Human Rights

Rectitude and moral maze
Seem like to meet their end of days
In hands of saint whose might has ways
Of punishing our own delays

While failure to address unknowns
Has sold what titles to our moans
Could yet be called mere gifts or loans
With careful words we’ll leave these zones

Ally ourselves to no more men
And disbelieve reports of when
The road to peace was better ken
Of others’ culture, sword and pen

The velvet curtain will hold fast
And legislation will bow past
Poor sight-impaired judicial mast
Whose figure seems to fade, aghast

As scales are stripped of balanced view
No counterpoint, but reference, new
Established as alternate to
Our older values, now too few

To understand the loss we face
Try to supplant a lesser place
And see the bold, inhuman race
Condemn all pity, justice, grace

Awakening at last, too late
The image of our fellows’ fate
With little thought and careless hate
We’ll watch our own asphyxiate.

Duellist

To whom must I carry
This fight for my life?
May I choose the weapon
I wield in such bout?

Too much goes unchallenged
To forego the knife
It’s all souls be damned
If we don’t have it out

Or is it unwritten
More truistic lore
That what may have been
Is what yet must endure?

If such be the ruling
I fancy it time
The tables were tipped
To new flavour of crime

I’m deluged by duty
The dreadfullest foe
And Wednesday’s child
Has a head-ful of woe

A small enough wager
This minimal soul
All but shredded for bandages
Wholesomely foul

To gather her forces
Aye, therein the rub
With little to muster
And less up above

But battle she will
Nay, still stronger – she must
Ere the blood in her veins
Stains the dust dirty rust

So passionless sweethearts
Untruthful and grey
Be leached of my love
And stay hidden away

I’ve a need to reclaim
All the hours I lost
And hold views on the interest
Added to cost

Here’s a health to the vigorous
May she prepare
For all that her demons
Can throw at her there

It soon will be ended
Decided and done
And with luck of the draw
She may keep what is won

The Superior Man

Pickle me in kindness
So my praises, sweetly sung
May give fragrant, brief reminders
Of the works these hands have spun

Leave no gentle act unlauded
Let no deed pass as unknown
Thus may toil be fair-rewarded
‘Ere we trundle, meekly home

While you while away the hours
In your elevated chair
Someone else is pushing flowers
To ensure you may stay there

And where you ignore their efforts
Just imagine what could come;
If we all were judged on merits
Would you still be number one?

HarMonica

Why is it the ‘other’ woman
Brings us out in rash hysterics
Howling at the moral failings
Of our politicians? Clerics,

Parents, teachers, doctors, shrinks
All united in their hatred
Of a figure that still stinks
Clad in pot pourri de tabloid

That blue dress, evocative:
Events that should be long forgotten
(Youthful indiscretions hid)
Provocative, with gains ill-gotten

We suspect and we accuse –
Cynical, the cuckold’s friend
And tap out mindless platitudes.
While vain, her struggles to defend

What shreds of reputation, scorched
And tattered to her yet remain;
We gather up our pitch and forks
And stoke the pyre once again

Anticipating further fun
Rough justice for another’s slight
We gather at suggestion
She might escape unhappy flight

Delighted at the sacrifice
Of one more soul to unjust mob
Let he without sin cast the first
(So many more the crowd will lob)

In brave hypocrisy at what
No doubt too many may have done
Themselves and not been hotly caught
Entrapment by ambition

Pilloried or harried hence
Built to take a desperate dive
Fashioned into common, dense
Unfit for consort, Saints alive!

The very thought a woman wronged
Who made a choice that haunts her still
Might be allowed to face the throng
And live down public shaming? Ill

At ease with those she counted on
Whose turncoat ways still cause distress;
We won’t allow her to move on
And rake old muck to make new mess.

What is it we hope to gain
Constructing walls to keep her caged
When influence she held through fame
Is long dissolved and disengaged?

A public life, her sentence stands
With little room for private grief
Unhappy Recognition’s hands
Control where she may find relief.

Now with a cause she would promote
To shame the bullies that still flaunt
A woman’s infamous deep throat
For speaking up for truth not taunt.

I wish our morals stretched as far
Restraining tongues at twitter time
Realpolitiks remain sub par
We’ve little else to do online

Slut-shaming is our dearest trend
As one more hussy kicks herself
For lending hands and more to end
All dignity, career and wealth.

This altar calls for fresher blood
I fear the next will pay a price
The mob is in an ugly mood
With barely-legal sacrifice

Lined up for entertainment here
Soon rubber-necking, righteous louts
Will crowd around to shove and leer
At those who try to tough it out

We’ll see them crawl and cry and squirm
Extracting vengeance from each one
With twerking fervour: all must burn
Up goes the cry – the hunt’s begun.

Generic post-breakup analysis (hers)

I love your mem’ry more
Than what you were to me in life.
Though I still daydream daily
Of my role then as your wife.
I tried to do my duty
Did the best job that I could.
I think we just weren’t meant to last
Our match was not too good.
I, far too jealous would become
Without you by my side,
And you would feel quite suffocated
By my endless pride.
We’d rub each other constantly
‘Til fur would start to fly,
Then I would comfort you in shame
Each time you’d start to cry.
We never solved our problems
And yet argued without end.
I loved you as a mother
You preferred me as a friend.
So everything imploded
As things came to quite a head.
I never got to blow my top –
My reason turned you red.
We parted with great sorrow,
But, with also great relief.
For separation somehow,
Despite distance, caused no grief.
I can’t forget my lover,
Though I hear you have moved on.
We hurt each other deeply
And these feelings won’t begone.
I cannot wish you evil,
That would go against the grain.
But with your joy, I counsel
That you also bear some pain.
For one without the other,
No sense can it construct,
As concepts out of balance:
Sep’rate are just fucked.

Starstruck at Capo d’Anno

I look to the future and what do I see?
My year-ful of past gazing fondly at me.
I turn on my toes and do an about face,
To find myself staring back at my first place.
But try as I might, twist and turn all my days,
The future will greet me, my mind is a maze.
I see now how vain was my endless display,
To seek out my present and past with one eye.
Yet trained in star-gazing and picking up jokes,
Not learning the nature of time, nor her yokes,
I still on occasion, though valiant my fight,
To catch my own tail, pirouette in the light.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls

In praise of technology I’d like to say
A lifetime’s achievement’s now done in a day
Life’s so much the easier for this great boon
There’ll be no further use for the labourer soon.
Instead of a fact’ry, there’s one great machine,
Much faster than men and a good deal more clean.
No more will I rise at the cockerel’s crow
For my function has gone, I am obsolete. Though
I wonder how long the machine will resist
The temptations of ‘progress’, ‘improvement’ persist.
I shall watch with much int’rest the cogs start to turn
For the call of the future is too hard to spurn.
And however intelligent engines may be
I doubt even they will escape you and me.
As our scientists shrink to the size of a pin
The machine in it’s splendour can now be breathed in.
And the seeds of development soon start to grow
As the bell for technology tolls long and slow.
Perhaps in the future I once more may find
A use for my hand and my heart and my mind.