Queen Bee
Deep in the palace, centre of her nest,
The bloated Queen holds court.
She pops out underlings, spreading her essence
As scuttle-out backwards from her regal presence.
Safely cocooned from the drones and the rest,
And only meeting with the better sort –
And she fills-up her hive with honeypots of gold,
While expendible subjects shiver in the cold.
Long to Reign o’er Us
Britons, do your duty !
Prop-up the status quo !
Bow to our pirate booty
We pillaged long ago.
Plebs and oiks and hoi pilloi,
Respect who runs the show –
You won’t get far as a barrow boy,
It’s down to who-you-know.
So choke or bunting,
Drown on gushing,
Progress-stunting,
Freedom-crushing,
We know the state’s a travesty,
But one in which we’re very rich –
So gawd bless her majesty,
To whom our fortunes hitch.
For she’s the thread within the stitch-up,
She’s the empire in the kitch-up,
Casts her glamour to bewitch-up,
All across the British Isles.
She’s blue in blood and politics,
Behind-the-scenes to rig the fix –
Then waving for the latest pics,
All innocence and smiles.
Britons, do your duty !
Bail-out our busted banks,
And curtsy to our snooty
From your starved and unwashed ranks.
Jocks and Taffs and chippie Chavs,
And all you bolshy cranks –
Just be content with what you have,
And show some proper thanks.
With boot-licking,
Forelock-tugging,
Heel-clicking,
Flag-hugging.
It’s both a farce and tragedy,
A dirty-money Laundromat –
So gawd bless her majesty
The lizard in the hat.
For she’s the face upon the money,
She’s the accent in the plummy,
She’s the knighthood in the chummy,
All across the British Isles.
And after her, we get her son,
And on and on till kingdom come –
You’d better learn, that’s how it’s done,
So tighten-up those smiles.
I freely admit that I was feeling pretty angry when I wrote this. I have taken a calmer take here. And although I’m no fan of flag-hugging, neither do I totally despise it either, as I’ve laid out here and here.
Subsidence
The Victorians built with columns and arches and pride –
Constructed with confidence, gilded and polychrome,
Moulded with ornament makes for a jolly home,
Tailored by craftsmen on every side.
From terrace to semi, from basement to sky,
With hands on lapels and their chins held high.
The Post-War built with concrete and brutal and slab –
Constructed in anguish, subconsciously thinking
It’s all we deserve – the piss-stained and stinking,
In a hellscape of Marxists, the grim and the drab.
From Park Hill to Gorbals, from Mersey to Tyne,
The more the cement, so the more the decline.
Pride & Prejudice & Zombies
Through the village of Longbourn, the undead shuffle,
The unemployed and the destitutes.
The Luddites who moan in a rustic muffle,
Back from Napolean without any boots.
Mr Bennett says he can’t even hear them,
So alien is his world to theirs,
But they’re getting restless, threatening mayhem –
What if it spreads to the staff downstairs ?
Don’t worry, Lizzie, here’s bold Mr Darcy
With his wealth stripped from the backs of the poor,
He knows how to stop the rabble getting arsey,
Put them back down when they dare ask for more.
Crush their groups, and deport the whole crew,
This seething horde of the unwashed masses.
Best to wipe them out like we did at Peterloo –
Before the balls are overrun with jumped-up underclasses.
Conspiracy of Habit
The Illiminati is very real,
But it won’t be found in smoke-filled rooms.
It lurks in the back of every mind –
Subconsciously, it roots and blooms.
It inducts us before we can even speak,
And follows us into our tombs.
There is no central authority,
But the ghost of Tradition silently looms.
All of us, yes, ev’ry single one of us,
Carries a cabal at the back of their thoughts –
We feel at home with People Like Us,
We all do, like we’re cheering on sports.
But maybe, if we can recognise this,
Then we needn’t feel so vaguely frightened –
With a little patience, we’ll muddle through together,
And finally be Enlightened.
Incidentally, the original Bavarian Illuminati’s goals were (according to Wikipedia) “to oppose superstition, obscurantism, religious influence over public life, and abuses of state power” No word on how they would ‘conspire’ to achieve this, but if by open persuasion then they sound like my kind of guys ! Unfortunately, the Catholic Church saw them as the Red Scare, and suppressed them.
But I freely admit to continuing the colloquial slander here.
Eau Dear…
Bottled water ? What a skeeving,
What an tosser, what a waste –
A plastic-spewing aqui-thieving,
Just to get the same damn taste !
Ever since the Romans dreamed
Of aquaducts of running water,
Engineers have turned their streams
Into a torrent, piped to order.
Teeth are whiter, homes are cleaner,
Cholera and lead are gone –
Footprints smaller, gardens greener –
Thrown away for Evian !
Hipsters sip ’em, yuppies neck ’em,
Horrified by simple tap.
The only brand I drink is Peckham –
Piss-off Perrier, you’re full of crap !
“We’re All In It Together”
Was it worth it, Boris ?
The scotch, the cake, the sing-a-long ?
To make and break your rules for us,
The mugs and unwashed throng ?
Of course it was ! A little crime
Is only crime if caught –
And if we’re bang-to-rights this time,
Well, that’s part of the sport !
Was it worth it, Boris ?
The lies, the sneers, the nods-and-winks ?
You’d risk your legacy for this ?
You’ve slipped from midas into jinx.
Poor chap, they’ve rumbled one small scheme,
Looks like you’ll have to go –
Best take one for the old-boys’ team
To keep the status quo.
Scuttlebutt Scandals
Rumour, gossip, and have-you-heard
Are back with a careless, venomous word.
Scurrilous whispers have their way –
They’re good enough for Salem and good enough today.
So who needs doubt or burden of proof,
When the tales are better than the boring truth ?
When even liberals are mongering fears,
With two-faced lattes and schadenfreud beers,
And even the press has dropped its mask
Of public int’rest, and sunk to the task.
Rumour, gossip, and feathers-and-tar
Has shown us all for the shits we are.
That’s you. Yes, you. With your bleeding heart,
You’re ev’ry bit the hypocrite as any old fart,
You Guardian readers, as catty as The Sun –
A few lives ruined, but you’ve had your fun.
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.
Rhyming Couplets 