Shady Lady

The 1980s weren't just politically vile they were aesthetically rubbish












Aesthetic horrors from her bands

The worst one was Duran Duran
Dictators paid in Krugerrands 

When Simply Red came on I ran 

Jolly games of bridge and tennis

A home in Dulwich: better buy it
G and Ts and golf for Dennis

A gated world of peace and quiet

She didn’t like her men too lippy –

Part of the creed of Thatcherism

And she invented Mr Whippy

A hint of sadomasochism?

The world after they bombed the Grand

Violent, tasteless, trite and bland

Alpha

His suits are sharp, he works at night

A hint of stubble, shadowed eyes

His website is in black and white

To cross him would be most unwise

He hunts wild animal for sport

Antlered creatures in a wood

His car is the high-octane sort

He’d suck the tailpipe if he could

The papers love his bad-boy looks

The craggy fissures of his face

He is the alpha of the cooks

See his keen blade unzip a plaice

His bounty from the blood and dark

A home in leafy Holland Park

Ms Whiplash

Maggie Thatcher closed the mines

And beat up men on picket lines

Dumped the poll tax on the poor

Sent the bailiffs to the door

Maggie champion of greed

Leader of our bulldog breed

Maggie was a master thief

Stole the fillings from your teeth

Gave the rich a holiday

Left us with austerity

Maggie crying in her car

Cold eyes of Caligula

Maggie friend of guts and gore

Took us to a vicious war

The Belgrano sailed away

But she sank it anyway

Maggie heroine of hate

Blood on her bone china plate

Mandela was a ‘terrorist’

Never on her Christmas list

Fought the ‘enemy within’

Gave intolerance a spin

No one looks at me that way

She's our fuckin’ queen OK

Don’t apply if you are black

Shoot a gypsy in the back

Wear a crisply-knotted tie

As you screw society

Steal the assets of the state

Leave compassion at the gate

Justin Bieber's monkey

If I was truly talented, I would write an ode to Justin Bieber's monkey - use it as a metaphor for a trapped, performing animal snatched too young from its mother - a creature abandoned in some German airport – taken into custody by a uniformed official like a jibbering refugee. Poor Bieber. Poor monkey. Apparently, he only has four friends (Bieber, not the monkey) - real friends, not his millions of followers on Twitter. Bieber late for his own concert - late for his own bedtime. Snatching a kebab when he should be in bed. Sometimes Bieber looks like a monkey. The city does not seem to be his natural milieu. See the fear shine in his eyes. He slouches like a missing link, his trousers half-down. The fire of his celebrity is burning him. Where does monkey end and Bieber begin? Free Bieber! Release him into the wild!

Sun on daffodils

Once we were content to sit in the dark

We would pray for its return (or at least try)

Ages passed. Who was the first bright spark

To snare the sun. To pull it down from the sky?

When we had tamed it, placed it in a wire

We were Prometheus and Hyperion

Our night times were pin-pricked by fires

Our cities blazed like millions of suns

If we were not afraid, if we were autonomous

When it came back, we would not feel gratitude

But we do. A memory of darkness lives in us

Light compels us; it masters our moods

And so – we drive up into the hills

Sun on snow. Shadow. Sun on daffodils

Easter Sunday 31 March 2013. Went to the Malvern Hills to remember my parents.  There were 29 of us, I think - brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, cousins, second cousins, girl friends, boy friends .... We assembled in the cafe, The Kettle Sings, where they ‘used to do their courting’, as the saying goes. The sun was shining. The poem grew from the image in the last line.