Shrapnel no.4

Of course I loved you
As we all did
As everybody does
But if

When I was young
I knew what it was to be human
The difficulties
What we can give and all our common flaws

If I'd known these things
And seen you, as you were then
I would have loved you even more.

Painting

I cannot paint like Turner
Nor Van Gogh
Not with any brush,

Not by any measure.

But the process of this failure
Is always a great pleasure.

The last to know

If you were the last to know
Everybody you speak to knows

Too obvious, show don't tell

When over the wall exploring
Like scent precedes the flower
Like light precedes a break in rain
Long before you even saw.

And all that seep through the whorehouse
Full of song, some would settle opposite
As Istanbul.
But other myths.

In Istanbul

My love first saw snowfall

Pulled confusion close in daylight
After arguing, I could have cried
My way through the labyrinth till death.

Are you really the last to know?

Sometimes I find modern poetry has poor technical structure and goes on in purple about idealised intimacy

Modern Poetry
They share so much online now
A little verbose.

More point in refugees

What point Oligarchs and bankers
Who ride upon the backs of millions?
Send not these high men who surf the mass

Send those who are cobblestones
Beneath, those ground under hooves

That would make most of us dust.

These foundations, flint hard intrepids who leapt fences

Swum sharks, send ingenious escapologists

From minefield homes who have left
So as not to take up the gun. Send these
Pressure tested, un crushed carbon based lives
Not fat, soft feathered opulents
Buying golden visas for a seven-figure fee
No, I see more point in refugees.

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