King Charles and my prostrate gland
Have made me
into a republican man,
For whilst I
groan and strain to piss,
Stuck on sixty-week
waiting list,
That monarch,
who I won’t call mine,
Is operated
on and can recline,
In a warm
clean private hospital bed,
Attentively nursed
and very well fed,
Whilst I wait
micturation, incomplete
On a cold
suburban toilet seat.
Oh honey, oh buzzard, oh honey buzzard,
Glide over serene in a cold blue winter sky.
Honey why do they name you buzzard, honey?
Since you do not buzz,
Like an
untimely woken wasp queen,
Or an
annoying immature bluebottle.
What meat
are you seeking to spy,
As you ride
the wind over London?
No bees nest
yet,
Only ant
people move below you,
In buses,
cars and lorries
Carrying stuff
which will be thrown away,
Collected recycled,
reloaded
And carried
away to be remade
And carried
around again.
Sail over it
all honey buzzard.
Come back again
To find the bees and the honey
When all the stuff has gone.
Is this the time to make words rhyme tightly?
Make them
curve and curl, twist and swirl,
Round about
each other and in and out?
Over and
under, knotting untying and retying
Into chains,
ropes, networks and skeins.
Like snakes,
ladders and dragons,
Carved into
a stone or a or a prow,
Following contours
like ploughed lines,
Cut into
soil, wood , bone and stone.
Sunlight sets me off.
It could
burn you to a crisp,
Or drive you
mad, before it killed you
With
dehydration and/or heat exhaustion.
Yet even on
a freezing day,
When
pavements are punctuated
By static
streaks of frozen water,
Sunlight sets me off,
Like coming up unexpectedly
On a wondrous consequence-free drug.
I’m high laughing and smiling
At silly ideas;
But, if and only if,
I’ve got somewhere warm to sit
And gaze through double glazing
At cold, cold sunlight outside.
From a far safe place,
Through a
sanitising computer screen
I see buildings
falling,
People dying.
Weapons
firing.
Rising smoke
I try to find
Scant hope
That this is the cigar butt of empire
Being ground out at last
On human skin;
But that hope is weak and thin.
Nebuchadnezzar
And before
him,
Emperors of
Qin and
The Sumerian
kings;
Then even
further back,
Before
people were people,
As Jane Goodall saw
Chimpanzees make war.
Does it run
through us
Like veins
through flesh,
Are we
enmeshed?
Trapped like
rats,
Fighting in
a pit
Whilst gods
look down
And laugh?
Fat, fat
squirrel
A small
furry Buddha
Complacently
Sitting in the tree.
Monopolising
the bird food.
‘bird food’,
bird feeders’, ‘birds’,
These are
only human words,
And the squirrel has no quarrel,
Since this food is free
Apparently
Until the market kicks in
As markets do
Another squirrel appears
And wants to munch
Some birdfood lunch
So, squirrel number one
Chases squirrel number two
To the top of the tree
And to the next tree as well
Then squirrel number three
Catches the smell,
And the smell is good.
So, squirrel number three
goes for the food.,
This incites one or two,
Which it is, I cannot say
To chase three away.
And once the chase is on
Two squirrels are gone,
Then a fat squirrel comes back
To eat more birdfood
And attempt again
To get even more fat.
Get up in the morning,
Kill pity
for breakfast,
Put on your helmets,
So, you can’t
hear the cries.
Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, the Israelites.
Carry holy text
In your flak jacket pocket,
So that what you will do
Can be justified.
Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, the Israelites.
If you have
lost one,
Does your
book tell you,
That then
seventeen
More people must
die?
Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, the Israelites.
Ride in your
armour
Through ruined
Gaza,
Look out of
the hatch,
At the
wasteland you’ve made.
Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, the Israelites.
You think
you will end it,
But you’ll
prolong it,
Revenge will
grow strong,
From the seed
that you’ve sown.
Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, the Israelites.
