An Estate Agent Dreams Of His Ideal Client

 

The vendor’s getting on, the house is tired,

She thinks things are alright,

Because she had the place rewired,

Thirty years ago, you can tell she’s tight.

The house is sound, structurally maintained,

But nobody seems to have explained,

You need a bathroom for every bedroom,

To bring things up to the modern age,

A bog of one’s own is all the rage,

A big fat Yorkshire businessman,

Can’t be expected to rise in the gloom,

And walk down a corridor to move his bowels.

If it wasn’t for his wife, he’d use a bed pan,

Can’t really be arsed to go to the bog at all,

Let alone go wandering down the hall.

His wife loves an ensuite, with fluffy white towels,

In piles,

And she says she doesn’t mind hearing him straining,

Giving himself piles, as long as she’s certain

The toilet’s draining,

And the shower has a modern glass door,

And no curtain,

And a wet room floor.

So, the ornamental plasterwork, newly restored

Is going to have to go,

People are bored,

With that kind of look,

Out of a history book.

The conservation people won’t mind,

I’ll make sure of that, it’s who you know,

Been in the business 40 years or so.

 

 

 

 

 

STANCE

 

 

I resent the stance you have taken.

I feel utterly forsaken,

For all we have is stances,

Our carefully choreographed dances,

With which, round truth, we lightly trip,

Hoping never to stumble or slip,

“Revealing for all of the others to see”,

Just why it is they can’t trust you or me.

We pretend to resent the imperial past,

But you know we must never be honest, at last,

And admit that its over for good,

For how can our virtue be understood,

If it’s known that we’re powerless, alone?

Who can possibly know of our rage,

If we do not posture upon the ‘world’ stage?

From our offices at the council, in Burnley or Oldham or Colne.

 

A Government Review

 

People have been talking balls,

Government must review,

Make sure the balls they‘re talking,

Is really getting through,

For who would take much notice,

Of all the balls that’s spoken,

If no one from the government

Made a gesture, just a token,

And held a long inquiry, to find out what to do,

About the balls that people speak,

Which no one thinks is true.

 

The powers that be have “deemed”

The powers that be have deemed

Me capable of action

Of which I have never dreamed,

Or worse, of thinking thoughts,

Which seem to them to have seemed

So reprehensible

That I should be tried in the courts

Of their minds and judged

According to their new laws

Invented on purpose to cause

Me, them to have broken,

Merely by having spoken.

And now I am guilty as charged

To the gleeful satisfaction,

Of those for whom recent history

Is entirely shrouded in mystery.

Will it add value, or make it more saleable?

Were I to acquire

A stuffed pike, 

Would it add value,

If I put it

In the downstairs loo?

Is it the sort of thing people like? 

Would it make people aspire,

To a certain lifestyle,

Or put people off, 

Because it’s vile? 

I don’t mean actually in the bog,

Of course,

I mean on top of the chiffonier,

To hide a scratch in the veneer.

Would people think 

I’m a huntin’ shootin’ and fishin’ toff,

All about horse,

And dog,

Or a liar?

Would it distract from the chip in the tile,

Above the sink?

What about a crystal chandelier,

Or two,

Are they more tarty than arty?

Or a pair of fauteuils, Louis Quinze or Seize,

Either side of the fire,

Would that make it seem like a des. res.?

Or should one go the whole hog,

A gilt salon suite,

Would it go with a club fender?

Would that show

I was the right kind of vendor?

Someone cultured, in the know?

Would such things complete

The impression

That this is a home of good taste,

And each possession

Treasured, inherited, long ago?

And could I then sell with Inigo? 

 

In The Tedium of a Metric Afternoon

 

I had the leisure,

To measure for pleasure,

The nature of an afternoon,

Of warm and scented, honeyed June,

When all was peace, yet nothing still,

To calculate the sublime,

In time and also in ‘mil’.

 

I felt the need, when I heard

The song of a garden bird,

There was nothing to gain

By use of the word,

And so reduced it to the absurd,

And measured it’s voice

And the thrill of its trill

With great precision and pain.

 

And afterwards knew,

That nothing was true,

Which existed in fragments alone,

But on a hunch

After eating lunch,

It occurred,

That I understood,

At the level of instinct and bone,

A truth that pertained in both garden and wood:

Beauty and flowers and finches,

Should always be measured in inches.

 

The Solid Silver Train

 

Why is there no train for my sexual preference?

The train for father and mother,

30 years man and wife?

Where is the train that only runs about every 6 weeks,

Where the passengers don’t spank each other,

Where nobody speaks,

At all,

Let alone makes any reference

To what’s occurring?

But instead just enjoy the ride,

Without declaring their pride,

As a brief escape from everyday life.

And at the end of the journey,

Thank each other.

Trust the Psychopaths

Trust the Psychopaths

Trust the science, trust the psychopathology,

The two go hand in hand,

Commit yourself, to what we declare is biology.

Place your faith in something you cannot understand,

You know we materialists would never demand

You should place your faith in an ideology,

We only approve of the concrete, mixed with shifting sand.

Trust the science, trust the psychopathology

Do as you’re told in obedience to our psychology.

Do not make any enquiry, do as we command.

We’ve considered economics and epidemiology,

The two go hand in hand

When weighing up what’s best, and so we’ve planned.

And what he have concluded, bearing in mind sociology,

Is you must all shut up and be shut up, this is the law of the land.

Commit yourself, to what we declare is biology.

We have your best interests at heart, and therefore make no apology

For any negative effects, we have to take a stand.

Caring bullying is not contradiction, self evidently not tautology.

Place your faith in something you cannot understand.

We intend to grab power and expand

The hold we have granted ourselves. Don’t cling to Psephology

All parties think alike, our Covid coalition is beautifully grand.

We know of what we speak, we’re experts in scatology

Trust The Science. 

A Chorus of Twittering

 

Everything is bollocks,

Everything is wrong,

Everything is worse

Than described in your song.

Everything is dreadful,

Here’s chapter and verse,

Go from here and read it 

Then come back and rehearse

The new exciting arguments,

To show that you belong,

Amongst us true extremists,

Then come and sing along:

Everything is bollocks,

Everything is wrong,

Everything you thought before,

Was rudimentary stuff,

And everything the plebs think,

Is silly, mindless guff,

Come over here and join us,

If you’re hard enough. 

On Polyamory Among Edible Insects, inspired by Mary Harrington ; )

 

Don’t call me a f*ggot,

Said the meal worm maggot,

It’s a term of abuse and hate,

I am merely a mealy grub,

Whose fate

Is to become a meal or grub,

On a plate,

But before that date,

I wish to satiate,

Some appetites of my own,

I’ve been feeling polyamorous,

And although I am not very glamorous,

I’ve arranged some wonderful orgies,

For some of my fellow bugs,

And a group of handsome young slugs

A chance to celebrate

Before anyone gorges

Themselves on us,

And it’s all very much too late.

 

On Rational Pessimism

 

Don’t get the idea or

any other sort of notion,

That there’s anything irrational about Eeyore,

His kind of pessimism is completely sane,

He would never wander down the lane,

Full of negative emotion,

With a face mask over his soft grey nose,

With it’s flimsy straps over his lovely big ears,

Eeyore might have his morbid fears,

But don’t ever suppose,

He doesn’t have a scientific mind,

If he wore a mask, he’d grow thinner and thinner,

For how could he find

Thistles for dinner?

Being a donkey, Eeyore farts at the very thought

Of face masks,

In the faces of those passing by,

And the notion anyone can tell him what he ought to do,

Unless they tell him, he ought to chew,

Onopordum Nervosum,

To which he might reply

Edo ergo sum.

 

 

Jackdaw Dance

I was finding sticks beneath ancient trees,

In the shady copse at the edge of the lawn,

To mark the dahlias, still in bloom,

But whose death by frost, would come quite soon, 

Though they blasted out peach and tropical coral,

Mexican vibrancy midst the gloom,

Orange and Barbie and bubble gum heat,

And greenish whites and pale primrose yellows, 

Ill fitting October’s afternoon,

In an English garden nine hundred years old,

Scented with compost and old leaf mould,

When I saw in the deep, azure sky above

A crowd of corvids speaking of love.

And I had a sensation I’d had before,

Of ancient peace and resistless calm,

And an overwhelming hippyish sense,

Almost embarrassing, hard to ignore,

Of oneness with the world around,

And a sense of a time before I was born.

And the jackdaws circling over head,

Neither cawed, nor carped, but crooned instead,

Like purring doves, or cats making greeting

And they gossiped and nattered, but seemed quite moral

In judgements they passed on their corvid fellows,
As they swirled in the air and floated and played,

Though they lazily mobbed a buzzard above them.

And the noise which they made was a gentle sound,

And the gentleness of it filled my head

And entered my soul and there remained,

Though the moment in relative terms was fleeting,

I knew the birds’ language and felt I loved them,

And that this pure love was greater by far,

Than the height of the sky as I lay on the ground,
Was greater than ever could be contained,
Or described or by poetry be conveyed,

So I listened to pure, cerulean blue,

Which danced with the birds, 

To a lost tune I knew.  

conservative Longings

If only there were something new to think,

it’s not just current thought is simply stale,

but novelty itself can’t satiate.

Ten thousand snowdrops spread beneath the trees.

A deer in the reedy moat has stopped to drink.

The still huge, waning moon is turning pale,

but beauty somehow can’t elucidate.

I must rely on what has gone before

and comprehend that all things interlink.

And all the ancient wisdom must prevail.

And yet I crave some new scent on the breeze,

that might intrigue before it irritate,

and might enthuse before it starts to bore,

might sweep me to the edge and on the brink

of some great breakthrough let me there exhale

and feel the peace of knowing it’s my fate

and duty not to plough ahead, but wait.

On hearing the 77th Brigade Were Involved in Monitoring On Line Chat

A sad sequel to Tom Lehrer's 'So Long, Mom'

(I think you have to sing it to get the metre)

 

So long ma,

the truth is so bizarre,

You won’t think much of me.

Although I’m a soldier,

The loonies all told ya’

Speech is not free,

And that’s down to me.

 

We can’t attack ‘em frontally,

when they get all disgruntley

And spell out in their punditry,

The freedoms we have lost,

No need for you to read descriptions,

Of the agony and human cost.

Little Johnny Jones

He was a British Tommy

And no loser Commie

Was he. He was mighty scared

When he heard lockdown declared

He wouldn’t have dared

To be free

 

And yet he did admit that

He monitored online chat:

So long Ma,

The truth is so bizarre,

You won’t think much of me,

Though I clean the web

I protect every pleb,

Or else they might be,

Confused, don’t you see?

Remember Mater,

The truth will come out later,

I worked for a dictator,

But try to smile somehow,

The truth’s so weird

'Twill be disappeared

An hour and a half from now

 

New Church Ladies

The new church ladies, much the same

As those well known to Barbara Pym,

They know the words of each naff hymn,

In praise of what is trans or BAME.

Their hair is straight, not permed or rinsed,

Although it’s still a shade of blue,

It’s of a deeper, harsher hue,

To match their latest large tattoo.

Their faith is strong, they are convinced,

They’re never wrong nor yet mistaken.

They genuflect and take the knee,

Debate the new theology,

Know when to sneer and victim blame,

And when to praise and feel no shame.

And ‘some form of umbrage can always be taken’.

If others suffer, they are wrong,

Nothing to see now, move along,

These are rules, no exemption,

They do not care what cares you face,

Those not with them do not belong.

It must be so, they have a song,

That tells of what a lovely place

The world will be,

When there’s no trace

Of Western culture, swept aside,

In one last act of suicide,

Which yet will not be thought redemption,

New Church Ladies don’t do Grace.

 

  

On a Quote from RH Tawney

 ‘Clever men are impressed by their differences from their fellows. Wise men are conscious of their resemblance to them.'

I differ from my fellows, I’m unique,

you know it is my mind sets me apart,

I’m separate, not one to fit a clique,

so well informed in science and in art.

I’m simply not like other men I know,

I hesitate to stress superiority

but other chaps are rather dull and slow.

No, I’m not at all like the majority.

I stress my individuality

because my education and my wit

are obviously finer in their quality

well, viewed from here, that is, from where I sit.

There’s no one else at all whom I resemble

and so why should I disguise, dissemble?

I may not always see things as they do,

but other men have so much more to teach 

than in one lifetime I could judge as true

by use of intellect. And so I reach

the old, foxed mirror down from off the wall

and view the man within the glass portrayed

and see my fellow men reflected, small

within my eyes, or soul and slightly greyed,

but unmistakable within that space.

And know that if my instinct can mistrust

the wisdom of my kind and of my race,

then naught remains when I am turned to dust,

for what’s the worth of being educated

if there are none to whom one feels related?