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 leave behind a gall.
The buttocks mould to fit the throne –
The canker ripens, warts and all.
The Only Lefty in Poundbury
She sits on her first floor balcony,
Overlooking the square,
She sits and sips her Earl Grey tea
In the light West Country air –
Here in her true-blue toytown
Like a tolerated pet,
Her flat dressed-up and she dressed-down,
As she joins the Georgian set.
Dorchester is hard on Hardy –
Thomas, yes, but never Keir,
And the local Labour party
Is about to disappear.
But the class-struggle can still advance
With the taste of the elites –
Should not all workers get the chance
To live in pleasant streets ?
And yes, she’s aware of their breezeblock hearts,
And the lack of ceiling-height,
And the constant cars that plague these parts –
But still, it does alright.
Developers on best behaviour,
Showing that they can play nice –
But oh, the cost for a little flavour !
Beauty’s bogus price.
Of course, whenever HRH comes by,
She must lay low
As locals swoon and neighbours sigh
At the whole boot-licking show –
And even when it’s safe to leave
And stroll about the place,
The very streets still live and breathe
With his family’s air and grace.
She sees it in the names of roads,
In the plaques above the shops,
She hears it in the toady toads
Whose croaking never stops.
But the sad fact is, it’s thanks to him
That there ever was this town –
It may be prim, but never grim,
As sparkly as a crown.
So yes, she knows, for all her gripes,
It’s thanks to him, her joy –
For were it left to lefty types
Then tower blocks ahoy !
She sits on her balcony under the sun
Over the flagstone square –
And curses the Tories, but knows they’ve won –
For she’d rather be here than there.
The Dandelion International
Daisies and thistles are blooms fit for socialists,
Sharing a flowerhead as a co-op’rative –
Pooling their pollen with petals in common,
A composite commune where sharecroppers live.
From grounsel to ragwort, these working-class blossoms
Are seed-making factories, union towns –
They all get to share in the dew and the nectar,
And all get to put on the sunflower’s crown.
Monte Rosa
Hamburg built, to take the Germans
Down to Argentina.
A prize of war, she soon was serving
Those who thought the grass was greener.
In her life, she’d carried Jews to Auschwitz,
But that’s over now.
Now she carried demobbed troops about,
A thousand berths from stern to prow.
Renamed for a Cotswolds river,
Some say that’s bad luck –
Fortune, though, would soon deliver
When her new name really stuck.
Under-occupied in Kingston,
Looking for some cash,
A bill in Parliament that worried some
Enough to make a dash.
She didn’t carry most who followed those,
Yet hers the fame –
The right ship at the right time, I suppose,
And with a poet’s name.
The Strongman & The Weakman
Populists will promise change,
And the public rally support.
These chancers sound like normal blokes,
Not like the usual sort.
They’re mostly charlatans and thugs,
With a grin and a big cigar.
And you wonder why the populists
Are ever popular…?
Perhaps it lies with the folk who flock
To lap them up with cream.
An unwashed swarm of Union Jacks,
All daring now to dream –
You love to sneer at their white vans
From your chauffeured Jaguar.
And you wonder why the populists
Are ever popular…?
The status quo has done you well,
But done them poverty,
Yet when they ask for change, you shrug
And say “don’t bother me”.
They may be serfs no longer
But they’re still beneath the tzar.
And you wonder why the populists
Are ever popular…?
With industry dismantled,
With the money all moved South,
And those who have a full-time job
Still living hand-to-mouth,
Just to be called scroungers –
Well, that’s sure to leave a scar.
And you wonder why the populists
Are ever popular…?
Your ev’ry promise broken,
And their ev’ry glimmer snuffed,
They’ve tried to vote for Christmas
But the system has them stuffed –
Gerrymandered, rotten-boroughed,
Struck-off the registrar.
And you wonder why the populists
Are ever popular…?
And just for once they had a voice,
And gave their answer loud,
And so you tried your damnedest-best
To nullify the crowd.
Yet all your pals agree with you
In your trendy Shoreditch bar…
And you wonder why the populists
Are ever popular…?
They’ll end up disappointed
With the autocratic rule,
Unlike their current freedom
As a wage-slave or a mule.
I guess the shining city
Must seem ev’ry bit as far.
And you wonder why the populists
Are ever popular…?
But if they kick you out, no sweat,
You’ll join a dozen boards –
And still receive your payoff
To the unelected Lords.
And they claim there’s no democracy ?
Who do they think they are ?
And you wonder why the populists
Are ever popular…?
Restitution
Reparations ? What, today ?
Two hundred years too late ?
And how to choose who has to pay ?
Best think it through now, mate…
White men ran the slave trade, true,
And I’m a man and also white –
But don’t charge me for grievance due,
I played no part in the blight.
While others wreaked this tragedy,
It’s not me, mate, and not my folks –
I come from village farmhands, see,
From ordinary blokes.
While others banked the whole affair,
Or clapped the chain or cracked the whip,
We never owned a single share,
Nor crewed a single ship.
So don’t try laying on the guilt
For crimes my bloodline never did –
The damnable at which you tilt
Were not my fam’ly, kid.
I bear no blemish on my name,
I bear no once-and-future sin –
Don’t think that you can judge my blame
By the colour of my skin.
It’s not me mate, and not my genes,
My hands are clean, my soul is light –
So spare your wrath for dukes and queens,
Not me, mate – get it right !
You may claim Britain was kept afloat
By ev’ry Caribbean crop –
Yet my folks never even had the vote
To make it stop.
My ancestors were starved and bruised,
And sometimes even outright killed –
They all were wage-slaves, much abused
By the lords whose lands they tilled.
It wasn’t as bad, of course, as chattel,
But still bloody bad, in its way.
But yours were worse – you’ve won the battle –
Is that what you want me to say ?
Alright, I’ll say it – cos I get it, I do –
But they’re not you and they’re not me.
So even if my blood were blue,
My soul would still bloom free –
For the faults of our great-great-grands back when
Have died with them, and passed away –
Look, nobody alive back then
Is still alive today.
For none of us in here’s a slaver,
No-one’s whitewashing the trade –
So please, just do us all a favour,
And find a new crusade.
Is there still inequality ?
For sure – not race, but class.
We need to target poverty,
Not grievances of the past.
Inherited wealth ? Old foundations ?
Tax the rich, then, to redress –
And give the reparations
To the schools and the NHS.
But your way feels like liberal creds
To buy-off the guilt and pain –
For giving a payout is putting a price on their heads
All over again.
Trick or Lure
I love the Union Jack,
Far more than any church or crown –
I love the way the patriots all wag.
I love it on a tea-towel,
I love to wear it as a gown,
Or on my underwear and pocket-rag.
I love the Union Jack,
I love to see the whites fade brown,
I love to see it limply droop and sag.
I love to snub the Welsh as well,
I love to fly it upside-down,
And call the flag a Jack and not a Flag.
Deferred Divisions
A week is a long time in politics,
A decade is no time at all.
The pettiest points are scored in a hurry
While marches-of-progress crawl.
The only change is change that’s forced,
And always years too late –
A week is an age in politics,
While ages must shut-up and wait.
Blue Chip, Brown Bread
Somebody I’ve never met has died,
And you’ve never met him either –
Yet we’re required to shut up and abide,
And know our place.
We’re in for a long and boring ride,
And woe betide the unbeliever –
From Kensington to the banks of the Clyde,
The nation shuts its face.
Clear the TV schedules, quick,
They need to fawn over a nobody –
All these tributes, creepy and slick,
For fear of facing anarchy !
So after years of giving him stick
They’re truth-to-power turns limp and shoddy –
But then, these days they’re all in thick,
And even the Guardian bends the knee.
The media barons and ermine peers
Will lead the mourning, doffed and bowed,
And pray for another fifty years
In their suffocating drone.
As they wring out the mandatory tears
And tug their forelocks proud,
The Establishment betrays its fears
As it buries one of its own.
Rhyming Couplets 