Tag Archives: satire

AFTER THIS

AFTER THIS

after this
you ask me

not what
forgiveness

but what
salvation, what
resurrection?

but in the absence
of principle
I cannot answer
I do not know

mine is a ramshackle
up-down, on-off
lesser evil, beyond
good
   and evil kind of spirituslity

but this is
a crime beyond crimes
in the eyes
of God
were he willing
to open them
were he
prepared to see

and all this
blood
    this carnage

it cannot but have stained us
smashed that mirror into
shell shrapnel, bomb
splinter sized
     needle-like fragments
the one
     in which
divine likeness
         was seen

wounds
      need healing, and
all these wounds

are
    self-inflicted

ask me
          later

not now not now
later I may again believe
in something, in humanity
in purpose
     and vision

today
      but today

just short of hopeless for me

silence better
than these paltry words here

ON BOARD

ON BOARD

you made yourselves
into gods of chaos

chaos
     that proceeds orderly

methodically
has lists

moves street
by street
     wiping out, missing
nothing
    could not be
more thorough

having learnt from
its horrific encounters
with the
     demons of the past

terrible demons that
cast a monstrous forever
                         shadow

hook, line
            and sinker

precise depths of that evil
turned
          rational

taken on board

AT THE READING

AT THE READING

the poets are gathered
in the auditorium

make the final checks
to see nothing wrong
with their uniforms

doped and dragooned
the audience
        off-loaded from trucks
are marched to
their seats

essence
    of the system

one attendee
one seat

     was the promise decades
prior that won
the landslide election

whose benefeciaries are
here too

armour-plated limousines
as
    gatekeepers of
fine standing

Ah what
a sight!

      same old same old
every poem
basically the same
so
   no sense
in expectation

indeed
best thing that could happen
before a line is recited
a stanza
is read

is that something
from smallest inconvenient
hitch
   to extinction level event

stops everything in
its tracks

temporary reprieve
      or a long long wait

a few million years
    to the cockroaches that
survived
and evolved

get their act together
   to run a better, more
poetic,
     democratic

and yes,

         human event

ON BOARD

ON BOARD

you made your god
into a god of chaos

chaos
     that proceeds orderly

methodically
has lists

moves street
by street
     wiping out, missing
nothing
    could not be
more thorough

having learnt from
its horrific encounters
with the
     demons of the past

terrible demons that
cast a monstrous forever
                         shadow

hook, line
            and sinker

precise depths of that evil
turned
          rational

taken on board

HYPOCALYPSE NOW

HYPOCRALPSE NOW

loving the smell
of white phosphorous
in the morning
will he still love
you if you script
all this a la Apocalypse Now?

will he promise you
sign of sanction and
spiritual favout
that is
    yet another
overwhelming victory

or is he taxing your faith
testing your strategic patience
by making this
a possible new
battle of Stalingrad,
advances only in inches
forward or
     underground
stop start
stop start

pity when it comes to
kill ratios even if
targeted and
supremely intentional

collateral damage figures
(including toddlers, infants
women and pensioners)
cannot
        be allowed to
seriously count

but there is no Kurtz and ghere
is no river

             no Dantesque journey
through the circles
of Hell

which makes no sense in a wotld
where it has become
impossible to differentiate between
    our
      angels and demons
      gods and devils

where everything and
everyone have their unique insane
      totally
clueless plan

       to deal with the shadow of
all evil

by massacring everybody
since
         we can no longer
be saved

cannot
       save ourselves

ALONG

UK OK (not so very)

        still solid
    (courtesy of Victorian
architecture)

crazy high aquaducts
    (now exactly what
               do they do?)

university I went to
down main road manchester
freshly
    returned from
south africa

settler colonial
(apartheid to
           god knows who else
and me
and you)

but on that diet of dismal
how stuff going to grow properly?

how stuff going to flourish
when for best moral fibre
getting
     force-fed gloom

red, white, blue
flag should be slate grey and
colour
     most exploitative

see your politicians now
scared at the thought
                               people

might
     have their
                       own ideas

university down oxford street
(or was it road?)
                 taught me something
about the
    economic of F and K
(plaque proclaims
them
                    the previous tenants)

anarchy
OK OK    strawberries
spoiled, by
                      this time
was
          the late 70s

ust rattle your cheap jewellery here
                                  and I’ll
imagine
            in falsetto

less than happily singing along
        

STICK

STICK

stick to football Gary
and

over and above that
stick to your job
        (not down
the left
wing but
        finisher in
the middle) 

stop
    sticking it to
all those true
Britons, guardians
of the long
ball game

who never won
a sweaty sock or
dinged
    shin pad

no thought
of golden boots and
golden goals

won
against Beckenbauer’s
band, Maradona’s
mob
    serious rivals, experts
in dishing out
national
    humiliation

nor
are they ever
likely to, spending their
careers on the pitch
like demented ducks
lacking
    all
        sense of the game, worse
than headless
chickens

scoring goal after goal
after crazy own goal

from
every outrageous angle
and somehow
always what
is contrived to be

a totally illogical
offside position

NOTTOKNOW

NOTOKNOW

crash the cymbals
bang the gongs
trumpet the
chosen

for they
are multitude

you are
so holy
you are
so handy

are so
holy handy

you have crucified
more souls this month
than in its entire
history

   did the
little city of Rome

have slaughtered
so many
   seems you
were you
to go Genghis

given permission
from
    up high

and dig a hole
    big enough to bury
all of us

while we all shout “hosanna”
and raise nailed
         fists to the sky