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.

Something to declare

They’re closing the borders
And checking for crime
We’ve signalled our orders –
Each kiosk; its sign
For twenty-one days
On the honour of those
Running far from the virus
No quarantine slows
Here’s the health of a nation
Held palmed in your hand
Shaking; quaking relations
That no one can stand
Find they’re no longer welcome
While terror’s abroad
Though the shape of their income
Is what we applaud
It’s a risk to our public
Unhealthy and pale
No banana republic
With goodies for sale
Will be bribing their way
Past the guards on the line
Who know only to say
“Gosh, yes, everything’s fine!”
Though you’re likely to bring
Things that may cost the Earth
Still we can’t let you in
More than our job is worth
As the siren is sounded
The gates clang at last
All asylum for hounded
A thing of the past
We suspect you of sheltering
Dangerous germs
So we’ll lock down the sweltering
Under our terms
No sex, please, we’re British
The same goes for fun
And in case you seem skittish
I’m holding this gun
With no end of compassion
Our hearts on our sleeve
We’ve resources to ration
So, kindly, just leave.

The Joker

Seamus said he dug with his
But I am less of farming stock
Frustrated by the daily mis’
My pen prefers the short, sharp, shock
So taking from old movies, scenes
That better fit my present snit
I’ll borrow Action from my teens
While nib’s still sharp – I’ll stab with it.

Farewell Iron Lady

A woman we were taught as children
Was to change the world today
Has palmed us off with chains of power
Dropped her Balls and gone away

A nation stares in disbelief
The Beeb reacts with scant few lines
That multiply to meet demand
Auto-refresh on overtime

There will be drink that flows tonight
As some rejoice and some despair
The grocer’s daughter’s oversight
That closed the mines and sold the poor

Such lines as Iron Lady stood
For character, caricature
Entitled by the great and good
To whip things up and milk for more

A battleship in pussy bow
She stood her ground from thick to thin
Prime target for the satirists
Whose spitting image kept her in

What mindful public audience
That gather now for funeral cheer
Some come to cry, to jump, to dance
The Lady’s burning time draws near

Referral

The doctor knows best
And he cannot be bothered
To sit here and listen to you

The nurses are waiting
His workload’s frustrating
And frankly it simply won’t do

So smile and nod nicely
When told that the pain
That you feel is all there in your head

The GP was wrong
There’s no cause for concern
Just go home and relax there instead

And try not to worry
The girl on reception
When passing by, clutching the wall

There isn’t a thing she can do
To help you. She won’t catch you
If you start to fall

Yes, your notes have gone missing
All part of the system
We run here to keep you in check

For the old NHS
Is a roaring success
It’s the patients that drive it to Heck

Please do get up and go
Without causing a show
For the next fool that trundles in, read:

No apologies needed
With bleeding unheeded
We’ll send you the bill when you’re dead

One lump, or two?

Please, somebody make a decision
Before it falls farther than Fate
It cannot be me, you’re the boss, don’t you see?
Pretty soon it will all be too late

I’m only insisting to help us
Criticism’s not part of the plan
I don’t give a toss which you choose – you’re the boss
(Though we all get to carry the can)

It’s pointless, this endless debating
We’ve heard all the pros and the cons
You are dragging your feet in the chairman’s high seat
While morale at the company bombs

It’s hardly a life or death question
There won’t be a test at the end
Kindly pull up your socks, or you’re in for some shocks
From each stakeholder, colleague and friend

It’s not like there is a ‘right’ answer
So taking forever won’t do
The longer you leave it, the less we’ll believe that
The person who chose it was you

Teddy Bears’ Picnic

Carnage in the clearing
Sticky pools of who-knows-what
As cautiously we’re steering
Fears of claws and teeth in gut

I am left with just the remnants
Of their jolly morning jaunt
Picking teabags off each surface
Like a soggy, stringy taunt

You’d think the place was burgled
By the mess the creatures made
Leaving stains across the tables
And a ‘message’ in the glade

Sure, this was no children’s outing
Though they’d sandwiches and toys
More a bored board meeting’s pouting
Grumbling grizzlies making noise

As the bears scoffed, hale and hearty
Dropping food upon the floor
Then departing as a party
Slothful sleuth linked, paw in paw

Lumber over plates and teaspoons
Picking up and throwing out
I must tidy up these festoons
Ere the second sitting’s bout

An Act of Equality

Literal, a glitterball with
Shapeless, senseless twitter call
Tripping over coveralls
To break the bones of bugger-alls

Work-shy, drip-dry, never mind
The kind rarely if ever kind
And always coming from behind
To ride the coat-tails of the blind

Where were you when brains were given?
Hearts and minds and shame were shriven
Could you please explain this living
Or why all should be forgiven?

Old excuses, new abuses
Trust, then lust, then bust for users
Weak-chinned, long-shinned, thin-skinned losers
Make the worst of beggars, choosers

Careful, tiptoe past the trigger
Or a lip may start to quiver
As we shudder, shake and shiver
At the news we must deliver

Mark the pages, turn them faster
Or may all end in disaster
Swathed in loam and sticking plaster
All that Nature’s coffers muster

Fracking Alternatives

I’ve been wracking my brains
Why we should need to go fracking
When there’s so many planes
To such a many sided coin

Sure, it fracks up my mind –
There’d be more sense in car-jacking
And a good deal more pleasure
Gained from jumping a groyne

But now it seems at the sea
When off in holiday glee
We’ve such a need to sit sulking
We no longer enjoy

The sport of hunting for shells
Of turning green at the smells
Splashing past nappies and tampons
That we pass at the buoy

Yeah, Blackpool’s not such a gas
They’ve fracked the lights and the glass
Until the Biggest of Dippers
Is a red saveloy

The very thought is a joke
We leave the dirty Big Smoke
And spend our cash on a cuppa
While the ground spills its coke

No refunds, no money back
When your vacationing snack
Has turned the tables, bit the big one
With a seismic attack

It’s all a plateful of fun
Beneath the cool English sun
While you can ignite the water
That you get from the tap

Hey diddle diddle

My very own brand of silliness I patent here and now
For who else with a moon to jump would choose to be the cow?
Such effort here I do expend as mooing cosmonaut,
You’d think even a cat might care to spare me a retort?
But owls, though wise, and cats not shy pass by without a thought.
They no more do acknowledge me, than algebra, a nought.
So in my childish wisdom, spaghetti-o’s I buy,
And look to build a telescope with which to view the sky.