fact, opinion and poetry (not airy-fairy)


Saturday 20 July 2013

The Zimmerman Frame

Zimmerman has been framed
On a charge of being white.
His photo has been changed
To make his skin look light.

He doesn't fit the narrative
The opportunists seek.
But with Photoshop against him,
His chances now look bleak.

The politicians gather
Like vultures drawn to meat.
If they can get momentum up
The white charge can't be beat.

His brown skin cannot save him.
They will say that black is white.
When they scent the money,
They don't care what's wrong or right.

They want to big themselves right up,
Get on the Oprah Winfrey show,
Pretend to be some kind of hero,
And make a lot of easy dough.
 
At the time of writing, Zimmerman has been found not guilty of murder, but race
 politicians are trying to get some kind of federal case up against him.

Monday 15 July 2013

Crass Circuit Televisual Violation

You're on CCTV! the notice brays,
In a brash, abrasive fashion.
They are so proud,
To boast out loud,
We're a mass surveillance nation.

Whence came this vulgar urge to spy,
To commit a crass intrusion?
How England has changed, 
Old values estranged,
We need a privacy transfusion.

Saturday 13 July 2013

Thermal Doggerel

The heat is hot
And cool it's not,
The temperature is soaring.
To sweat and burn may be our lot,
But at least it isn't boring.

The washout summer's gone away,
A sultry heatwave's settled in;
It feels like it has come to stay,
So I seek some place that's cool within,
Like air-conditioned Sainsbury.
 
An 'on the bus' effort. It just came into my head, towards the end of a long, hot trip.

Friday 12 July 2013

Foxglove Summer

The foxglove comes into its own,
Just as the lupins fade;
In roadside verge or garden,
Or wild in woodland glade,
With tall and purple majesty,
Swaying gently in the breeze.

On city lot, or country farm,
The foxglove rarely fails to please.
It has no need of cultivation,
And propagates with ease;
Its graceful bells allure the bees,
Who give them tender approbation.
 
 
Some lupins seem to be outlasting some of the foxgloves! Oh well. 
 
Possibly similar theme (verse 1 anyway):
Castle Gardens 

Saturday 6 July 2013

Reaping Richard's Bounty

Who is Leicester's biggest star?
Is it Engle Humperdinck?
Or big-eared Gary Lineker?
They both have been eclipsed by far,
By a man called Richard Tudor.

If he came forward in time,
I think he'd be surprised to find,
His face stare out from empty shops;
Which may have been his favourite spots,
When he came here once before.
But - I doubt it.

Purple boards are everywhere,
Bearing King Dick's bony stare.
He looks quite dead in these promotions,
As PR hacks go through the motions.

The town of York has put their claim in,
As he was the duke thereof;
It's no wonder that they want him,
Since his skelly's worth a fortune.
Possession's nine points of the law,
So we'll fend off their greedy paws;
King Dick's ours and we will keep him.

We have no dagger, cloak or sceptre;
We haven't even got a letter!
King Dick's bones are all we've got,
So they're pulling out all the stops.
We have a King Dick exhibition,
But it's really quite a shit 'un.
People queue to see some cardboard,
In a town where he was abhorred.

Where they hit him with a flail,
Is now the 'King Richard Trail'.
They dragged his body through the town,
Bashed and hacked and spat upon him,
Long after he was dead and down.

It's now his responsibility,
To revive our ailing economy.
We have his bones but cannot show them.
The law says that we can't display
Bones in the old-fashioned way.
We have to keep him in a box.
Upon this law we say - a pox!



When I came to this city thirty years ago, the economy was based on knitwear, light engineering, electronics and footwear. They are gone. Now we are told we are to make £140m p.a. from a box of old bones that no-one is allowed to look at.

PS 19th Aug :
The Yorkist poltroons have launched a fresh assault at the High Court, and been granted
judicial review. Into the Tower with them! A pack of knaves, claiming to be close relatives
of a man who died 500 years ago, a scientific impossibility. 

The Human Condition - Part II

The human race 
Is far from grace;
Minds clouded by unreason.

The sly rogue's con
Is always on,
In this or any season.

He knows the way
To get our pay,
He'll give us a good fleecing.

The politician's
On a mission,
To question him is treason.

So it's bombs away,
We get no say,
The wars rage without ceasing. 
 
I've split this in two. It seemed to be naturally in two parts.
Part 1:
The Human Condition 

Too Sensitive by Far

I stagger off the sweltering bus,
And enter blessed shade.
Its cool brings soothing respite
From the searing glare.

It seems not very long ago,
That this whole land was frozen.
Yet now we suffer from the heat,
And its companion pollen.

It is our fate,
We're delicate,
Too sensitive by far,
To warmth or cold or wind or wet,
Which our contentment mar.
 
This was composed in St Margaret's bus station, at the end of a long hot trip.
It is reportage in the form of verse. 
On a related theme: 
Spring the Changes 
 
If an alien explorer landed upon Earth, and had only enough bandwidth to send back one
sentence to describe us, it would surely be: 'They grumble about the weather.'

Friday 5 July 2013

Durance Vile

In this world of lies and bull,
Only those deaf-blind are free;
When scoundrels pose and play the fool,
They can neither hear nor see.

Manipulation is the game,
The charlatans love playing at.
We must pretend to think the same
Or they'll hunt us like a rat.

Their ideas are ignorant,
But they do not care at all.
Anyone who contradicts them,
Is thus riding for a fall.

They like to throw their weight about,
While preaching 'gainst intolerance.
So stern opinions they shout out,
Which puts the softies in a trance.

Propaganda is their tool,
To do the public's heads right in.
Using it they'll make a fool
Of all those who listen in.

Absolutist vehemence
Is the nature of their creed.
They brook no sitting on the fence,
Will punish those who pay no heed.

They bully morning, noon and night,
While preaching of equality.
Their condemnations cast a blight
On those who lack modernity.

Claiming to speak for the underdog,
They hound the old and weak in mind;
They manage to live high on the hog,
It seems they always funding find.

We must watch for what we say,
Every minute of every day,
Or they'll sic their pigs on us,
Kick up an unholy fuss.

They take away our dignity,
Riding roughshod over our will,
While claiming it's to set us free
That they spout their canting swill.

If we're not to live as slaves,
We must be free to get away
With conduct unsatisfactory,
In the eyes of stern authority.
 
On similar topics (propaganda, intolerance): 

The power of repetition 
Two shades of grey