Thursday 7 October 2010

Epigrams






The British Economy
The economy is in danger, so they say
of the so-called double-dip, I had one
as I took a ride, felt funny in my tummy
and what was stranger on that very day
I threw up a betting slip and all my money.

The British Government

You can't take a horse to water
But from the horse's mouth we get her
the Mare, weak at the knees, Britannia
a f-king pantomime steed wanting a head
but given a Clegg and a Cameron for
half the price of democracy, a nag and a
stallion, taking us all to the knacker's yard.

X Factor

From the hole of an ass, comes the talent
of the wannabes, blessed by popularity
and hype, the Cowell and the Cole, rent
our minds for an hour or so, in hilarity
we mind more for twaddle than the absent
men and women paid to do our dirty
in Afghanistan or Iraq, or the people sent
to an early grave, they mark with an X

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Flight from the colder clime


Flight from the colder clime; the sign of winter time,
Two or three geese, stragglers, add imperfection
To the machine of instinct, maybe older or not so fit,
They nevertheless, will reach their final destination,
Maybe the clay pond again; and at my foot like a sheet
Of cardboard, the flattened toad which could do as
A book mark for Nature’s book of Life and Death, though
The odds are the foot of a human inconsiderate to what
Is below, a giant juggernaut of will and desire, did by
Accident, one would hope, though it could have been
Willful, tread on the young toad newly emerged from
Tadpole, to expire in the act of the thoughtlessness.
Then later, the hooded crows on the traffic sign
Eye the fastfood wrapper, they too are addicted to salt
And sugar of the corporate shite, they too will return
And return, fight and bicker over a burger or the snicker
Bar half-chewed, maybe their iron constitutions will
Contain the toxic future, as rats, as cockroaches,
As humans – those apex trash eaters – full of plastic
And pollutants.
But then, I see a pair of magpies, a couple, who on the bank
Of another pond do seem in their wag of tail, glint of eye,
In their very ambit, to confirm some kind of embrace,
A courtship in continuum, they mirror I think the human
Race, at least in the outside motor of behaviour, their crow
Cousins in the air gambol in the semblance of friendship
Yet perhaps, it is for the best that here too one should apply
Morgan’s canon, will then keep all these beautiful animals
In mindless oblivion, to the terror of the dark side, as Johny
Cash sings, the beast in me, oh yes, the beast in the human.

Monday 4 October 2010

Shame-faced

Shame-faced I imped my response
Upon the late library copy of Carol
Rumens, the swell of the hopeless
And lame-excused, happily all in all
To abandon oneself to the fine of Nature
That accumulates with lost ice floes
Which in the vastness of Emily’s compass
Seems awesome and breathtakingly tragic
Would it be only condensation on bubbles
In the Garden of Worldly delights, or but
A globule of dew on the morning grass
Except , in the godly sites, the burden of
Man and woman’s span, graces the blues
Of seas and skies, with the greyness
Of unheard prayers, and the darkness of hell,
If one could only draw inspiration from this
And change like the caterpillar to butterfly
Turn the clocks back, to the time of Emily
At least, then with industry revolt against progress
Which demands the decimation of the natural
Leaving in its wake, images or words as keepsake
Shamefaced I limned our demise
In the style of the archive, as Philip Pain
Meditating on the shipwreck that is our peril.