Don’t be a Steve
Some are Mikes and some are Harrys,
Some are Davids, some are Barrys,
Some are even Lens and Larrys,
So I do believe.
Some are Gavins, Grants and Garys
Some are Dustins, some are Carys,
As they live and breathe.
Not all children must be Steven,
Some are Karl or Keith or Keven,
Some of them are daughters, even !,
Nora, Nell and Neve.
V or PH ? Stop deceiving !
Pick a name for high achieving !
Not all kids are Steve.
Incidentally, Bartolomé Murillo’s middle name was Esteban.
The Providence Plot
Do not hunt out conspiracies, my friends –
There’s no-one out to get us,
For we do not greatly matter.
There’s no-one’s jailed for heresies, my friends –
Though they sometimes read our letters,
They will find there only chatter.
Yes, corruption still exists,
We can be sure,
And lord, its presence in our midst
Is not a thing we should ignore –
But none of it is organised
By an elite beneath a gorgan
(Or a lizard), plotting dooms
In panelled dark and smoky rooms.
My friends, I know ! It feels so wrong
To only shrug and move along –
What answer is coincidence ?
It makes no sense
To pattern-seeking minds.
If there is any agency (of either kind)
Within the noise of daily life,
We’d barely know amidst the strife
Of multiple false-positives.
I urge, there’s nothing causative
In most of what we’d swear is true –
I know, because I’d swear it too.
But do not hunt conspiracies, my friends –
When cock-ups happen all the time,
And secrets are so rarely kept.
The thing about most tyrannies, my friends,
Is just how public is their crime –
To rule by fear, your subjects must be prepped.
Their heavy-handed propaganda
Never gets mistook for candour,
And their unofficial action is their very public policy.
See, evolution gifted us
An urge to talk and share, and thus
The covert are the daily news, and secrets know no modesty.
For ev’ry extra spy who lurks behind the scenes
Is just another pair of lips to spill the beans.
My friends – beware conspiracies.
Beware their never-sated thirst –
For surely it is better yet to hope the best than fear the worst.
And if sometimes we’re taken in,
At least we don’t let fear win !
And be prepared to be surprised
By happenstance in patterned guise –
The tin-foil cannot block it,
Nor computers plot its dance –
So keep your Occam in your pocket
For the vagaries of chance.
Fruits of the Verge
Normandy roads beside Normandy fields,
All run between Normandy ditches.
Your radishes, cabbages, onions and leeks
Are right on the roadside in vegetable pitches.
They’re unfenced by hedges or sedges or nettles,
Just Normandy roads between Normandy riches.
The Waters of the Flood were upon the Earth
Noah, lonely and bereft,
Cast adrift with wives and sons.
Of other folk, no more are left –
These are the only ones.
But lo !, across the waves and foam
Comes sailing forth on breezes fresh
A vessel very like his own –
The Ark of Gilgamesh !
This is an early poem of mine that features my patented exclamation comma (!,) which one day shall be combined into a single glyph to rule them all… Incidentally, my older self cringes at my rookie mistake of placing Gilgamesh himself in the other Ark when of course it was piloted by Utnapishtim. However, despite this, it remains the only poem of mine to ever earn me an income (£10), as recounted in the footnote to this poem.
Hipster Moi
Sure, I’ll be a hipster –
If it’s something you sneer at, I’m in.
If jeering at hipsters is unwritten code,
If trending on trendies is mode à la mode,
Then dump on me, bro, let it all unload –
Hate me, cos you ain’t gonna win.
I might grow a beard cos I reckon you won’t like it,
And even if you like it, I’ll do it anyway.
I’ll sport my hair in dreadlocks, or maybe rock a pixie,
I’ll shop at House of Oxfam, and ride there on my fixie,
And call her Toots or Trixie,
Or sipping on my latte while I’m writing my screenplay.
You think it’s just a pose ?
Well, maybe, bro, it is. Who knows ?
And then, so what ?
No more a pose than all your hating –
Yours demeans while mine’s creating.
Am I just so smug and grating,
That this sniding’s all you got ?
Well, go ahead and take your shot
Belittle and demote this.
I guess I’m not that hard to spot –
In jelly crocs for all to see,
And vintage woollen socks, I’ll be –
So come on, bro, and hate on me…
I doubt I’ll even notice.
Dramatic Tension
Ah, Theatre ! I think I’m gonna miss you,
But maybe not the agony you always put me through –
You may raise gasps and titters from the proper-postured sitters,
But you leave me bent like Richard, joints askew.
Your drama may be modern, but your seating is Victorian,
Which quickly sees my comfort heading south.
Your balconies and rakes are long my source of joys and aches,
Where ev’ry twist brings heart-and-knees-in-mouth.
A point is all that you can score
These days, too many folks I know
At odds with the government,
Are praying for a time of woe
To piss into their tent.
Alas, folks like you, my friend,
So smug and all a-twitter –
Tribal to the bitter end,
And boy, are both sides bitter.
You long for power grids to fail,
For supermarket shelves to clear –
How joyfully you scoff and wail
That Armageddon’s here.
You cheer on the elderly to die
To make the balance tip,
And never stop to question why
You need such brinkmanship.
When did you become such arseholes ?
When did you become such bores ?
If we’re descending into farce,
Then the fault is equally yours.
Look, I don’t like the Government either,
But there they are, by public vote.
And someone has to break this fever,
While the others point and gloat.
If times get hard, as you prophesise,
Will you come down to help us through ?
Can you still be a friend who tries
To douse the flames and build anew ?
And I’m sorry I called you an arsehole –
We neither side is right or wrong.
So can we keep our self control,
And compromise to get along ?
The Boston Stomp
“Boston in Lincolnshire is noted for having a high percentage of EU immigrants.”
– Evening Daily
Now clear the floor and start the band,
And take your partners by the hand –
So step on up and get on down,
Just like us folks in Boston Town.
Now dance ’em round and dance ’em square,
There’s dancers here from ev’rywhere !
From Norse and Hansa, French and Yanks –
Come join the dance and swell the ranks.
And one-two-three-four,
Best start again – here come some more.
For centuries we’ve put to sea
And brought the world into our quay:
Willem, Hodel, Rémi, Morta –
Boston sons and Boston daughters.
See the out-of-towners clump
Upon the Wash, beneath the Stump,
Enough to fill the Gliderdrome –
So welcome, strangers, welcome home !
And four-three-two-one,
But don’t stop now, the dance ain’t done !
There’s no need to be lonely ones,
For we are all Bostonians !
Szymon, Crina, Miloš, Maja,
Suppers ready by the fire.
Come on in and catch the rhythm,
Up the Haven, down the Witham.
Latvia to Greece to Spain,
From Liquorponds to Dolphin Lane.
And one-two-three-four,
We’ve danced a thousand years or more.
Now take your partners by the hand,
And welcome to the Promised Land –
Petru, Zosia, Wojciech, Rūta:
Bear the Pilgrims of the future.
Stepping strange, but no concern,
It’s nothing that we can’t soon learn –
The dance is long and folks must flow,
As dancers come and dancers go.
And four-three-two-one,
A thousand more this dance will run.
Chief Mousers to the Cabinet Office
Since days of Wolsey, there we’ve been,
Lurking beneath the throne –
The éminence grise, or tabby, or brown,
The whiskered presence behind the crown.
Each light-footed tom and dagger-clawed queen
Has worked their paws to the bone,
Keeping our ministers free from vermin,
Keeping the rodents from nesting in ermine.
For we are civil servants too,
Patrolling halls of power –
Wherever the traitors skulk and plot,
We’re here to pounce upon the lot.
For mouse or magpie, rat or shrew,
We’ll make those riff-raff cower !
While members jeer and speakers spout,
We’ll keep the rebel squeakers out.
Unparalleled Revival
1.
Reckfull in my actions, I shall pinge you well alone –
My manners may be peccable, but ruthfully they’ve grown.
I’ve mantled them from bootsome parts of like and parate form –
Deceitless in intention, with an ert and toothful gorm.
2.
I bunk your valid theory, which has gusted my good taste,
The nocent may be nocuous, but we are praved and based.
My spirit may be delable, my courage may be trepid,
But let my mind combobulate, and once more I am crepit.
3.
Feeling good and gruntled, I was ruly in my care,
And was looking couth and gainly with my kempt and shevelled hair –
“Be mayed by hapfull fortune, and chelant with passion’s thrill –
Be feckfull, wieldy and toward, with ept and bashless skill.”
Rhyming Couplets 