Red Like the Poppies

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poppies
poppy wallpaper by Maurice Verneuil

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 ?

First Love is Always the Hardest

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The Young Astronomer by Olivier van Deuren

First Love is Always the Hardest

I’ll gladly say I love you,
If you don’t ask if I love you
More than all the stars above –
For what mere girl can stir up so much love
To turn the sternest head ?
Nuclear fusion, supernovas, black hole cuties,
Diamond-cored and shifted ruby-red –
It isn’t fair that I compare you
To the very heavens’ beauties
Turning all the inky velvet pearled –
For they are truly gems from out this world.

I’ll gladly say I love you,
If you don’t ask if I love you
Till the saline seas run dry.
For what mere girl can draw out such a sigh
To spring the harshest heart ?
Continents crashing, mountains leaping, plates migrating,
Magma-cored and slowly wrenched apart –
It isn’t fair that I compare you
To the very land creating
Granite, quartz, and crystals, forged and furled –
For they are truly gems within this world.

I’ll gladly say I love you,
If you don’t ask if I love you
Even more than life itself –
For what mere girl can equal so much wealth
To spark the jadest eye ?
Bejewellèd beetles, primrose blossom, eagles soaring,
Helix-cored and left to multiply –
It isn’t fair that I compare you
To the fruits of blind exploring –
Trunks and scales and proteins tightly curled –
For they are truly gems upon this world

I’ll gladly say I love you
If you don’t ask if I love you
Like a this or that or other-hand –
For what mere boy can try to understand
What all this wonder means ?
Ricochet rapture, all things quickly, nothing mildly,
Empty-cored and barely out my teens –
It isn’t fair that you compare me
To a firefly flitting wildly
Through the endless lures in which I’m swirled –
I’ve never known such gems for all the world.

’Tain’t the Season

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vivid autumn leaves scattered on ground
Photo by Tomas Anunziata on Pexels.com

’Tain’t the Season

November, November, you come in with a bang –
Enough to shake the leaves down from the trees.
The effigies are burnt, although by rights they ought to hang,
But then drawing strews their stuffing to the breeze.
Remember, November, the trenches and the mud,
And the generation buried underneath –
Then wince at all the pageantry, the polished clasp and stud,
And just pray they lay down more than just the wreath.

Now is not the time for carols,
Robin cards or gay apparel.
Don’t start rolling out the barrel –
Ah, sweet November !

November, November, the Leonids are streaming,
And also comes the frosty Hunter’s Moon.
Aurora too, if lucky.  Old Orion’s up there dreaming,
And Sirius is seen late-afternoon.
An ember, November, of Autumn’s final rays –
The sun can still remove a coat or two.
Across the pond, they’re Giving-Thanks, so let us give our praise
To the month we shouldn’t rush to hurry through.

Now is not the time for holly,
Mistletoe or red-fat-jolly.
Let’s enjoy without such folly –
Ah, sweet November !

Succession

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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

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It’s Time to Build a Stronger America by James Flagg

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

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Newsboy by John Brown

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.

The Root of All Evil

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wood street plane
Photo of the London plane tree in Wood Street in the Square Mile (taken by Katie Wignall ?)

The Root of All Evil

“Since it was first hybridised in the 1660s, the London Plane has slowly taken over the world.”

– The Manchester Gardener

Hybrid sap, mosaic bark,
Twisted bloom and swollen seed,
Bright amid the sooty dark,
This gnarlèd gothic breed.
He sprouts so slyly, this plant in the greenery –
One of the forest and part of the scenery –
No felling him, this mimic of maple, primordial cousin:
Hack off a limb, and this pollarding hydra will shoot out a dozen.

Spawned in the blooms of his immigrant parents,
A cuckoo inherent, a mongrel ill-born.
Wrought in the heart of Enlightenment steam,
From a fever-soaked dream on a dew-sodden morn.
With roots in the clay and his head in Orion,
A vigorous scion, a devil-blest spawn,
A chance aberration, a found’ry mutation,
With lacewood of iron and baubles of thorn.

Invading our cities while shedding his skin,
This cryptic chimera has crept his way in.
And none of his caste have succumbed to senescence, as yet…
Elixir of ever-youth pumps his capillary,
Sweeter than gin from an alley distillery,
Alchemised out of pea-soupers and coal-dust and sweat.
As if he were built out of ratchets and springs,
His ethic for work will be written in rings –
He’s still in his galvanised prime, through the dry-times and wet.

What hath we wrought ?, and what hath we mined ?,
That ought to lie buried or trampled behind –
But workshops of soil are shooting out hordes of his kind.
And what if we find that he just keeps on growing ?,
And fruiting and sowing, till all is entwined ?
Hammered and forged in the mill and pipette –
Who knows how engorged this goliath may get ?

It is uncertain if the first accidental hybrid occured in Spain or in Vauxhall Gardens in London (well, technically in Surrey, but close enough). Interestingly, for all the streets lined with them, I don’t think there are any woods with them growing wild. Infact, it would be fascinating to deliberately plant a patch of wasteland with nothing but London Planes and see how well they self-seed. Yes, I realise that they’re not strictly British natives, but then they’re really native to nowhere.

So Says Sam Hain

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The Storyteller by ‘Dutch School’

So Says Sam Hain

Mischief Night, and the Devil is abroad –
He could be here.
For on this night, be you tenant or lord,
There’s something near.
Be it a ghost, or the ghost of a thought,
The underworld or the over-wrought,
It may be all, or it may be naught –
It’s getting dark, my dear.

Mischief Night, and the Devil is amock –
He could be nigh.
For on this night, as our worries flock,
His jinks run high.
A will-o’-the-wisp, or a whisp’ring breeze,
A chill in the air, or a banshee’s sneeze ?
A frost tonight or a deathly freeze ?
It’s getting cold – oh my…

Mischief Night, and the Devil is alive –
He could be me.
For on this night, the shenanigans thrive,
And fools run free.
Is that a ghoul, or a turnip’s head ?
A friendly fright, or the living dead ?
And the Devil just smiles and goes to bed –
It’s getting late, you see.

Drothful Lucubration

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astronomer
The Astronomer by Candlelight by Gerrit Dou

Drothful Lucubration

A dark and stormy night, this night,
Yet ‘tween the clouds the full moon bright
Looks down upon me as I write
These dark and stormy lines.
But hark !  A distant howling queer
I fancy I mayhap may hear
From out the corner of my ear
And through my very spine –
And though my heart may drown it out,
I cannot labour long in doubt,
For surely do I know that sound without,
As it knows me.
The gusting wind brings to my door
A growling low from off the moor
That chills my very being o’er
To tremulous degree.
These pluvious and savage spawn
Shall stalk the psyche ere the dawn,
Shall stalk my rain-lashed psyche ere the dawn.

The Hounds of Dogg’rel bay this night
To seek the forced and base and trite,
And dog the heels of all who write,
Lest we should lapse their way.
We ever fear to be their sport,
Their pity, ruth and mercy nought
To purple, blue or overwrought:
They hack their hackneyed prey.
So some poor pensmith faces doom,
His garret shall become his tomb
As bursting forth, those savage Hounds consume
Each leaden verse –
Their author thus shall meet the fangs
That shred the hand whose metre clangs,
And fore’er mute his blunt harangues
That brought him to these curs,
I pray all gods, I beg, I yearn,
This ill-dread night is not my turn,
This dark and stormy night is not my turn.