poem poetry allegory power satire

RIGHT AS SHE BLOWS

Human rights
human rights

you have to squint
through a microscope

to get the gist of where
she is coming from
in her text
on human rights

Oh my humongous Suella
Sulla Braverman Braveheart

you will stand by your principles
fight for them lie
for them
kill and almost
die for
them (not
really, but it rhymes)

and rhyme is good
and euphemism too
and repetition
a zillion times

uncovering the frustrated
inner poet in you
(not that you would
ever stoop to elegy
not
the job of
Home Secretary)

to bewail
lost migrant lives.

BOTTLE

genie was in the bottle
bottle was on a plinth
plinth was right
in the centre
of the gallery
and they
were so
fucking glib

they pranced they danced
they pontificated
sprayed glitter, ribbon too

but that genie
swirled in its prison
like poison
nitro-glycerine,
rocket fuel

and I wondered
alone sensing all
that diabolical anger, power
if
some crazed fool
might release it, break
it free what it might effect
what
outrageously do

and so
we talked and drank
the genie and I
as we left the gallery
empty save
for bottle on plinth
and
its all-
new contents
stoppered, dissolved, placid
under that titanic
other-
worldly pressure

best place for them
to forever be