Sunday 31 January 2016

Sunday Afternoon 31st Jan 2016

A Man who, lycra clad, had spent
The dreary morning cycling over wolds,
Is now asleep before the fire, back unbent,
And legs outstretched beside the dog. 
In sober Sunday sleep he holds
A half drunk cup of tea within his hands.
And gently snores himself to momentary wakefulness.

A girl who spent the morning playing hymns
Upon the dreadful organ's tuneless gale
Of freezing, wheezing, stale air, spreads limbs
Of skintight denim blue upon the floor, her pale
Winter face concealed by hair,
Party straight, from yesterday. And coal
Shuffles down behind her back and time expands.

The dog dreams in the purring peacefulness
Of the afternoon, whose quiet warmth is improved
By the cats, expressed contentedness,
Serene and not expecting.
While the girls, unmoved
By necessity, ignore the need to finish homework
And lie in the electric blanket heat 
Of the double bed, texting,
Keeping the sabbath embodying the verb to shirk.



Thursday 28 January 2016

The Pruning of Fingers And Toes By Renewal Methods

Each branch extols,
Raises up its prayer and praise
In thorny criss crossed arcs
Unto the God of light,
It has no doubts and grows
Towards its certainty of summer
Banking on the old equation:
Tropism brings synthesis.

 And yet unto the human eye
The scribbled tangles magnify
The fault within each specimen:
Aesthetically they fail to satisfy.
In competition with themselves
They cannot dignify
Their greed by growing carefully
But needs must cause 
The gradual death of other parts
Below, or near by.

And so we take our secateurs
And punish, finding human ways
To justify the need always to intervene.
And tell ourselves our methods bring renewal:
We cut short prayer
And cut out hope
Remove the dead 
And branches growing inwards,
Remove the stems now brown and bare
Restrain them as they ramble.
And open up to bright, white air
The mess of thorns which scramble
Always skywards.

And so we spend each afternoon
In cutting out and knowing soon
The spring, predicted in the tips
Supplied with auxin, raised, outstretched,
Will bring rewards of breaking buds
And shades of red and soft, dark pink
Of blooms, then scarlet hips.

Yet something happens to the mind
In seeking balance and improvement
Opening up to wind and movement,
Thinning out, discarding, 
Believing we rejuvenate, 
Imposing our ideas of what is pleasing. 
We stand well back and concentrate
And see what 'must' be done,
And then we find
We might do more
And so we carry on.

But when at last we have retired
To make the tea and light the fire,
Our brains it seems have grown 'hard-wired'
To pruning and we have acquired
A dreadful, crazy, mad desire
To view all things as we viewed rose:
The finials first and then the lips
Of daughters, pursed, 
The chandeliers hanging low,
The shutters' knobs, the silly bows
In gilt atop the mirrors,
The skinny jean-clad jutting hips,
The large and lumpy, crooked nose,
And then the fingers and the toes
All must succumb, despite the tears.

In order to be kind one must be cruel;
For everyone must surely know
That careful pruning brings renewal.

Tuesday 26 January 2016

The Student Wanker's Starter Pack. ( Inspired by an article by James Delingpole.)

Encased in plastic, so it won't get spattered,
The 'Student Wanker's Starter Pack'
Contains the whole of Marcuse' theory
In bite size chunks.  No need for tattered
Hardback copies of the works of Marx which lack
Appeal for youth, dumbed down, by dreary
Comprehensive teaching. Let them feel flattered
By this gift of 'safety', these illiberal ideas, which stack
Neatly and comprise the whole of weary,
Hackneyed, left wing bollocks, once scattered
Over decades, now collected. You can track
Your student's growth online, read his cheery
Tweets inspired by our section, 'useful quotes'
And see him joust, leaving opponents battered
By the brilliance of his comments.  At the back
Are links to useful, foreign, hedge-funded charities with notes
On how to secure money for good causes. Any query
Regarding the accuracy of the information will be ignored.
But though your illusions might be shattered,
Your student wanker will be primed and ready to attack,
For thanks to our chapter on tolerance towards Sharia
(As well as the promotion of those non binary and gender queer
- We do love balance)
His conversion to Islam means no bleary
Mornings turning into afternoons of hangover and being bored:
The student wanker will become the adult warlord.

Friday 15 January 2016

The Truth In Socks.

My cast off socks betray me.
They tell the dreadful truth,
Portray me, sans airs and graces.
Firstly as a woman who has no regard
For style, since they're brown wool,
Knee length, mens, and bare the traces
Of gardening in the form of hard,
Dry goose grass balls. And secondly
As a woman whose house is full
Of sawdust, coal dust, ash and dog hair.
They just flop there
Casting aspersions.
And I wouldn't care
Only I am as worn out as they are
From cleaning, sweeping, Hoovering,
Bleaching, dusting, wiping, squirting.
To the casual eye
The house looks almost clean,
And yet they give the lie,
Lying there, impeaching.

Thursday 14 January 2016

Inspired By The Translation Of A Headline In An Eastern European Newspaper.

"No bastards on earth more abominable
Than the liberal pigs digging Europe's grave"
No words ever more intolerable, 
Than those couching terms of freedom while seeking still to enslave
And fetter, stifle truth. Such men behave
As if their ways are more humane, and ours reprehensible,
Blind to how the road to Hell, they help each day to pave.
No bastards on earth more abominable
Devoted apostles of a cause incomprehensible,
Importing violent anarchy in wave after wave.
No lumbering idiots more unstoppable
Than the 'liberal' pigs digging Europe's grave.
Snorting and wallowing at the trough, passing law in conclave.
And yet, no spirit more indomitable
Than liberty. So on our minds let us engrave
"No bastards more intolerable
Than those determinedly hospitable
Towards misogynists who crave
Machismo's outlet:  rape". Were words ever less intelligible
Than those couching terms of freedom, while seeking still to enslave
Free men by binding them with petty law, while those who would deprave
Are encouraged, left alone?  Surely this is unconscionable?
The liberal's mind is comatose, has decided to waive
It's right to pronounce on injustice. There are no men less honourable,
On earth.

Sunday 10 January 2016

An Eternal Presence



Between the nine o'clock at Bursea
And the service up at Holme
There is an idle forty minutes
Sitting in the car, to warm
Those parts religion misses,
Read the news, and feel the calm:
The calm of somehow nothing changing,
Though it changes every day,
In the decent world of Ambridge,
Over airwaves, far away.


It soothes the soul to think of Peggy
Sounding as she always did
Remembering The Bull, and Polly,
Dead first wife of now dead Sid.
It fills some niche within the mind
That never knew it needed filling
Comforts with its endless nagging:
Clarrie going on at Eddy,
Brian putting up with Jenny,
Some row about a cattle grid.


Between the nine o' clock at Bursea
And the driving up to Holme
To where the dark green yews are blowing,
And the ancient bells are ringing
Drowning out the winter birds,
There is no sudden great elation
But there's peace, in voices chatting,
Fictional domestication,
like remembered mothers' singing,
Human, comfortable words.

Friday 8 January 2016

Angela Merkel Speaks Candidly About The Future For Germany And Europe, Her Happy Youth In The GDR, And The Influence Of Critical Theory On Her Policies.



The wreckage over which Karl Marx will stride
'Colossus like' is mine.  And see the care I take.


I started quite some time ago.  I tried
To follow theory, and make no mistake
You were quite blind, but nothing was opaque.
Every action lead towards destruction.  I never lied.
Each step was obvious, thought out, like all I undertake.


The wreckage over which Karl Marx will stride
I brought about, through policies designed to override
Traditional ideas. I did it for the sake
Of all those happy childhood years. Now pride,
Colossus like, is mine and see the care I take
Of friends. Those who kept good order then, now have a stake.
And anarchists wash up on every tide,
We let them in, it helps to heal the heartache.


I started quite some time ago, I tried
To think as Marcuse taught, now I decide
The fate of citizens, and though I'm like a snake
You're taken in.  Marxism is science, but it must be applied.
To follow theory, and make no mistake
I do, is all very well, but it takes skill to shake
A continent to ruin, you see my plan is Europe wide.
And after anarchy and rape you'll be happy to forsake
Those old ideas of liberty, to seek protection of the state and hide, 
The wreckage over.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie



Let sleeping dogs lie
And crush your legs with their dead weight.
Let sleeping dogs snore,
And try and concentrate
On something other than the need to pee.
Try to be kind hearted,
As they are, in everything you do.
Let sleeping dogs dream,
And ignore
The numbness, only see
That they wish not to be disturbed before
Giving in to selfishness
And trying to inch out undetected.
Because you know you won't even get started,
And anyway, you can't nip to the loo
Alone and unprotected.

Wednesday 6 January 2016

6th Jan 2016

Outside the sky is grey,
As grey as every time that it's been grey before.
The river path is oozy mud
And here and there a pile of shit
Left by some poor dog whose diet
Turns its faeces pale taupe
Catches the eye.
Outside it is the middle of the day
As middle of the day as You and Yours on Radio Four.
But it's Stockhausen on three. I could
Tune in and embrace 'the new' and sit
Eyes closed, listening.  But quiet:
Ticking clock, hissing gas, snoring dog, encourage hope,
Until I suddenly think of a caught eye,
And caught by excrement, at that, left on display,
By a dog.  It's odd how words bore,
In both senses.  I should
Not know the word taupe, could not pin a colour to it,
If it were not used to describe dull sweaters.  No riot,
Just stone or beige, etiolated, desiccated, fraying old rope.
Traffic passes by
In little groups, all going the same way,
Because men are mending the kerb. The floor
Is shining, washed with undiluted bleach, the good
Bugs are all dead along with the bad, all took the same hit,
I wonder if slate gets thrush?  Shall I buy it
Cannesten, in future shall I use only mild soap?
Tomorrow will there be patches of cottage cheese? Fumes like ghosts of the Somme dry
The eyeballs returned from the turd in imagination to stray
Over the unrelenting grey.