WATER

 Jam a dam into a valley.

This edifice gives an illusion of control.

The water rises behind the dam

A lake expands.

Apparently water obeys

Our concrete and steel commands.

Land is drowned

Because experts think

This is how our cities will drink.

And enslaved water will wash away

Skin detritus, shit, piss, soapsuds and more

Again and again and again and again

Through the prisons we have made for it

Sewers, conduits, gutters, canals and drains.

Until the day when  water rebels

And washes us all away.

MISERABLE OLD PISS ARTIST

Carry the past on your back,

Like a rock-filled rucksack.

Carry it until your bones groan and crack.

Carry all those indexed texts,

Directories, dictionaries and holy tomes,

All heavier than any stones;

All along a seemingly endless uphill track,

When nothing must be dropped,

And you cannot slack.

Then pull sodden cloth from washing machine,

As you dream about

What might have been.

If, and only, if you had been able

To completely control the movement of water.

But it was always too fast, too free, too unstable.

It suddenly fell from the sky.

At school they taught you why,

Yet it broke any riverbanks, sea defences

Rules or theories placed in its way.

And sometimes flowed uncontrollably,

From your eyes.

Then what made you even madder,

Than when emotions flowed

Making you happier or sadder

Was when you could not stop water

Exiting your bladder.

VAN GOGH SOUP THROWERS

Van Gogh soup throwers

Shower sunflowers

With gazpacho

And spatter cultural artefacts

With consommé,

All for the sake of political impact.

Lock up these insolent pups!

Wipe the additive laden orange liquid off

The picture glass

Wipe art’s arse.

There, there it’s all clean now,

Culture can the safely consumed again

This culinary gesture can be ignored

And gallery goers can file around exhibits,

Feigning fascination whilst secretly bored

But climate change will go on and on,

Until it’s too late

And shit-enhanced Thames water soup

Floods into the Tate. 

A NEW LEAF

 If you turn over a new leaf

You might find a slug underneath it.

Then perhaps, you’ll relapse,

Go b ack to the old well worn ways

Of crawling through day after day, after day, after day.

You might revert and desert

The shiny path of virtue

Tight vice might be tailor made

To suit you better

But deferred gratification

Might extract you from this situation.

It’s deep rooted in your DNA, anyway.

So, don’t sip from the bottle, avoid the flagon

Stay sitting in the straw

On the floor of the wagon.

Just trundle in the tumbril

You’re going to get there anyway

One day.

I FOUND A TIME MACHINE

I found a time machine

In my back room

Which had been there for years

But it now suddenly appeared

In this suburban situation.

It was not a contraption

Of levers and dials

From HG Wells’ great imagination.

Nor the end of a space-time hole or crack

Which terminators could use

To go when and then again go  back.

It was only an old portfolio

Made of cardboard fabric and tape

Which was a portal to long passed days

When the artworks in it were made

Young boys sitting a maths exam

In nineteen thirty one

And the artist noted in at a later time

After the drawing was done

That one of the boys

Spat fire in the skies

Flying a fighter plane

Whilst the artist worked on beneath

Painting the bombsites

In blast ravaged London streets.

I close the portfolio

And travel back to now

Where war is still carves human meat

Oh time machine,

Please carry me off

To a future of freedom and peace.

RAFT: a pedant’s rant

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAFT

I can’t stand it when people say RAFT,

It annoys an old FAAAAAART like me

To not use this word accurately

Describing a wooden assemblage that floats,

And is not a boat

But is also used to mean 

An obscene metaphorical assemblage

Of bullshit political proposals. 

Then there’s ROBUST

An annoying adjective applied

To many a spurious RAFT of lies.

It no longer means strong, healthy or fit

I’m really unsure of the significance of it

When it’s frequently emitted

By politician pundits, scribblers and babblers

Who keep on saying ROBUST

It’s like a maggot crawling from under a pie crust.

It’s almost as bad as UPTICK

It makes me sick

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAFT

AN ONLINE CONFERENCE

 I’m there and I’m not there

Because I’m here

Sitting in my chair

Looking at people seen

Like talking postage stamps

On my computer screen.

Yattering and chattering

Debating and berating,

Oozing charm and derision,

Raising my suspicions.

Whilst their words go in one ear

Mistrust whispers in the other.

Despite slick presentations

And passionate orations,

Mistrust just won’t go away.

I’m too cynical and aged,

For real speakers on real stages,

So, I’ll sit here at home

Scratch my head, fart and groan.

While the postage stamp people

Burble, babble on and on

And endlessly intone’

Turning my remaining brain cells

Into arid echoing bone.