A Letter Home From The Islamic State

I miss Greggs' pasties:

Here in the Caliphate

We only eat off a plate,

(It's always a stalled ox with hate

Therein).  We nasties

Are nought if not sticklers for etiquette

And Sharia -

Which is just another word

For manners really, rules.

Like wiping your mouth with a serviette,

Only if you forget,

You get your head cut off,

Or you're thrown in a vat of nitric acid.

It's cool, yet I still fancy a pasty,

Greasy, flabby, warm and flaccid

Just to hold in my right hand.

I got my left one chopped off

Because I didn't understand

That I wasn't meant to use the boss's tools,

And I took his spanners as I hadn't heard

Him stipulate

That using his stuff was haram.

He brought his sword down slam,

And shouted God is Great,

And I thought, yeah, but your'e nasty.

And now the end of my arm,

Looks like a boiled ham,

Which is not a good look, in Islam.

Sometimes when I'm hungry,

I wish he'd chopped off my head,

Instead, because my stomach quite often thinks my throats cut

Anyway.  And there's this constant rumbling in my gut.

Here we live off the fat of the land.

Life's not hard.

It's not that the food here isn't tasty,

It's just they just don't do flaky pastry.

Food in the Caliphate is great, 

Like God, but it isn't like food from Greggs

Which is greater,

Like those ones with meat and potater,

I could right fancy one o' them,

Or some chips and battered cod,

But that's not Halal, either pal,

If it's done like I like: in lard.

So I'd better watch it, or I'll lose my other hand

And both legs.

The Dumbing Down of Death

When I am gone

Think only this of me,

I did not die

Because I longed to lie

In silence where I couldn't hear

You reading poetry.

Crying, stumbling, sobbing, taking care,

It's all as bad,

Though man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live,

And is full of misery,

Don't make it worse, 

I did not love the works of Edward Lear,

More than the language of the Book of Common Prayer,

So don't read verse.

Never Buy A Second Hand Carpet From "Fluffy Chops"

Never buy a second hand, Persian rug,
From a woman with the user name 'Fluffy Chops,'
You might think it better, and feel smug
About buying a carpet
From a fellow English woman,
Because all those oriental shops
Seem rather a rip off.
But honestly, if you turn up at the door
And see a notice saying,
'Before you report my manky looking Persian cat to the RSPCA
Here are a few things to bear in mind...'
Then you should scarper, because you will find,
Kitty's not the only mangy Iranian.
The rather pretty looking old Nain,
You saw on ebay was only attractive
Because you didn't know,
Anyone would stoop so low
As to sell,
Something with that cheesy, doggy, catty smell.
And your house will never be the same again,
Even though it's rather fragrant already
What with the scent of incontinent pets of your own,
And those certain places that remind you of that last time at the vets,
And the corpses where your poor old friends had laid,
All night, dead, uncured, and gently leaking,
Despite the thousands of pounds you had paid.
When buying second hand carpet, you wish your animals to be alone
In their vile habits,
And you don't wish to confront the possibility of other people keeping house rabbits,
Or to have to give a name,in your head,
To that vivid yellow stain,
Pretend it is there by design, instead.
And it's no good seeking
Compensation, caveat emptor and all that,
EBay isn't the shops,
If you don't like odour of cat
Then strictly speaking,
You were mad to buy anything from 'Fluffy Chops.'

On The Consequences Of A Surfeit of Right Wing, Online Editions

I want to read something that will make me truly mad,

I love that outraged feeling when I'm justifiably furious,

And there's nothing in the Mail Online that's really all that bad,

I feel no indignation, I don't even feel curious.

So I look again at Breitbart, but I'm getting quite inured

To the actions of those immigrants, so I still feel rather bored.

Then I click on The Spectator, pin all hope on Douglas Murray,

But there's nought by him to stir me up, so then I start to worry,

That I really am immune to quite how vile the world is now,

And that I want it to be viler: I'm a nasty, mad, old cow.

Some Dreary And Bleak Thoughts Which Occurred On A Lovely Day

I wish to leave no trace of me behind,
Save a happy recollection in the mind,
Of each of my four children, who will find
It hard to remember me, as I am now,
With every passing year, and anyhow,
Will make me fresh and new when I am dead,
And I shall be a figment in each head,
Constructed to a different set of rules,
Which would govern how motherhood should seem,
A woman who is mostly just a dream,
A pair of laughing eyes, a croaky voice,
A set of rather dreary ideas,
A random group of sketches, each the choice,
Of any given moment of remembrance,
Diluted and confused throughout the years,
Until even that poor spirit disappears,
And then I shall be nought, not even air,
Which is the height of my ambition,
The opposite of coming to fruition,
A total annihilation and a severance,
Which sounds rather like a counsel of despair.