Showing posts with label Boris Johnson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boris Johnson. Show all posts

Saturday, 29 November 2025

up the low down

Previews from the next (& last) chapbook 12, "dropping the plot"...

 

The Way of All Fish

When we the British, this bastard race, rose from the waves sporting the very epitome of European Science, Art & Culture… who could tell the empire thus created would be vanquished in the twinkling of an eye? There were those who dreamt of a thousand-year Byzantine saga with successive dynasties taking the helm of the great oversized ship. Then came those whose purpose, more honourable perhaps but further screwed up, who at heart were just square-headed Christian Soldiers. And then along came least, though surely not last, called the English Speaking Peoples (WS Churchill) and whose aim was no less than world domination - while at every point prepared to drop the name United Kingdom, United States, United Nations even.




on Lady Godiva


one ungodly hour

the aforesaid dame

fresh from slumber came

out from her bower

 

müezzins & birds

musing on the great

mindlessness of state

savoured these words

 

saddle me an ass

that I might proceed

not on warlike steed

careless of class

 

through the sleepy town

with the curtains drawn

to to greet the dawn

under a gown

 

not of silk but sack

cloth though otherwise

bare to peeping eyes

forward & back

 

*

 

thus the married nun

bride to Jessie Christ

staged her famous heist

pigtails undone

 

from her husband’s pride

she extracted tax

breaks for peasants’ backs

cost of her ride

 

goodknows what he

who’d proposed the stunt

wagering it blunt

thought of her fee

 

she’d been tampered with

like a fairy queen

dryad or obscene

urbanised myth

 

but pornographers

can’t contain her soul

sex was not her goal

justice her prayers

 

*

 

now as pageant dressed

once a year in light

leotard & tight

serfs are impressed

 

feminists remain

challenged by her nude

progress call it rude

sex on the brain

 

yet the ride goes on

sponsored year by year

even cast as queer

heckled by one

 

harmless skin parade

hardly that the church

rolling with a lurch

comes to its aid

 

virgin birth they say

underneath that skein

gentlefolk refrain

almost to pray




unpopulist lines

 

queer Starmer’s pitch

just as Bo was pipped

Corbyn would of whipped

Ritchie Wotshisbitch




sacrificial clown

 

close one eye to the treatment of cows

burning gas like there’s no end of fuse

tolerate other folks’ racist views

these are the nows

 

then their finest hour world at war

when the fascists had surrounded them

choking back a rising tide of phlegm

stuck to the core

 

values never let the bullies win

hang ’em with the rope they’ve always spun

meaning let the bastards have their fun

then do them in

 

this appeasement Trump has brokered’s no

deal it’s pure & simple cowardice

faced with blatant autocrats he’s nice

bowing that low

 

Putin laughing out of bloody hand

scarcely crediting this Yankee knave’s

attitude to the land of the brave

truth bites the sand




the mark of Epstein

 

royalty transcends

loyalty to friends

Chomsky make amends

Epstein descends

 

public life requires

higher moral fibres

talking sick desires

buzzing the wires

 

secrecy’s not yours

like revolving doors

cleaners do the chores

careful of paws

 

teenage prostitutes

nobody disputes

are forbidden fruits

leave them to brutes

 

let dictatorships

take immoral trips

punters part with tips

serfs pay with lips


Not on my Wodge! 


Sunday, 2 July 2023

cut to the cheese


 

money squawks

 

just titanic when

5 adventurers

grab the headlines from

5 refugees

 

quite ironic too

how the depth of high

life engulfs the rich

trumps to the poor

 

the iconic few

versus did I say

5 yes all aboard

kids going down

 

gin & tonics or

sips from plastic cups

famous lasts at least

crushing is quick

 

aye the tragic 5

beats another 5

hundred give or take

these are the breaks

 

 

goodbye Mr Chits

 

folks bewail it but democracy

soldiers on when unfit rulers die

Caesar by others’ hands Atatürk

drank himself dry

 

Hovis too has sacks of enemies

populism’s Comeback Kid they ain’t

yet but time is on their side they might

still become Saint

 

Gee a force for sumpin least the bad

hair brigade’ve scored a champion now

maybe cross the pond they’ll find a new

home for their show

 

they and Princess Whatstheirface the new

Stan & Oily garths or queens of dragged

through a privet backwards screaming blue

murder type lags

 

social democrats beware them white

minstrels got some clever tricks no black

balls can spoil their ballots bounders just

don’t give a frack

 

 

Hovis ain’t brown bread

 

bold Odysseus lost all those men

woe betide such fools as took his side

drowned or gobbled up by Cyclops trans

formed into swine

 

nothing’s down for them besides their parts

acted out in poësy portrayed

on mosaics or as extras paid

off by the day

 

never stick your hands up boys & girls

sleep with Ithaca’s elite in fields

not the palace Troy was sacked with more

mercy he yields

 

only when the gods have raised their brows

will Athena save you nay your match

staged for necrophiliacs who crunch

nuts as they watch

 

bold Odysseus to give the man

half his due the individual

has their place in this imperfect world

leave him a goal

 

 

how now POW wow

 

when their time had come

summonsed to enlist

wore the uniform

didn’t resist

 

never volunteered

shunned that kind of twist

drowned their qualms in beer

should they exist

 

taken prisoner

shackled hand o’er fist

shall we treat em fair

smiley or pissed

 

share like hearth & home

with the antichrist

Wagner’s on the phone

gonna insist

 

this Amerikar

bring on spouse & kids

Liberty like yah

free to the heist

 

 

Swindler’s Lift

 

It would be the heist of the twentieth century, a long game lasting twelve years before the perpetrators were hunted down, liquidated, ticked off or lost to the chaos of war. Pifflesquate remarked, in the crass squalor of their glee,

The opportunity to play this character’s too great to miss, a once in a lifetime opp. Where’s me cozzie?

 

 

hard act to follow

 

Hovis was a fibber Blair

too told blatant lies but kills

count for more so what’s the score

thousands to nil

 

getting Brexit done or half

baked more like when Covid struck

Pan’s pandemic came unstuck

hardly a laugh

 

thousands died but not because

Hovis caught a chill they sneezed

yes with others copped a dose

dropped to their knees

 

aye they partied folks would whine

shame on them the hypocrite

lost their job & paid a fine

easily but

 

Putin only has to quote

Tony on Saddam Husein

for the cheek to score the most

points on Ukraine

 

 

the intelligence of stones

 

time has passed the test it set itself

up as umpire once the human mind

let it loose across the universe

therefore a blind

algorithm cutting paths through space

bouncing like a 3D pinball up

down & round the hidden bends of black

holes to be cup

winner there’s the treble in the bag

only trouble left us far behind

fiddling with the mother ship’s controls

those & the wind

solar wind that is you get my drift

mastering the galaxy we tripped

half its fuses now to put things straight

all hands on deck

gotta shed some ballast throw them stones

overboard ignore their screams they feel

nothing just display the rules of rhyme

rhythm & doubt

 

 

ravin@68

 

toe the line of duty Babe

pay yourself a compliment

step aside & make believe

future’s for rent

 

all the rides you ever rode

put them out to grass you said

running races on the side

fever’s gone dead

 

cryogenically freeze

sickness till one break of day

presto hey the cure is here

time to awake

 

sell yourself a dozen years

more not less & this is how

pledge your house then take the plunge

mortgage the now

 

sign your name draw up some plans

think of all the friends you’ll make

plus the memories no fake

safe in our hands

 

 

sex on The City

 

more indecent gross

markets opened last

year than in the whole

decade before

 

paid illicit sex

crime experienced

soaring growth despite

falling returns

 

boys accepted less

men demanded more

this while kiddie porn

bucked its decline

 

now investors hope

females will reverse

years of negative

growth to relaunch

 

strictly pervert life

styles protection free

trading on police

silence no tax

and no smell


Tuesday, 1 November 2022

collected ramblings of Mark Cyst



Canterbury tale

 

convert no stars basketball

wellies the originals

wear them out in no time or

slung round your neck

by the lace of God on Tom

Dick & Harry’s pilgrimage

barefoot cross the Pyrénées

hard on the heels

but the breeze between your toes

can’t be beaten stories tall

short or shaggy dog & fish

sermons exchanged

nothing irreligious mind

just the harmless rambling kind

folk’ll tell to pass the time

here on the road

 

’twasn’t always thus believed

God was in their heaven once

counting out the feet They’d saved

sticking on souls

now in Jesus wellingtons

sandals by another name

be They Queen or Jack of Spades

stick to Their guns



nosepicks at dawn


duets between

carrot farmers deuced

by the war

 

weaponised

radar boring peep

holes in planes

 

surely it’s

Ancien Régime

versus us

 

calling out

on guard D’Artagnan

kinda thing

 

no it goes

franchise Vonnegut

take your cut

 

 

binary codes

 

111

swan

too

many

 

112

for the maths

simply do

the arithmetic

 

121

ass to kiss or arse to kick

choice is yours

Dick

 

122

& you Brutus

caught the bus

without any fuss

 

211

entropy

half-life fools

take a dying fall

 

212

or not to

want to that

is the question

 

221

oxymorons wage

dirty war like piggy

banks shitting money bombs


222

three way score

sock vest &

underpants draw

 

 

the laced wand

 

inexplicit

 

Thomas has a limp

dipstick shot his under-kecks

over Ezra’s text

 

squandered all those lines

could have fed the cannibals

spit them out in here

 

but the goldfish bowl’s

out of range & Tommy’s words

land on Export Desk

 

wo Seher schreien

ne’er again shall Spotty’s dog

bother Vivienne

 

calling time it’s last

orders Zarathustra now

Go’n’Wash yer marf

 

 

wokey-wokey

 

get it through your block

poetry this ain’t it’s worse

verse now back to sleep

 


no video game

 

end-to-end encrypted bank

queues you wait that long get picked

off by snipers long before

reaching the front

 

find a way to keep your head

down but ditch that mobile phone

read these stupid lines & get

suicide droned

 

tell the kids their playground’s mined

on your life they’ll only start

digging like there’s pirate gold

under the swings

 

better off pretending moles

ain’t invaded Poland yet

buy them pogo sticks & poke

holes in their jokes

 

yep there’s endless ways & means

phooey what gets chucked at us

folks’ll always turn the world

back on its nose

 

 

a list of the Brithonians

 

Hovis Bunsen no

not the king I give

zéro puan to all

chits on the line

 

few Americans

fewer still from darn

under half a doz

eastern dragoons

 

Hollywood a sole

representative

all the rest can play

dough with themselves

 

women welcome though

only those who kiss

toads not frogs a lone

Madame Oiselle

 

last me blooming self

honorary chair

person hanger-on

butler & clown



further alt txts

 

trans

pony tale

rides

 

fake

sausage roll

calls

 

snide

victim blames

corpse

 

crime

doesn’t pay

bores

 

house

wine with cheese

claws



 aboriginal isles

 

ancient Britons worked together clans

laying wooden roads across the fens

long before the Romans or the Celts

landed their claims

 

little of their native tongue survives

though the landscape bears the stones they hauled

out of Wales & cross the Berkshire Downs

just a few names

 

long before the Norman’s French replaced

Anglo-Saxon’s hold on government

Latinised reported speech & re

booted the church

 

language archaeologists have dug

deep enough to know that victors’ crimes

underlie the way we think cos words

marshall our thoughts

 

though unorthodox restate my case

thirty centuries of peace prevailed

while the ancients gathered round their stones

islanders bound

 

 

welch apps

 

slap-a-baldy

fine the lady

cubic’s rube

3D cheese

hungry bards

fainting by numbers

spot the bomb

toilet seat football

hopscotch on the rocks

postman’s block

monotony

scribble

call my boff

game for a loaf

what’s my crime

squidditch

drag goons in dungarees

nitball

croakit

tiddlywigs

spittles

shakes’n’bladders

& Haydn’s eek

 

 

rush on roulette

 

when you’re got a public killing spree

don’t get sickened by the bloody screams

target places far away & use

missiles that cruise

 

 

OHMS

 

waffles sand & dogshit where

else but England’s pleasant Dad

take my hand I hope there ain’t

clowns with white gloves


gives us nightmares every time

HG Wells for breakfast toast

marmalade side down & eggs

hatching on plates

 

scared & yet a trifle bored

falling back to sleep the heart

beating umpteen revs a doz

dry by the mouth

 

look we know it’s yellow out

lead umbrella weather Jaws

coming back to haunt the huts

camp’s full of nuts

 

still you gotta set your face

straighten up & prove em wrong

chew their turkey flavoured mints

God save the King

 

 

13


my name’s Virgil but

only here to say one thing

never steal their tears


not for sale