London 2012

Boris bellows as the cauldron flames

The booming mayor bigs up the London Games

Let tears of salty pride run down your face

Welcome to Stratford, what a brilliant place!

Basking in his Eurovision glory

Humperdink’s the man to tell our story

Brandishing a lighter made by Bic

He announces that the Games are ‘sick’

Let the show begin, old Humpy lisps

Releasing a confetti shower ...  of crisps

Around the stadium are the wrong flags

Pound shop bunting made from plastic bags

From a knackered car raised up on bricks

Paul Daniels thrills us with his magic tricks

To follow that the dance of the thugettes

Enjoy it while you munch your chicken nuggets

Appreciate the bankers’ dance of greed

To celebrate a county gone to seed

A spectacle of violence fuelled by beer

Our glorious showcase –  the Parade of Fear

Famed for scribbling, Tracey Emin shows

the best of art, she's flipping great, tha knows!

Frisked by a squaddie up against the wall

You’ll love the gaudy brilliance of it all

Britain is great, it says so on TV

Raised up on stilts our brash vulgarity

You’ll love the sugary drinks and burger bars

The closed-off routes for the Olympic cars

Smile while waiting in your blocked up lane

Enjoy the weather, oh here comes the rain!

The Rose

On days like these, when the sun shines
the crimson rose is summer’s shroud.
We go to work in obedient lines
as she unfurls her perfume cloud.
Down the melting road we flow slowly
a cyclist mops his brow on the hill
as a black cat folds into shadow.
The trick of summer is working still
we are always deceived by her ruse
into believing in the eternal.
But life selected us, we did not choose.
The light wakes us; we are diurnal
invisible forces move through us
we merely turn to the sun, like the rose.

On a poetic form

Of the villanelle I am not a fan
It's alien, it causes me nervousness
It's foreign, like garlic or Parmesan

Ressembling the tango or can-can
Its twists and turns are superfluous
Of the villanelle I am not a fan

Alternating rhyme is Italian
That's Ok. But, really, it's not for us
It's foreign, like garlic or Parmesan

Or other forms of verse that scan
Like them, it is merely meretricious
Of the villanelle I am not a fan

Perhaps because I am an Englishman
I don't like too much bother, or a fuss
It's foreign, like garlic or Parmesan

Five rhymed tercets, followed by a quatrain
Usually make me feel nauseous
It's foreign, like garlic or Parmesan
Of the villanelle I am not a fan


The villanelle has been described by one anthology as "exquisite torture, wrapped into 19 lines." It’s easy to see why poets became obsessed with the form: a villanelle combines repeating refrain lines, rhyme and cross-rhyme schemes that can boggle the mind but also produce beautiful works. The 19 lines break down to five tercets and a closing quatrain. The first three lines of the poem serve as the driving force, with the first and third lines serving as alternate refrains to close the other four tercets. The two refrains join to finish the poem as a couplet. The final line of each tercet also rhymes with the first line of the following stanza, forming a repetitive rhyme. Villanelles can employ from six to 11 syllables per line; most modern villanelles run from eight to 11 syllables per line, carrying three to five measured beats.

Being happy

Having a future makes us happy
Frozen in now we are in prison
A sense of perspective makes us free

We need, not to be solitary
The prospect of a new season
Having a future makes us happy

The trapped soul needs to see
Something on the horizon
A sense of perspective makes us free

A holiday, a new country
Or a shelf to place our hopes on
Having a future makes us happy

Blue water and sky are the key
To release our human vision
A sense of perspective makes us free

Emerald fields, topiary
A sparkling bay to dream on
A sense of perspective makes us free
Having a future makes us happy

Ecstasy

I have been there, bought the tee-shirt, done that
and so, I no longer desire to be
some hippy loon sitting under a tree
spaced out, grinning like a Cheshire cat
to be frank, I prefer reality
to a full-frontal chemical attack
if I went there, I would have to come back –
a return ticket from epiphany
I've dropped a tab or two, I've been there
I've read the manual, but now it grates
(the druggy one by Timothy Leary)
now, in a circular world, I am square
I'd much rather be with the straights
than zonked out of my head on ecstasy

Am I happy?

For Nicole, a villanelle 






Ask yourself, honestly, ‘am I happy?’
Lie on the damp grass, in your favourite spot
Peer through the spindle of an ash tree

So as to interrogate the grey sky
You are not hungry, or freezing, but
Ask yourself, honestly, ‘am I happy?’

The birds don't seem to be, they merely fly
And the leaves, they just hang there, shot
Peer through the spindle of an ash tree

Of the tortured branches, seek a reply
Go on, I know you must do it a lot
Ask yourself, honestly, ‘am I happy?’

Seek the answer throughout the galaxy
From alpha to omega, dot to dot
Peer through the spindle of an ash tree

Deep down you know it's pointless really
Because, if you have to ask you are not
Peer through the spindle of an ash tree
Ask yourself, honestly, ‘am I happy?’

“Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way. The enjoyments of life (such was now my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning.”

John Stuart Mill, English philosopherhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill

Flowers

 












They are the gift that keeps on giving
Through sleet, snow, drizzle and showers
They provide an exemplar for living
Ah, where would we be without flowers?
Humans are fickle; they give a reason
To lift our tired bodies each day.
Reliably, they announce each season
Paint pictures on a palette of grey. 
The village fete was spoiled by rain
Why, oh why did we pin our hopes on him? 
The game went to penalties again
Lost the match. Lost Wimbledon. Come on Tim!
Sopping wet, we traipse around like fools
Why? To look at flowers, in our cagoules

Ordinary rag

An Horation Ode upon the departure of Bob Diamond

A lion with a mouse’s heart
Now is the time for you to part
For it has come to pass –
Your pinstriped arse is grass

Twas you who passed the lavish cheques
To mediocre non-execs
And rotten to the core
The traders on the floor

A corporate culture steeped in greed
Expressed a country gone to seed
For years it was thus
A world of them and us

Of wealthy flunkeys in black tights
And noxious trust fund parasites
The thick, idle and bent
Fat with entitlement

The Eton cronies and their ilk
Who guzzle down champagne like milk
As they, both pimp and whore
Take money from the poor

The bankers on the City bus
Who whinge on as they steal from us
Delighting in their trade
A corporate ram raid

We’ll quit the country they implore
If you dare tax us any more
I say well fuck off then
You avaricious men

Your forced departure from the bank
Will give you ample time to ... think
You won’t apologise
For all your greed or lies

Or the millions that you took
Perhaps you’ll write a boring book
But no-one would read through
A tome as dull you