What discord followed

Did I not tell you
As family and friend
Never to deny your love for me
And yet you did.
What discord followed.

You grasped the rose
The wrong part
Too tight and fought
The air about your nose.
A sorry show.

Did I not tell you
As a guru and a guide
Never to deny your love for me
And yet you did
What death of joy.

What ashen wrangle
Smashed china sorrow
There is no reweaving of ripped cloth
A stitch, a patch, a scar, a loss.

He told you
In jealousy and fear
To deny your love for me
And for him, you were not brave
From such instances our lives are made.

The Oracle at Brixton

“All change please”
Prescription clear as scripture

The robot implores
Doors still closed

You could not state a truer picture of our times

And this dilemma

“For your own safety
Please stand back from the yellow line”

Hear, these are those unsafe times
We must all change
And to change
Must cross the yellow line.

By Etonians, for Etonians

You can't say he didn't tell you

They're in it together.
Tailcoat banquets
Sanctioned dole cheques

They gave your tax breaks
To a fat cat in Sark.
Dark. I think of Lincoln
Don't buy it again
A government of Etonians
By Etonians, for Etonians.
They're in it together my friend.

DNA Rights!

The birds, the bees

The educated fleas
They all have love

Have fear and pain.

The flowers, trees

Even cultivated peas
Care for their children

Can flourish and gain.

Is it fear of our similarity
More valuable for singularity
More comforting in unkind disparity
All life deserves respect not charity.

Fight for life, by day and by night
For all upon earth, call DNA rights!

Google it

Look we can Google it
The tools are all in place

Just give MPs a Google account

And we can track their every pace

See their smiling face

Hear what songs they sing

And what company they grace.

Offer helpful suggestions

Prick their conscience

Pique their interest

Get prompt answers to those questions.

All for about £1300
We seem slow to understand

We have tools to control democracy

From the palms of our hands.

Sack em all put whitehall on a Wiki

You might say vote this one
Vote for that one because of that
But in truth, I'm not that picky
Sack em all, put Whitehall on a wiki.

Amateurs from out of town

Sent to London to watch the crown

Was a great idea in 1200 AD

But obviously

With the web we can sack em all
And put Whitehall on a wiki.

Some of them corrupt, lazy

Incompetent and such
Some of them be tax evaders
Eating the “double Irish- Dutch”

The solution is not tricky

We can sack em all

And put Whitehall on a wiki.

You want policy done by people who know what they're doing

MPs know about a lying and bring the country to ruin.
Before the situation gets any more sticky

We have to sack them all, put Whitehall on a wiki.

They will not sell the NHS

They will not sell the NHS

Trust me, I know best.

They'll sell the land beneath its feet

And cut the staff like fields of wheat.

You'll get every drug from N.I.C.E

Without a blink, at twice the price.

They'll bury it in a mound of debt

And all the while let's not forget

When you watch another hearse

It will all be paid from the public purse.

The free press

They fought and fled
In shackles died

To have books read

And town hear cry.

To make print free

Words cut and dry

So all decide

With their own eyes.

They fought and fled

In shackles died

And yet it seems

Under Sun and Sky

The free press now

Costs much to buy.

Voter

You say you love the country
Sing god save the queen
Recite the school taught history
Keep Great Britain clean.

Don't claim to be a patriot
You're an idiot.
Puppet for the global loaded

Fodder for propaganda bots.

Sons of empire

Will you get a price for her down river
Will they ever

Listen to you again.

Friend you're not a patriot

You're a short sighted

Destructive idiot.

Deceased in Smog

All's well that ends well
Sometimes the wise course is
A trouble to tell
But on counterfactual, conjecture
We should not dwell
Like @Jacob_Rees_Mogg choking
On the 19th floor
Of Grenfell's smoked filled stairwell.

Dead letters

Wick ghost, most cherished

I sketch pissed emphemera in pencil

Soot tress this spring all the more

For the less of you

When callous

I laugh at your choice

Ignorant of the act, ill observant

Yet you know

I would be harder, demand you grow

Than all the giddy drunks you make

The muse like seasons

Persistent           I celebrate you wanting

More              in your unkowing

Wish you every blessing.

It is with some hurt, my jet

I laugh at your choice

But I do.

So do you.

Shrapnel No.56

Because I was effortless
In the giving of these gifts
You took it all for granted
Didn't think they would be missed.
Good friends we had
Good friends we lost
Along the way.
I hope we meet again some day.

Best player ever

Ballon D'Or,

Phwoah, do a step over
Dribble some more.
The world's best player
For those who are savvy
Was once called Xavi – Iniesta – Xavi.

Most footballers count one-two
Wall pass, fly through
But great players make triangles
We all know they do.
How do make one with two, not three

Ask that player Xavi- Iniesta – Xavi.

Some players read the game
But a few write the book
Know the next chapter
From only a look
But there's a novelist, with multiple triologies
That player known as Xavi-Iniesta-Xavi

Duels won zero, successful dribbles, zero

You'd think his man-marker was some kind of hero
The truth is the poor lad never got close
Spent ninety-minutes just chasing a ghost
With passes so sensitive they're type you could marry
Off the boots of that player
Xavi-Iniesta-Xavi.

First world problems

The rich have private jets and yachts and yet the shops
Have no cocoa
These boutiques of Brezhnev where you cannot even queue.

I got first world problems
I got first world problems
Like they dissolved jobs into chips and bits
Extract my characteristics
To bamboozle me and sell me shit.

I got first world problems
Like the 20th century infrastructure miracle distilling
Sixty cents in the dollar
Piped, alembic like, into the infinitely capacitous pockets
Of Jeff Bezos, that leaves the rest of us.....

I got first world problems
Like they only make magic money to rearrange property rights
Privatise my collective services
To incompetent fly-by-nights.

I got first world problems
Like they covered the land in tarmac
So you can't grow food
But you can drive to buy it back.

I got first world problems
Like my mind is under attack
By nefarious cabals
That develop their social agenda on crack.

I got first world problems
Like social organisation is complex beyond my comprehension
N-dimensional factorials. An utter dependence on expert systems
Like trains, traffic lights international logistics, wires and gas pipes.

I got first world problems
Like government beyond amateur comprehension
And I've got amateur representation
They said I was above it
But then they closed my station.
(What would you do?)

I got first world, timeless problems
Like barbarians inside the gates
Power high coke fiends that pillage and rape.

It's loco
I got first world problems
I bought the shop out of tropical products like cocoa.

Lost phone

It was shiny and new
Boo hoo Boo hoo
And its camera shot true
Boo hoo Boo hoo
I lost my phone down the Tube
Boo hoo Boo hoo.
It did so many things
I don't need to do.
Boo hoo Boo hoo

I said its dead.

99.9998% of people on the planet
Fight over 7% of the world's wealth

That's 7% for your food, family, education and health
1300 people own everything else.

Is it broken?

Say you're woke but have you woken?

Bleat capitalism, sheep track, goose chase, dog bark wrong tree
Can't see, the wood, forgive him
They make money of you breathing and living

Life's cheap
Turkeys ain't got franchise

If you're woke then blink
If you can't see what's in front of your eyes
Then you'll only ever know what they told you to think.

From each according to their ability
To each according to their need

Sounds like Linux, Sourceforge, YouTube tutorials to me

With 7% for us.
Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos the surplus.

Citizens of nowhere

Citizens of nowhere
Dog whistle, it's Daoist
The yin and yang
Each word its opposite manifests.

Citizens of our Empire.
Citizens of nowhere
Dog whistle the map dots
Spots like Rockall
Sandbars, cocktail bars, Anguila
Citizens of nowhere.

Mother of that vision
Citizens of nowhere
With zeal and greed
Private planes for old men, old women
Handcuffed.
She stole a nurse's passport
And made her die overseas.
Citizens of nowhere.

Leaves like ears and tongues

I have been waiting for the Sage to flower

This village of grey green furred leaves like ears

In spring rooves spread curved about the compost

Now build cathedrals, articulates spires

Skyward, like furred radio towers.

I have been waiting for the Sage to flower.

How it has grown, grey-green furred leaves like tongues

That wag in wind, pregnant with utterance.

Rising like a snap of timelapsed helicopters

They stretch their soft cupped tips slowly upwards.

My mother says it is good husbandry

To snip back stem to base before it seeds

Or that lush Sage company grows chaos.

Sparse mess of wooden lines, withered ears

A mass of snakes at death. The roots expire.

I have been waiting for the Sage to flower

This tall copse of rushes, soft leaves like ears

Still in the morn, a landing patch for flies

Around the black bin a grey forest throngs

Steadily rising furred leaves like tongues.

Faeries make their home there, in purple cups

A bit like bluebells, with a summer outlook

A feast for bees now the rocket has passed

All the Daisies and Borrage, Thyme flowers.
Since retired my mother's Thyme is pruned

To perfectly round bowers, pres d'Agen.

I have been waiting for the Sage to flower
Its towers engulf the old compost bin
Slender grey green palms now stand two foot tall

Their bobbled leaves loll slow like thirsty tongues
Hanging silent in the July sun.

Thick trunked trees well mulched, strawberry patches
A thatch of dry grass, Ivy and Yew
And the faeries will stop, when they pass through
Sprites and pixies too will come
For the purple flower with veined leaves like tongues.

I have been waiting for the Sage to flower

From rising tongues it has built its empire

Elaborates joints like candelarbra
The old black compost bin in forest lost
A cloud of veined grey-green tongues that thrust.

I thought, clear in error, some dyslexic
Misfiled season that Sage when it strung
Its palisade in spring would purple bring
And faeries soon but many moons have sank
And still, my mother would have said the other
A, not April, how fell, my foolish mind
Does serve me ill.

At some august time, correct and proper
After purple sentinels have trumpeted their nectar
The grey-green tongues have fed the zenithed bells
When flies have drank and bees, the faeries swum
In purple cups and pixies played harp
Upon the petals; I will take scissors
Cut stalk to base afresh, tight bunch the stems
With Honeysuckle twine and hold bright flame
Carrying all about house and garden
As witches would have done
A censer make of silent grey green tongues.

For good faeries will come rushing to aid
And bad faeries will turn tail and run
When they smell the scent of a home burning
The purple cups and their soft ears aflame
Fig hollow, foxglove will house those that came.

And set ground afresh for spirits next year
I have been waiting for the Sage to flower.

Shrapnel 102

I put a pin into a fountain and it failed
What is one to do when there's no donkey for the tail?
What is one to do when you've an aeroplane to mail?
I put a pin into a fountain and it failed.

Shrapnel 31

The was I time I ran
Broken mooreland and glen

And clouds gathered like a temper

The clouds were not looking for me
I did not dance for them to come

Yet it rained

The gathering weight of water drops
Washing salt, sweet over my lips
I drank every breath.