Curtain Call
You’re filling the halls from the gods to the stalls,
You’re shaking the walls with your blast –
You cry your encores as you cheer yourselves hoarse
For the grand tour de force of the cast.
And how they deserve all the plaudits you serve,
For they are the verve of the play;
But spare just a few for their hard-working crew,
For we perform too, in our way.
A Norse Discourse
What shall we get for London, Ingrid,
Now that the Yuletide’s near ?
What shall we get for London, Ingrid ?
We’re almost out of year.
What do they want in London, Ingmar,
The city that has it all ?
What do they need in London, Ingmar ?
Can’t we give them a call ?
We want it to be a surprise, dear Ingrid,
We want it to impress.
We want to surprise old London, Ingrid,
We don’t want them to guess.
What did we get them last year, Ingmar ?
What did we get them then ?
What did we think of last year, Ingmar,
And can’t we get that agen ?
Last year we gave them a pine-tree, Ingrid,
Last year we gave them a spruce.
They’re surely expecting a pine-tree, Ingrid,
We can’t this year, by deuce !
But surely they loved our pine-tree, Ingmar,
Surely they loved our spruce ?
And won’t they need a new tree, Ingmar ?
It only has one use !
It’s true, they loved our pine-tree, Ingrid,
It’s true they loved it there.
They proudly placed our pine-tree, Ingrid,
In Trafalgar Square.
Then let’s give a tree to London, Ingmar,
A symbol of our rebirth.
Then let’s give a tree to London, Ingmar:
From Oslo – peace on Earth !
It’s just such a shame how we go on to treat this gift each year…
Winning the Defeat
It’s hard, but when we lose,
We have to lose,
We must concede, to start to heal the pain.
It’s madness to refuse
To quit the pews,
When all the others know that we are slain.
We must not blame the news,
Or voters’ views –
We had our chance, we fought a long campaign.
We stand and fall by word-of-mouth,
From Shetland North to Lizard South.
The terms are strict, the seats are leased,
From Dyfed West to Yarmouth East.
We are not who they choose,
They’ve shifted muse,
And telling them they’re wrong is just insane.
We’ll only raise a bruise
Whose pus must ooze –
And we shall never wash away the stain.
The public shall accuse
Our desp’rate ruse –
In ev’ry sense, our protest is in vain.
And left or right, and right or left,
Impugn us all, but not of theft.
And win or lose, and lose or win,
The sun shall rise, the world shall spin.
We have to pay our dues
And lace our shoes,
And let the winning side begin their reign.
It’s hard, but when we lose,
We have to lose,
We have to stop the fight, to fight again.
Ev’ry Winner gets a Free Shave
(In reply to Herblock)
To ev’ry newly elected member,
Let me spruce you up for the Chamber !
To all of you who stood against
The very things I’m fighting for,
To all the new MPs who dream
Of showing immigrants the door,
To all the laws to squeeze the poor,
And all the shills of gutter press,
To all the friends of oil and banks,
And those who got us in this mess,
To all the demagogues of wars:
For all of that, this day is yours.
So step right up ! Come one, come all !
Majorities both great and small !
You sir ! The new-crownded minister !
I see the campaign’s left its mark –
You’re looking rather sinister
With pallor grey and stubble dark.
I’ll take a razor to your chin
And even-out your crooked grin,
And give no cause for dread
As I draw my blade across your throat,
Of a single fleck of red –
For my razor, sir, is not my vote.
So even if you’re not my choice,
You’re still my fellow voters’ voice,
When tallied, said and done.
So go on, sport your freshened face
And show us how to run the place –
This shave’s on me, old son !
But just the one…
Pencil on a String
(Dedicated to all those who do apathy properly)
There’s some who say voting is pointless
But who always register on the rolls
And proudly walk to the place of polls
To add their protest to the tolls.
They take their voting paper
And refuse to make their mark,
(On principal – it’s not some caper or lark)
Then post their unblemished slip in the box
To highlight the lack of a Goldilocks,
Considering the election invalid –
An empty ballot cast for an empty ballot,
With candidates all just the same –
And whoever gets in, well, they’re not to blame.
And if what they say is silence,
Then still, it has to be said
At least they got off of their arses and got out of bed.
They think our nation’s fate, with dread,
Is in the hands of oiks and youths –
And like those pencils in the booths,
Is hanging by a thread.
Noughts & Crosses
Ah, to be young in the lands of the free –
With the whole of your glorious future before you,
And giving no thought what that future may be.
Ah, to be young when the whole world adores you,
With no need to pay us a thought in return.
Enjoy your sweet apathy, ere you must learn.
Ah, to be only a shrug and a sigh,
To be ever-unsullied of needing to know.
You’re glad to be asked, yet you give no reply,
As our ministers come and our generals go.
Your life is for dreaming and dancing and drifting,
And never mind queuing and choosing and sifting.
Ah, to be young on a planet so old,
With its taxes and statutes and loopholes and blame,
Where fraud is rewarded with knighthoods and gold,
And where ev’ryone grumbles and goes on the same.
Ah, to be young and to not give a damn
For the stumps of the candidates promising jam.
Oh, to be agèd and cautious and wise,
In a compromised world with a weather-worn hope –
We’re hypocrites, surely, and all you despise,
As you wash off our greys with your black-and-white soap.
Ah, to be young in these battles we’re waging –
You never get jaded by never engaging.
An Ideal Crony
Sir Robert Chiltern, Bart –
A plummy, chummy, bleeding heart,
Who made some loot insider trading –
Suddenly his star is fading
When extorted by a high-class tart.
What ho !, his chums in high-up places
Shall protect him from disgraces –
Don’t let on, don’t make a fuss,
For don’t you know he’s one of us ?
So stiffen up the lips on both his faces.
So what, a sacred trust was sold ?
We’d do the same for thirty gold !
So call the playwrite with the sharp wit,
Sweep it all beneath the carpet –
No need that the voting oiks be told…
Waifs & Fodder
Impressionist painters in poverty
On canvasses lacking in threads,
Glamorous silent-screen starlets,
And bereted and bearded reds,
Scientists seeking-out secrets,
And dare-devils pushing their luck –
They died too soon and died too young,
When fortunes came unstuck.
In days before the drugs did for,
Disease was the way to go –
Consumption, of course – or else it’s the pox –
Or the needs of the narrative flow.
Heroines, gothic or chivalrous,
In novels antique or sublime –
They’re dying too young from the loin or the lung,
Yet they’re dying precisely on time.
Balloteers
Rock and roll, all voters !
Staunch and floaters, poor and wealthy –
To the fuss-and-tussle hustings jamboree !
Bring the kids and bring the dogs,
Let’s throng with hacks from press and blogs
To jeer the speeches, snap the selfies,
Make them promise jam for tea –
Then talk with wonks and rebel Scots,
And mix with toffs and flat-capped Trots.
Let’s join the jostle and bus the bustle,
And get on down to the hustings hustle.
But it’s never like that these days.
Our candidates are scrambled through
A mesh of endless screens,
That changes all the red to blue
And filters out the golds and greens
Till all that’s left are greys.
They rarely need to meet the public,
Rarely let us have our say –
There’s just too many unelected journos in the way !
No wonder disillusionment is growing –
But no ! That’s what they want of us !
We mustn’t be intimidated by the charging battle-bus.
Don’t be ashamed of floating or don’t-knowing,
Thoughtful contemplation never was a crime –
Just make sure that you make it to the booth on time !
For I don’t care who gets your vote,
As long as someone gets your vote –
Be they protest, status quo, or loony-fringers.
Don’t buy their apathetic spin,
Or else we let the cynics win –
A can’t-be-arsed electorate of impotents and whingers.
For ours is the power, ours the law,
My fellow voters !
We aren’t just humble peasants stood in awe
Before our lords –
We’re citizens – not subjects,
Nor statistics, blips or quotas –
We’re individual voters,
And not meek amorphous hordes.
We’re millions of voices making millions of choices,
With our pencils mightier than any swords.
So roll up, you voters ! Shake a leg !
It’s time to give a damn ! With me !
Let’s make the bloody buggers beg –
Let’s rock this hustings jamboree !
A Public Service Announcement
I am your God
I make the sun rise. I control fate.
To me the credit for all that is great.
Know that my worth is a thousand of you,
And yet I descended to share what I knew.
This world I remade in my image agleam,
From antediluvian law and regime –
And now ev’ry crisis since my rise to rule,
Is legacy still of that tenancy cruel.
But I have delivered unto you, my flock,
For I’m your All-Knowing, Infallible rock.
And I have the Power, the Knowledge, the Plan
Of fiscal and social beyond wit of man.
Yet do not presume to inquiry my ways,
Don’t ponder my motives, don’t question who pays.
Just pray for my blessing, and so bring to pass
A life for the better in safe Middle-Class.
But they…they…
They make it rainy. They bring you down.
They are the Demons who covet my crown.
For their ev’ry plan is most evil and wicked –
They take all your hopes and your dreams and they stick it
And quash your beliefs as they freight them with dread,
Then charm you to dream of their visions instead.
They promise you ev’rything better their way
At just half the price that you currently pay.
And, yes, it is true, how their glamours beguile,
With pretty predictions and invectious bile –
They smear my almighty with heretic slander,
With scandal and intrigue and base propaganda.
But since I am perfect, we must remain strong –
They cannot be right, for I cannot be wrong.
For I am your god, your elected divine –
It’s never my fault when the sun doesn’t shine.
