Flying the Flag
Come and join the army,
Risk your life each day,
Occupying deserts
For below the av’rage pay.
Politicians praise us,
They’ve always got our backs,
But then they go and sub us all
A pittance, less the tax.
Come and join the army,
Buzz off all your locks,
See the world, then shoot it,
And spread about the pox.
Tabloids love us, lefties hate us,
Locals try to make us bleed –
So hire us cut-price killers
For the cost of chicken-feed.
Red Like the Poppies
In 1911, in Britain, the dockers walked out –
And sailors and railwaymen too, across the nation.
Union membership soared, and so did the shout
For something more than this endless pent-up frustration.
A growing awareness had bloomed in the men –
They were no pack-mules who just bleat and cower.
These literate workers had realised then
That labouring hands now held all the power.
The following year, the miners struck –
A million men refused to duck
When facing-down bosses for pride in the pocket –
They wanted a minimum wage – and they got it !
What did they care of the Kaiser ? Why did they go ?
Ev’ry November, I wonder. I think I might know –
In 1914, in Britain, the soldiers marched out.
Many were raw volunteers – no draft had been called.
Some were patriotic’ly spurred, I’ve no doubt,
But shoring the empire must have left others appalled.
Yet the labourer’s life, while improving, was hard –
The same old drudging as yesterday.
Who wouldn’t swap for some public regard
In a smart uniform, with travel and regular pay ?
They trusted their orders and killed as commanded,
So can I be angry, if I must be candid ?
I don’t know. It was lots of things bound-up together –
So either I wear the poppy, or the white feather,
And honour those scabs who refused to be naive or quailed.
Perhaps. But why hadn’t they joined-up, those Glorious Jailed ?
Succession
The President is dead.
Who gets the nuclear code ?
“I” said the Vice,
“I am the next in line,
For the order is precise
And this is my time to shine
A cool head and a steady load.”
But now the Vice is dead.
Who gets the nuclear code ?
“I” said the Speaker,
“I am the next in line.
All other claims are weaker
And are junior to mine.
I get to tread the royal road.”
But now the Speaker’s dead.
Who gets the nuclear code ?
“I” said the head of the Senate,
“I am the next in line.
For that’s how the framers pen it –
And their penmanship is fine.
Let it be said, I am bestowed.”
So now the matter’s put to bed,
He gets the nuclear code.
“Wait !” said the new head of state
“Who now is next in line ?
I must appoint a running mate,
A brand new Vice to guard the shrine,
To rule instead if I explode.”
“But hang on, boss” the new Vice said,
“Hand over the nuclear code.
For you are still a Senator,
And only acting next-in-line.
I’m number two, you’re number four –
I clear outrank you, so resign !,
Before the Feds reach panic mode.”
So, now all logic’s fled,
Best hide the nuclear code…
America, We Need to Talk
Look, we get it, you’re still young and brash
With passion and guile of a sort we remember
From out of our youth, from cutting a dash,
When the world was in Spring and our credit in cash,
And watching you now, we still feel an ember
From deep in our hearts that we thought were but ash.
For we are the empires who strutted before you,
Who drank the same honeydew now on your lips –
With vassals and tributes to praise and adore you,
And patience and prudence to hassle and bore you,
So manifest destiny festers and grips –
And no wonder it finds you when none can ignore you.
We’ve all been there – we British and Roman,
We Persian and Aztec, we Mongol and French –
We each were as mighty, who answered to no man,
From horseback and gunboat, with longsword and bowman,
And bloodlust and mistrust we never could quench,
And the cripple’ing burden of being the showman.
It never quite goes away, of course,
As our never-set suns stop their beaming –
The memories built up in temples and wars
Which we cherish in secret, still keeping the scores.
The dreams we’re still dreaming at twilight’s last gleaming,
So some day shall all this be yours.
Breaking the News
Roll up ! Roll up ! Come hear the news
From your soaraway BBC !
You can’t resist, you can’t refuse,
Your eyes belong to me !
We’ve plenty from America
You didn’t need to know –
For there, they make the news a star,
And telling-it a show.
Their politicians sure ain’t grey
When spouting crazy claims –
You cannot vote for them, but hey,
At least you know their names.
We’ll dish the goss on slebs for you,
We’ll squeeze on ev’ry wart
Until the news is turned into
A grand spectator sport.
Ecce Humanitas
I would build a monument within Saint Peter’s, Rome –
A monument to martyrs who preached heresy.
Who stood by their convictions when tortured and alone
On principals of science and philosophy.
I would build a monument to passions unafraid
When Quisitors would dowse the light they shined.
Their sacrifice was equal to that which Jesus made –
They gave their lives to save all humankind.
Bringing Juvelilia Week Part 2 to a close (there will be no Part 3, thankfully) is a poem inspired by Giordano Bruno, a fore-runner to Galileo and proponent of Copernican theory – who was tried, tortured and burned by the Flat-Earthers in the Catholic Church.
Apologists claim that his crime was heresy, not sol-centrism, and as late as 2000 (According to Wikipedia) Cardinal Angelo Sodano said of his inquisitors that they “had the desire to serve freedom and promote the common good and did everything possible to save his life” – well, everything short of not actually burning him at the stake, anyway. And Pope John-Paul the Second lamented “the use of violence that some have committed in the service of truth”, so that’s all right then, no harm no foul.
Incidentally, the statue above (on the very spot of his pyre) by Ettore Ferrari is from 1889 and paid for by the local Freemasons as a deliberate middle finger to the then-Pope, who I won’t bother to name. (Wow, who’d’a’thunk I’d ever have anything positive to say about Freemasons ?) Its plaque contains the words Il Secolo Da Lui Divinato (From The Age That He Predicted), which is a line that any poet would be proud of, though I don’t know why it also labels our Giordano as ‘A Bruno’ – surely he was The Bruno…
The Rigours of Indolence
Ah, those aristos, who never worked a day,
Just sit back and wait for Papa to pass away.
While armies of servants and hard-working-clarsses
Would feed their fat faces and wipe their fat arses,
And loans would be brokered to fund wars of nations,
While riches would pour in from ex-slave plantations.
Ah, those aristos, who feasted on our sweat,
Those patrons of the arts, that lavish social set –
With artists and craftsmen and tailors and tours,
And houses and horses and operas and balls.
They almost were worth it, their style could defend it –
They didn’t deserve it, but knew how to spend it.
Usually I resist any attempt to rhyme ‘class’ with ‘arse’, but this poem was written in with a definite accent in ear. ‘Papa’ of course should be pronounced with its stress on the second syllable. This is an early poem, but I’ve started to preach a little less and let a little satire slip in. The title incidentally comes from a line in Alan Bennett’s The Madness of George the Third.
Collaterals
They are the graves and the stats and the mothers
And citizens living where forces are tasked –
Who, we are told, so willingly suffer,
And cheer on our conflict (though never get asked).
Yet those who are calling for vengeance and blood –
Beseeching the need for the selflessly lying
Of lives-on-the-line so to hold back the flood –
They’re never the ones who always end dying.
They are the facts and the doubts and worries,
The objective news and the cooler-held heads –
It feels like they’re all swept away in the hurry,
To rumour and jingo and front-page spreads.
Yet those who are calling for boots on the ground –
They’re des’prate for war, just to send the bombs flying –
But we can ignore them, and talk ourselves down,
And all be the ones who never end dying.
I think it was written at the time of the Iraq war, and has aged as badly as the decision to fight. This now sounds very preachy – it’s still a trap I fall into when I’m angry and it rarely works. At least yhe second verse attempts to give it a bit of optomism.
The Right to Offend
Moses is a psycho,
And Jesus is a wimp,
Buddha is a lardarse,
Ganesh is more a gimp,
Mohammed is a pedo,
While Mary is a prude,
Yahweh is a rapist,
And Paul is just unglued.
Onan is an onanist
Who loves to bash the bish,
Zeus a sexual preditor,
Cthulu cold as fish,
Ra just gives us side-eye,
While Odin squints when viewed,
And Allah must remain unseen
Because he’s in the nude.
So sue me, dude.
To Niccolò
See all of your princes who grasp at our lives
With their handshakes and greased palms and fists wrapped in cotton –
They claw for a kingdom where sleight-of-hand thrives,
But their fingers are crossed and their nails are all rotten.
You keep all your holdings tight under your thumb
As your signet-wrapped digits are stroking your beard –
But grips can be prised as the years render numb,
And the light-fingered upstarts are squeezing you plum,
And there’s no-one to catch you when ’last you succumb –
Your talons are chipped and too weak, in the end, to be feared.
Rhyming Couplets 