do not deem me
Just a bird in a bikini or a basque.
Is it really, really too much that I ask ?
I need a geek –
Someone who ain’t so goddam macho,
Someone who ain’t so suave and chatshow,
Someone who doesn’t grasp and snatch so,
Someone who’s gentle without being meek.
Someone who can’t use force without balking,
Someone who knows his Kant from his Hawking,
Someone to save this world by just talking –
Someone to be my freak.
‘000’ should be pronounced as ‘double-oh zero’.
The State of the Nation
Bloody Tories, bastard bankers,
Bleeding hearts and work-shy snowflakes
Brigadiers and Rule Britannia,
Chavs and avocado-fakes.
I’ve been there, blaming them for “it’s unfair”,
This seething, faceless mass.
It’s all too easy, all too “they don’t care”,
Just blame the other class.
But have we ever once attempted,
Tried to understand just why we sharply disagree ?
Before our prejudice pre-empted,
Viewing them as ‘hippies’ or as ‘bourgeoisie’.
But could it still have worked,
Before they’re sneered-at, sussed and tagged ?
Before our knees have jerked,
Our jibes have jeered, our throats have gagged ?
Can we treat our enemies
As the friends and fam’lies that they are,
And disagree more civilly
Before we take our tongues too far ?
We should us all be traitors to our tribes,
Refuse the dogma, learn to reach across the aisle –
The jeers are threats, the cheers are bribes,
But we must greet them both with just a smile.
And as for those who take things further,
On their side, and also ours,
We need to try to tame their fervour,
Try to swap their vitriol for flowers.
Don’t banish them, don’t monster them,
Don’t fantasise of shooting them –
For they are people – angry, human people –
Don’t be brutal, don’t be phlegm.
We need to talk them down, not taunt them over,
Lend a hand, not give a shove.
As once we lose humanity, there’s no way to recover,
For even Reds and Fascists need our love.
A Meal For One
“The condemned’s last meal is the ultimate dining-in experience”
– Judge Janus Jeremiah
After months of bread and gruel,
At last, a dish to whet my lips !
But oh, to bring it now is cruel –
I’d rather lard and apple pips.
A final meal is offered up,
A host to help assuage your guilt,
It seems so civilised, to sup
Before the ritual blood is spilt.
And all the while, with ev’ry bite,
The butcher’s hungry blade shall wait –
I am your fatted calf tonight,
Just like this one upon my plate.
All these calories I’ve chewed,
And yet so little time remains –
It’s such a waste of decent food,
You should have brought me simple grains.
Balaam’s Asses
The Fundamentalists, they have it easy,
Claiming ev’ry King James word is true.
Of course the donkey spoke, if a little wheezy –
When God’s at hand, then that’s what donkey’s do.
But here in the good old C of E,
We never talk of the talking ass –
Like Balaam, we simply do not see,
And think the verse is lacking class.
Deep down, we know, you see – we know no donkey
Has the necessary lips, nor tongue, nor throat –
A quaint little fairytale, but quite the wrong key
For Sunday mornings – so not something we quote.
Now we’ve no problems with Holy Week
And the Resurrection – we’re all onboard –
But we just cannot accept that an ass can speak,
Not even for the Lord.
Spasibo
Vasily and Stanislav,
Though really their names don’t matter to us,
And how many others we’ll never hear of –
Remember their actions, but don’t make a fuss.
No statues raised, and that’s how it should be,
They aren’t special, they’re just good men
Who held their nerve and held their breath
Until it was safe to breathe agen.
They did their jobs, and did them well,
And gently reinserted the pin.
They passed the test and lived to tell,
And took their reprimands on the chin.
Oak Apple Day
Little wasp, little wasp,
Laying eggs upon the tree –
Sting the one who would be king,
And sting him once again for me.
Little worm, little worm,
Wriggling in your swollen gall –
Bite the one who’s cowering,
And bite him twice for one and all.
But oh !, you’ve gone and birthed a hornet,
Let loose on us worker bees –
And king or queen, or brutal drone,
They sting the same – just ask the trees !
To rid us of a coronet
Will always leaves behind a gall.
The buttocks mould to fit the throne –
The canker ripens, warts and all.
Rhyming Couplets 