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?

bugs have done for us this liberty

bu akşam evde kal

Venus rides alone

through a murky sky she owns

cold indifferent light

people go unmasked

driving cars too goddam fast

tearing up the streets

now the müezzins

start to weave their prayers in twins

piercing & bright

chilled I turn for home

Venus stays behind her gleam

narrows on the beat

still the calls ring out

urging folk to have no doubt

stay at home tonight

*    *    *    *    *    *

don't cry for us karantina

I

my illicit pony GiddyApp

asks me if I'd care to go pot luck

starting out from Spain or Castlereagh

where it'll end

makes no difference how I goad the nag

up the aery waterfall at night

down Old Faithful’s gizzard by the day

where it'll end

stirrup cups for singing as ye go

birds & bees & rubber geese join in

road is long but folk may never know

where it'll end

useless whistling in the dark eyes closed

better open all them curtains wide

sun or cloud the heating system stays

where it'll end

shall I gallop off & back again

bringing viruses in saddle bag

loads or wait & spend the day in bed

where it'll end

II

Covid couldna struck a nicer guy

Hanksy made the virus seem benign

Tom how many times did you survive

saving that Ryan

gumption gets our hero off his cloud

atlas with the flu Apollo too

Elvis meets Vinci Dan Caprio

under the Louvre

never saw you as an astronaut

Google saved the day I own but still

if you'd played some less practical cat

done it with tact

dubious but followed up on tweets

all the highs & lows of quarantine

sampled so we’re stoically briefed

tearful at times

uncles Sam & Tom rolled into one

not an ounce of side or carry-on

just your all American has been

seen but not gone

III

Mum's in Liverpool she's all alone

so is Deniz Lee our eldest son

we're in Turkey same as everyone

else getting on

carbon fumes have lifted streets are plain

empty buses here & there some rain

birds are singing spring is here again

peace to all men

women get remote asylum too

children sit & wonder but it's no

time for homework fix that broken loo

seat in the gloom

blossom frosted up the other night

doggies bark at passersby in fright

slealthy creeps the virus to the fight

who knows what's right

still believe in something can't say no

meaning less from sure to nothing's sure

thing's empire never set us back home

to the future

*    *    *    *    *    *

it's not the leaving of Liverpool

I

Turkey is no bird of paradise

but for pride of place it's hard to beat

Orientals meet The Occident

most of us who've had the luck to waltz

in as political exiles or

like me economic refugees

landed on our feet not so in Greece

birthplace of democracy lately

there the welcome ain’t been all that neat

beaches not so chock-a-block as here

praising Allah migrants land with cries

but a squalid camp is all they find

saw them wade ashore surreal as we

foreign tourists looked at olive groves

land was cheap the views of Turkey great

II

first we saw were figures on the quay

twenty-twelve before the Arab spring

tide washed up on sunny afternoons

childish features burnt & wiry-haired

stared like lawless wanderers no tents

kids on piles of blankets babes in arms

worried for the car I blush to say

shooed them off afraid they’d take our stuff

but the locals had a heart one said

never mind they’re harmless pity them

Christian values I had plain forgot

should have wondered who they were & not

cast them as vagabonds out to fleece

holidaymakers of souvenirs

why was I so thick & plain unkind

III

guy we know a Greek's had enough

says they’re selling sex & spreading AIDS

wonder what he knows his wife shuts up

people soon forget how their folks came

seeking work & housing in the towns

passing through or settling down for good

my colleague a Bulgarian Turk

lost his sister on a protest strapped

to her mother’s back a sniper’s round

grazed its mark & struck the baby’s head

even though a refugee himself

thirty years ago he’s moved to state

overwhelmed by teaching Syrians

it’s a job he has to do the kids

must speak Turkish for their parents’ sake

IV

it’s Ne Mutlu Türk’üm diyene

meaning Happy are those who can say

How they’re Turks the last word DNA

meantime Liverpool got beat again

after many battles won no sweat

neither bangs nor whimpers spoilt the past

such a multinational team so cool

fifteen years of exile took their toll

banned from playing in the Euro League

now no matter where you're from to go

praising God or Mammon is your choice

all you gotta do is win & lose

pointless crying if your side can’t play

dazzling games each time they hit the pitch

children have died tryna reach a beach

V

years ago the former Lesbos port

had a market place where refugees

flogged their bits & pieces as they fled

Anatolia’s Independence War

Greeks Armenians & anyone

fearful what the vengeful Turk might do

people can be monsters take their cut

maybe it’s banned in scripture but friends

bash each others’ heads for plots of land

brothers if the bible were believed

couldn’t solve their differences till one

stabbed another or left them for dead

when the technicolour coat is pawned

rainbows point to crocks of jealous gold

who respects the pots their neighbours owned

VI

Alchaeus & Sappho writing while

Hebrews wandered in the wilderness

sang the ups & downs of Lesbos folk

knew its stony hills & valleys shore

lines with massive hidden gulfs the cliffs

forests vineyards groves & even trees

turned to stone when Vulcan’s ashes rained

making deserts of the northern fells

early Christians tore their poems up

now we scratch through ancient rubbish heaps

steam papyrus scraps from mummy’s masks

piece together jigsaw dithyrambs

not to be outdone by ancient Greece

strewn along the Sikamenas strand

lie the shreds of refugees' IDs

VII

who we talking 'bout you may accuse

Africans & Afghans some Burmese

scores of Pakistanis few Chinese

why leave Turkey as their stepping stone

that’s a million dollar question one

reason’s never can sufficient young

people get to live out their dreams but

weary oldsters know the western world's

streets ain't paved with gold that's Neverland

something desperate drives the man to hold

up a child & cry give me your towel

plastic bags & tape protect his phone

took our kids on boats though not CharÓn's

Lord knows what they’re flying from no wings

birds of paradise in human skins

*    *    *    *    *    *

deus nobis haec otia fecit

as there’s nowhere left on earth to fly

airlines going bankrupt anyway

all we have’s ourselves & breathing time

here’s what I say

never will we get a better chance

when the wheels are rolling once again

must it be the same old song & dance

odds out of ten

bugs have done for us this liberty

we should sit & listen while the birds

sing & bees repollinate the world

pointless to cry

right enough the docs & nurses won’t

get a moment’s peace nor those who serve

patients’ meals & marshal our reserves

they have my vote

some of us will die the dice is cast

paradise won’t wait on Pentecost

now’s the time to face Apocalypse

heads up or bust

Wot, no crowd?