Second-class

In tweeds and furs and pearls and curls,
The rows and rows of lovely girls
Are strolling arm-in-arm to school
To find their niche; to earn, to rule!

In baseball shirts and well-worn shoes
The jean-clad, beltless, feckless youths
Go slouching to the DSS
To bail them out of worklessness.

The worker-bee that scurries fast
Avoiding trollies, hastens past
While pensioners crowd tiny shops
And squeeze the fruit and veg to slops.

The mothers juggle work and kids
And pets that piddle, nibble; fibs
From all of those who claimed that life
Would soon improve as someone’s wife.

Where blokes stay home and watch the box;
Dads clean their cars, and wear odd socks,
Mere gentlemen frequent the gym,
The pubs and clubs, but rarely in

A frame of mind to brook disdain
Belittle those who’d challenge claim
To right of birth: Y chromosome –
All call the world their very own.

Ex-Albania

“I like your face.”
The stranger smiled
A friendly eye
In a hostile world
Not to be ignored
At the end of a week
Whose gentle slide
From bad to cess –
Pitiable
Until she could feel
Herself yawning
Over the abyss
Clutching at nothing
More than the last
Frayed threads of temper.
Clearing consciousness
Not minding this overture
To a careful discussion of
Meteorologic insignificance
And closing with
Best wishes for
The weekend’s rest,
“Thank you” she said
And meant it.

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.