Hoodies

The sight of an obese older man

With a hoodie on

Can cause raised eyebrows at least

Or even derision

Fashion fascists would pigeonhole the old

Carpet slippers and cardies are prescribed

We’d be getting them on the NHS

If it wasn’t being privatised.

Hoodies are for disaffected youths

Who shake crash barriers and shout slogans

Or for historical re-enactors

Who want to live in the middle ages

But medieval squalor could be all our fate

When they take apart the welfare state

So with hoodies on, we’ll barrage the police

With walking sticks, zimmer frames and false teeth.

the five year blues

It’s the day after the election

And I’m trying not to cry,

But above me, the housemartins

Are slicing patterns

In a cloudless sky

It’s the day after the election

The weather’s cleared after rain,

Now Swifts have returned

And scream on the wing

Like I want to scream in pain

I wonder if they’d have come back

If they’d known before they flew

That they were migrants to an island

That has got the five year blues