thru a stout glass

D Mockney

making ends meet

 

overpriced & not

fit for purpose our

solid granite launch

sank like a rock

 

that’s enough of hard

ships it’s like some Greek

geezer’s metonym

flew from their pen

 

Styrofoam for inst

never mind the paint

ain’t a patch on sand

stoning the crows

 

if we must attempt

ocean crossings trust

not in blood or steel

horsemen dismount

 

metaphors break step

what we need’s a bridge

built of blood & tears

bugger the rest

out now in paperback, the chapbook,

click to view

what the Dickens

 

beaten black & blue with selfie sticks

blind as Gloucester when he saw the truth

what’s the point of all these violins

hand me the flute

 

hold that note but ditch the thought it sucks

background music fades to traffic noise

now Sir Alec Guinness saunters on

pimping his boy

 

Fagin though he’s not so cut the marsh

gas begin again it’s London Fields

circa 1822 or 3

orphanage meals

 

fake Olivier awards abound

clutching Oscar Hammersteins they sing

sweet as guttersnipes & other jail

birds on the wing

 

yay Polanski done us proud it’s eel

pie & mash all round but spare the sauce

partial to parsley I’d sooner we’d

talked with the horse

parental guidance

 

who should run for president but Joe

Blob of all the worst offenders’ mugs

popping up on screen yet folks demand

his on the plugs

 

cite the constitution blame the state

populism’s mainstream Babe cos George

Washington himself was sometimes licked

blimeys of course

 

tantamount to treason votes for gloats

order lollipop on wholewheat bread

Stormy Daniels going what’s your game

off with his head

 

call the Weinsteins in they knows the drill

training overtakes the urge & cry

stop before things get too far you owl

reach for the sky

 

there that wasn’t such a song & dance

wipe your button counting forty winks

Babe shall put the kettle on for tea

lovely cufflinks

Rabbit Burroughs

 

stench of nothing salt

water purified

madman overboard

failed to drown

 

washing up a beach

café open it’s

egg & chips & get

back in line

 

horror me no more

purple trouser smoke

Woodbines Players Weights

choice between

 

straight & narrow cop

movie logic bad

guys all good to go

on for years

 

crunch of boring owl

shingle Hastings prom

Battle Abbey lost

war & won

bit o’ Irish

read Joyce in the Lord & stick Beckett on your bucket list for that extra difficult lark you gotta slip some context in or maybe stage a contest no think it’s easy Mush calling the shots on Gaelic lit between Swift & Wilde the pressure dropped somewhat then all hell broke fast & loose talking bout override the seventh gear of man no woman cry gobbledegook & source the germs of pure wit or not to whit that is one question here’s another nay enough of yer rhetoric youse charlatans must have something to say whereas I have nothing you dig wafting on for no particular reason to pass the time of day or is it night I forget which to coin a phrase never quite understood the line between like break the mold or is it mould who cares there’s always gonna be some soft get standing on the dung heap beating a pair of owl frying pans and hollering yes hollering how it’s completely out of order beaming Scotty not on your Fitzgerald note the switch from Irish some say the Japanese have got the lot licked I wouldn’t know a half of stout’s about as much as I can rush to these days cheers Partisan you see it’s only the way of the world wear froth on me top lip as a moustache ask the barperson what they’re having cos when in Rome gotta take a look at a Pope even if they’re not in & the Colosseum or the Pantheon biggest concrete hat now there is a place that & Ye Cracke in Rice St not Rice Lane no Sir that would have to be the daycare centre formerly known as The Plough watering hole of the Proddy ghetto for all is changed a fiendish beauty gone to town

no slops!

ontology for dummies

a skoal on Heineken

 

if the price of booze doesn't go up

soon the world is surely gonna end

prudence shouldn’t mean Thou Shalt Not spend

draining the cup

 

during the fifth century BCE

when the Greeks had their supremacy

oldsters drank all night then curled their toes

praising the gods

 

now in armfuls neo opioids

flood the market bringing joy to those

celebrants of hypochondriac

slay me a cock

 

friends this ain’t no time for turning back

raise your standards kick the saintèd arse

downstairs & drown Falstaff in his sack

Crimbo at last

 

Hovis Bunsen stand for president

Jed make way for youth on crack cocaine

send this dirty year back whence it came

that’s what I meant

 

wild robot stew

 

lobster cheese is off

so the waiter wants to know

if we’re up for it

 

take a peek at you

cos I know your preferences

rarely stretch that far

 

but today you’re game

call it vegetarian

all except the name

 

proof of it’s the taste

rich in sautéd graphics cards

wire noodles stir

 

fried capacitors

best of all comes sprinkled with

shredded memory boards

 

 

ontology for dummies

nothing exists

if it didn’t we'd be somewhere else

nor would anyone be having this

argument which as you say we aren't

 

wisdom of fools

serves us both as enemy & friend

you & I camped out at Loggerheads

individual conspirators

 

Marx would agree

thesis antithesis synthesis

feudalism leading capital

down the banks & up the garden path

 

Groucho that is

Karl I daresay'd put it otherwise

wrote a book I'll read when time allows

which it won’t prefering Sherlock Holmes

 

so here we go

Socrates you never listened while

Mozart's Requiem had even God

calling home the bloody Prodigal

 

 

 

thus spake Lady Superman

  

long before they understood

people practised genocide

ploughing fields diluting skies

Mammon was praised

 

overwhelming humankind

bugs have done this underhand

service as extinguishers

clearers of decks

 

such recovery how grand

seldom in the course of time

has a harvest filled the sacks

species galore

 

like the giant meteor

civilisation just left

fifty million promised lands

desertified

 

counting insects coral reefs

giant fossils cancer wards

shellfish mites & stuff on shelves

boggles the mind

 

*

 

Lady Superman remains

buried though the grave survived

through antiquity her corpse

mummified well

 

hewn from skin & bone a mask

bears the imprint of her face

while the stone sarcophagus

buggers belief

 

paragon of nurture she

reigned before inhuman greed

started worshipping itself

Lady S stood

 

less in effigy than flesh

was adored by all a queen

bee could look her in the eye

she’d hardly blink

 

though she died as humans did

when their time was called yes luck

had it matriarchs were doomed

kingdoms next up

 

*

 

here’s the gist of what she preached

once upon a time my dears

maiden aunts & uncle queers

made their own beds

 

every night in different groves

snug as careless borogroves

far above the forest floors

long before wars

 

scared the scar-faced immigrants

folk would sing & dance all day

eating fruit & drinking whey

ants in their pants

 

babies clinging round their necks

did I call them virgins nay

families were more like packs

people were gay

 

cavaliers not roundheads they

lived & died the natural way

spoke in consequential terms

sometimes ate worms

 

 

 

a soap impression

 

cop mistakes her hubby for a hat

gun it's easy done & fancy that

saw a lobster Leonard Bernstein scored

during the war

 

no the Sixties book by Oily Socks

sorry wrong again Oliver Sex

zooming Delvaux & René Magritte

under my feet

 

look it takes a spook these days to tell

criminal & decent folk apart

half the time with immigrants from hell

heavenly scent

 

the ol’ factory nerves get twisted see

gosh what isn’t going wrong with me

all that Night Train glycerine we sunk

walking the plank

 

take this down my life you'll get us shot

hardly means a thing but just the job

pays the mortgage it's that other mob

working the plot

 

 

half burnt half baked

 

time he put his brogue

down & gave us all a break

little but a rogue

cheap at half the price

should have made his bargain but

Hovis shall be sliced

yet another year

toast the blighter pumping stale

phony Christmas cheer

secret weapon Geek

fire stuck for words I say

start another war

Bunsen burners out

back to back then walk & turn

Pentecostal doubt

never the never!

Jed lives

Just Jack The Freakin Juice!

jack the juice

science such a heartless affair

when unvaccinated people croak

how they weep like jilted lovers swear

life's but a joke

 

badly played their hands are good but chance

lets them down they wager everything

on conspiracy theories plans

doomed to go wrong

 

just because they don’t believe in Big

Bang or figure God’s an astronaut

doesn't render common sense a pig

headed resort

 

jack the juice before it ends in debt

never mind the risk statistics damned

lies but still those folks who draw their last

breath see the past

 

not the future heaven won’t forgive

their mistakes cos Earth is no roulette

table round but flat this much for proof

gambling with death

*

 

not a verse to rhyme

 

who would like to know

how I met the universe

coming through the glen

 

nobody I see

by this show of hands the world

ain’t a-listening yet

 

class dismissed go home

work if you insist the rest

meeting in the bar

 

on my own again

alpha channels beta verse

standing in for friends

 

tell you what I hear

Solid Air with feedback loops

coming through the glen

*

blame the game

 

France Byelorussia Turkey all

citing different reasons wring their hands

while your shuffling star-crossed wander-hordes

move with the tides

 

ride the flow of propaganda wars

urging families off foreign shores

trailed by Suckerbook & Murdoch’s press

gangs it’s a mess

 

let’s reorganise this chaos blame

something else for instance solar flares

polar bears or hungry fish no less

climate’s a shame

 

since we’re playing state Monopoly

move the top hat back to Old Kent Road

Baltic Avenue across the pond

Mortgage-on-sea

 

tarot cards for property the fates

bought & sold like children saved by odds

roll the dice it’s double six or quits

hands of the gods

*

Kop doubt 2

 

depression forecast

 

sometimes justice serves mankind

fair & square the dirty worms

heaven opens suddenly

christening all

 

while injustice entertains

everywhere a cruel wind

zigzags through the tenements

scorching & blind

 

those it spares deserve no less

punishment than victims caught

out in parks or shrivelled while

skulking indoors

 

neither justice nor its dark

sibling seem to give a thought

folks who've lived without a care

heaped with rewards

 

so adherents get on down

worshipping the roll of dice

cos there’s nothing for it now

send out the clowns

 

 

circus comes to town

 

whose United Nations do they claim

everyone is represented there

even those that couldn’t give a damn

 

putting climate matters to a vote

just like politicians who should know

something’s gotta bubble to the top

 

quite the beauty contest but for split

skirts & bathing suits it's barefaced cheek

versus downright lying here’s our host

 

circus master to the ring of truth

Hovis Bunsen your half-baked half burnt

psycho killer qu’est que c’est who quotes

 

ancient Greek in plain vernacular

jesting not his gestures many words

said whenever wisdom springs to mind

 

 

optimism preached

 

let’s be honest John

sun’s come up we get to choose

give or take a moon

 

surely there’s enough

time for one more game of bowls

then we’ll see them off

 

that’s the spirit faint

heart ne’er won fair maiden our

move take courage chaps

 

think of Robbie Bruce

or once more unto the breech

channel English dead

 

foreign fields & all

strap me in Excalibur’s

out lead on Macduff

 

 

coda reached at last

 

what you gonna say

when the population hits

half a trillion eh

blame the rabbits my

foot they’re promising these new

all electric cars

wow I want one now

not a decade on I’m old

Jeeves don’t spare the nags

 

thirteen years ago

bought a diesel hatchback big

deal five times she’s blown

up the engine’s cracked

clean they lied & we believed

fools we are that’s all

*

unrattled eh

 

those whose postulating words

cry in modulated tones

hushingly & hardly heard

rattle my bones

 

not that I’m a paragon

no one’s champion orator

nor am I adept at songs

happen I bore

 

harp on tortured themes like war

refugees celebrities

scratch the underwriters’ law

damming their eyes

 

not for me adoring flocks

lauding nuanced feats of pen

read by those who like in blocks

paid for in yen

 

no there’s neither rhyme nor rock

reasoning these thoughts disturb

ain’t a bit poetic sock

puppets on herbs

still not geddit?