1916 inglorious mud

hurly burly

mud and trouble

doubtful stands

the state of battle

earth hath bubbles quoth the soldier

where the Somme its marrow narrows

Germans elbow out of Belgium

bony Fritz doth bloody Tommy

eye of Jacques and tongue of Taffy

Cornwall's ears Flanders' bowels

König headed Highland hearted

Anzac kidneys Saxon coccyx

Hanoverians' appendix

British legs in khaki clobbered

French in blue and grey of Prussia

all our chaps have gone down under

stuck together cold and clodded

sown by human reaped by warlock

black the milk and white the thunder

clouds of smoke from smokeless powders

mooned in sunlit robes are plundered

bootless foot from footless booty

stirred then shaken hooked & taken

cauldron filled & helmet emptied

boiled and potted tooth & dagger

spiced with cannon ball & iron

shards like peppers picked & buried

battleships in mud now sunken

tankful hopes of brain & sinew

dashed upon the rocks of wonder

mothers' pride incomprehension

nothing breaks the titans' struggle

years behind and years in waiting

sons for sons exchanged like chessboard

pieces trench for trench in deadly

turns of war the aimless gaming

layer over layer stretching

wire barbs hung up as bunting

death's dominion celebrating

woman's grief at man's invention

doubtless stands

the sprite of warfare

Shirley Burly

maid of trouble

banner headlines

cross the cosmos

intersect at

points of chaos

Shirley Burly

soldier goddess

doubtful slink

your muddy tribunes

Autumn draws to end the fighting

hand to hand the living linger

digging rabbit holes they hoppit

down on sleepless nights or nightmare

days of false alarms & leisure

lice & fungus thrive tobacco

notwithstanding fumigation

schemes & dreams of summer meadows

men revert to faith or boyhood

savagery to clock the boredom

check unchecked desires curling

woodbines round the cook house fire

eating out for preference squire

casualties continue falling

men succumb to fevers poorly

treated water leaking toilets

foot disorders captains' orders

snipers shrapnel blasts and madness

caught between betraying comrades

self esteem and cowards' rumours

chaps survive on hidden forces

duck and dive by instinct carry

talismans believe in magic

never heed the words of strangers

friend and foe alike in danger

fallacy their only logic

Johnny Tolkien Bard of Baggins

steals from dugout down the hillside

beggs and borrows books tobacco

tins of pork and beans he carries

feet enlarged by clay he hobbles

down the alleys to the meadow

through the zigzags sallow fellows

often grunting seldom grumbling

cheerful almost in the hollows

wallows Tommy son of Atkins

smells of shrapnel bursts and sewers

overcast the front line trenches

Jerry mindful of good weather

black the rain and wide the helmet

Tommy's shoulders broad and narrow

signals officer reporting

ensign Tolkien Lancashires

carry on says Captain Oakley

shield of valour proud & broken

keep yourself in deepest cover

till you hear my whistle blowing

never fear this ring I carry

utters signals ensign Tolkien

forged of gold inside volcano

Doom protects the stealthy wearer

none shall see me through its halo

very good the captain brasses

polished irony in tatters

got your orders for the morrow

seven sharp make sure they're ready

on my whistle quit their prayers

up and over bold and burly

Shirley Burly

burnished idol

Brasso'd goddess

stands in clover

doubtful squats

your congregation

hollow hearted

hope departed

grim their task

and dim their chances

slimmer yet

than corpse that dances

Corporal Adolf son of Hitler

rarely cheerful seldom cheerless

leading runner fills his satchel

full of signals checks his Mauser

follows orders zig-zags forward

from the dugouts at the rear

to the nearest frontline trenches

dodging runs Gefreiter Hitler

message runner of Bavaria

precious orders fill his satchel

warn the Hun of Tommy's purpose

near the front his courage wavers

thick and deadly fall the salvoes

churn the mud to milky blackness

oil of manhood marks the surface

hearts of soldiers buried witness

empty now their spent bravado

still he creeps or goosesteps forward

ducks below the shrapnel bursting

diving under hurtling mortars

shoots around the zigzags tiptoes

over bodies dead & wounded

Corporal Hitler runs his errand

no one hears the shell that follows

bursting over head & shoulders

soundless rips the air asunder

numb of limb he dumbly swallows

cakes of mud shut up his cackles

deep below the sky he plunges

wonders not nor where he burrows

till some Tommy tugs his elbow

pulls the German from his hollow

officer by voice demeanour

draws him by the satchel leathers

drags him out of smoking furrow

speaks the language of the fathers

pokes his ribs with cocked revolver

give up Fritz give up your orders

be a good and decent Fellow

pack this nonsense in surrender

grub awaits you in the rear

white the bread & good the beer

warm & safe & dry no fear

drop your orders hand them over

post your last to Gross Britannia

Burly Shirley

brassy hussy

never shall thy

burnish turn me

Johnny Tolkien bard of Baggins

poet sporting khaki outfit

follows orders up and over

reconnoitre trench and capture

any German bearing signals

don't be squeamish that's an order

offer grub & threaten murder

Johnny Tolkien fusilier

signals' ensign Lancashires

sweats in helmet boots & puttees

holding cocked revolver shaking

grips the wrist of fallen soldier

German speaking Johnny Tolkien

varsity recruited ensign

pleads that Fritz accept his offer

conjures lingo rhymes & reason

even lies he tells the runner

anything to make him prisoner

short of shooting which is murder

grim the pair stare out each other

stern of visage firm of valour

neither one can flinch and hoppit

rather die would Adolf Hitler

never kill could John the poet

hand on hand in mud they wrestle

not so much in test of muscle

more on reason runs their contest

wounded Adolf weak and hungry

harkens not to promised pleasures

Johnny speaks in doubtful splutters

high his offers low his German

overhead the battle rages

bullets whiz explosions rattle

down in hollows falls the shrapnel

rains on brute and intellectual

demagogue of hate ideal

architect of fancy's fiction

then a moment when a bugle

harks in rising notes glissandos

up the scale across the wasteland

cutting air and smoke to silence

bombs are stifled rifles lowered

moments tick while hearts are rattled

what the hell or what in heaven

hunter's horn or maiden's siren

no man knows its source for certain

maybe death to claim his victims

maybe angels calm their victims

maybe life though who would credit

death would summon all who falter

life can only grimly suffer

till the safety curtain lowers

or the guillotine is loosened

suddenly a captain's whistle

breaks the magic spell of bugle

calls the British to their musters

back they plod their task accomplished

stumbling over land of no-man

home for tea and toast he grumbles

only grumbles clear of trouble

Tommy soldiers at the double

shuttles captives to the rear

shoulders wounded comrades clear

leaves his dead their troubles over

ensign Tolkien corporal Hitler

now or never comes their moment

Johnny holsters his revolver

brings an extra hand to lever

tears the satchel from its owner

gropes to leave the German runner

lying bleeding in his burrow

but before he breaks to hobble

home across the barbs & rubble

chortles shake the wounded runner

snorts of laughter hollow cackles

startled by these snarls of triumph

round the poet turns to marvel

why the devil has the fellow

got to be so blasted cheerful

though the German's eyes are hollow

fast they hold the poet's wonder

but his gaze will not be fathomed

black as death & steeped in horror

stricken cold the ensign stumbles

out across the muddy wasteland

clad in boots of clay he bumbles

knowing something there was stolen

not the satchel nor its contents

duty honour something boundless

not to kill a man so clearly

die-hard hateful cold & fearless

murder death itself that certain

on he plods his feet are swollen

lumps of clay in loamy omen

hobbles back towards his captain

Oaken shield the brave the brazen

irony with iron broken

what you got there Ensign Tolkien

clutched so tightly to your bosom

enemy dispatches maybe

letters home from German soldiers

doubtful stands

the state of battle

lives exchanged

for tittle tattle

Shirley Burly

hurly burly

ring of roses

queen of poses

bring intelligence

to bear

fathom hope

from deep despair

safe at last in filthy dugout

mug of tea and Fiveboys' chocolate

Ensign Tolkien bard of Baggins

opens up the runner's satchel

empties out its secret contents

orders meant for German soldiers

read by varsity decoders

Captain Sir please look these over

signals sent from Hunnish generals

detail all our plans of battle

Fritzie knows he's got our units

every number down to sections

Captain Oaken sometimes comic

often dour never humours

those who shy of ruthless matters

iron shield in broken tatters

soldiers on despite the rumours

Ensign Tolkien shrinks from murder

good on you the Captain flatters

Valiant leader Captain Oaken

shield of broken iron spoken

twists his 'tache with blackened fingers

stabs his finger at the ensign

now we know they know our orders

wiser shall we be whoever

doesn't know you know's the loser

killed the runner I'm assuming

Johnny Tolkien Bard of Baggins

soldier poet Lancashires

feeble footed stands uprooted

loathe to play the coward liar

answers true as truth requires

he was wounded weak from bleeding
sir all caked in mud and wire

looked lie death itself the runner

left him when I heard your whistle

Captain Oaken hums and murmurs

looks the academic over

takes the satchel smiles and chuckles

lost your ring I see that's bloody

rotten luck though got you safely

home 'twas made inside Volcano

Doom I'll wager that's Down Under

solid gold you said don't worry

lost today means found tomorrow

soon enough you'll earn new baubles

mention you in my dispatches

since you've proved yourself in battle

then he's off to meet the colonel

barely Shirley

late & early

surly turns

the hurdy gurdy

swinging left & right

she wallows

drunk or sober

whoso follows

hurly burly

cauldron swallows

man hath troubles

earth hath bubbles

Johnny Tolkien bard of Baggins'

feet of clay were nicely warming

till that moment now they're freezing

spreads his hand that bore the bangle

white the ring now bare the finger

not of gold from mountain magma

precious ring of yellow amber

bought one day on Brighton Pier

silver crossed the palm of Gypsy

talisman inscribed with message

dearest Johnny love from Edith

oh but how & when & wherefore

has the ring escaped its owner

lucky charm now gone forever

curses he in desperation

then with dreadful understanding

knows the moment it went missing

pulled from him by German runner

part exchanged for information

gone the talisman forever

Johnny sickens from that moment

booted footless doomed to failure

no more dreams of field promotion

endless nights of squalid triumph

nightmare days of stinking glories

just the memories left to ponder

turning horror into stories

hurly burly

mud and trouble

doubtful stands

your state in battle

© Philip Lee, 2016

Jo Cox

( Daily Mirror)

why did she opt to play Number Six

blazing into opposition it

never was her intention to quit

information's what the public lacks

she believed it served us right to ask

lived the dream that took the state to task

funny how the truth is so complex

things are not as they appear & heck

tragic too when mummy hits the deck

beauty died for us & no one's kicks

we were robbed American style sick

people make of it what you will tick

Jo Cox forever & always ask

what would she have done before we act

Roll That Crashamattazz

Roland Gold has dreamt up a new number but isn't speaking to Bill. Their whole partnership is a crash of symbols, darling.

Gold rolls out of the guest bed and puts on his purple silk gown with the Chinese dragon. He trollies along the west landing and swerves into the studio. The first thing you need for a spanking new number - his fingers click - is a spanking new tune. He turns on the piano and sets the vol to low. No sense waking up the whole building. The rag he hums is somewhat perky. His fat bum settled on the stool, he presses Record.

With Roland's playing, it will take half the morning to work out all the notes. The tune's just a chromatic thing: seven notes dribbling down the scale, with twiddly-bits at top and bottom. Being a blues, it is simply the knack of transposing bars by intervals. Simply? Even in his own estimation, Roland has never been that much of a musician. As to his skills on the sequencer, who is he trying to kid? Playing in the open key, he runs through the tune with his right hand. It swings nicely. Then he switches up to G, where he can pick out the blue notes, and rapidly runs into all kinds of technical snags.

After an hour, he leaves the studio and pirouettes down the empty landing into the upstairs kitchen. He pops a couple of muffins into the microwave and switches on the espresso. Those machines, at least, are all primed up and ready to play.

Back in the studio - between slurps and munches – he gets down to the serious work, filling out the left hand, even kicking round some ideas for the bridge. A bridge? Shucks, should have seen that one coming. Should have gone to bloody music school! It's always a hassle stretching ideas between set bars. All alone, too! No overpriced sessions musicians to spark off these days. Top of the Pops seems fifty years ago, not just twenty-five. Anyhow, the structure of his music keeps to its predictable... ahem... characteristic course. And soon enough Lunchtime looms. The song is recorded to flash. He pops it in piano and the words 'beginning playback sequence' scroll across the little screen.

Roland lights up his first joint of the day. When not working, he can hold out until noon without a single drag. His pact with the obnoxious weed is that he smokes only plain leaf, which stinks the place out. His tastes have not varied in years. But even on a bad working day, he puts off that first puff until he has come up with something worthy. Worthy may be a phone call. It may mean a tête-à-tête with Shit Face. It may involve getting up before dawn to be driven halfway across the country. He may be in the grim depths of some Northern Hole before he allows himself that first biff. But he will have something in hand: a contract with a well-known signature, a porcelain cup and saucer with R.M.S. Aquitania stencilled underneath, a cheque worth six months' boots & panties for Bill. Roland lights up and taps play on the keyboard.

The racking of his cough means he hears nothing first off. A joint no longer raises the hairs on the back of his neck. Instead, his lungs tighten, his brows narrow, his tummy gurgles, lunch puts itself on hold. Smoking actually means sharpening the front of the brain by inducing a slight headache. He listens again. Blue wisps rise and blue notes tinkle on the piano. If Roland breathes less easily, his fingers at least can relax. Slight mistakes and slurred bits aside, he is pleased with the morning's work. He pictures the customer smiling. Lou Steiner emerging from a cloud of cigar smoke and shaking him firmly by the hand,

Rolly, you listen to your Uncle Lou. Actual royalties don't mean shit any more, the public ain't been buying music since forever. Origination is all that counts: the good honest tunes you sell to nice people like me. 'Music by Roland Gold' - that is good. 'Music and words by Silver and Gold' - better still. 'Music, words & choreography by Silver, Gold and... I know, let's call in Joe Diamond. The whole concept will go for... well, call it one year's tax, your school fees & a new Jag for Bill.

After his reverie, Rolly remembers what Bill says to him the night before. He stubs out the joint and straight away rolls up another. The music has long stopped, but the tuppeny riff repeats itself on an endless loop in the back of his head.

Go and strangle thyself! Actually, that is a ridiculous notion, Billy Silver! How can you strangle yourself? Roland puts the lit joint in the ashtray and places his hands round his neck. Thumbs dig into his throat. Ugh! Impossible! He takes the joint up again and inhales deeply.

His husband was stone drunk! Stewed in his own juice. God he was annoying! His cheeky mouth was smeared with those mint chocolates. What gave him the right? Just because he still had the figure. The poise was there and the pose, but that was all. Lithe, coiled like a snake round a wine glass, crossing his legs in jeans so tight even a teenager wouldn't have worn them. Go and strangle thyself! Eeyach!

He gets up, hears his husband down the landing, fussing over little Josh and Kay. Does he never regret his mood of the evening? Does the cat cry when its milk is spilt? Roland shuts the door on them all and turns the volume up to eleven. Then he thinks better. No use flaunting himself.

The words, that is the thing. Gotta get some words down! But Roland rarely has the gab. His words cloy. Better do lunch. Line the old stomach first.

Shunning the publicity of a squalid kitchen visit, he dials for a sandwich and latte. Meantime, the second joint has gone out in the ash tray. Good-oh. Entitles him to roll up another! Such soothing work.

The radio is on, loud in the kitchen. Pirates have shanghaied another Korean freighter in the Gulf, petrol prices have gone through the floor, the Dollar and the Euro are at it again. The way they hack at Sterling, like a pair of kids with switch-blades, lunging from the booming Twenties to the busted Thirties and back again.

 He sees it in those old films, 'The Boyfriend', 'The Great Gatsby', 'The Sting'. He cringes at the stagey acting, sepia scenes in Bakelite frames. The images segue into sci-fi of the same era, 'A Clockwork Orange', 'O Lucky Man', '2001, A Space Odyssey'. Characters are hollow, cyphers of their auteurs' vanity; sets that went millions over budget yet still managed to look cheap. Something is cooking in this mix of old and new: nostalgia for a past past - dreaming of past future. Pints of bootleg here, vials of Synthomesc there. Another Great-Timing Crash-Reminding Ratta-tatta-Razzamattazz.

Sept 25th. 2012, 'Crashamattazz' (music by Roland Gold, words by Bill Silver) goes into a presentation for Lou Steiner. The crapy gaff where the great man does his music buying is a little sound studio off Greek Street. If the deal is good, he stands you a slap up meal at the cheap Italian joint on the corner. Lunchtimes they do a greasy spag bol. Over a carafe of the house Chianti, Lou talks money. He takes options on a handful of promising jingles, which his expert ear says will do nicely in the market. He signs the advance and hands it over. But he waves his cigar-hand at the dance routines and set pieces. So much for pastiche.

When you gonna stop living in the past, Rolly? 

Advice that will lie shredded on the cutting room floor.

June 8^th 2016, the rag from 'Crashamatazz' – by the late, great Roland Gold (they don't write like him any more) turns up in a TV advert for 4GPlus. There are no words, no break, not a scrap of harmony just a raggedly blues riff that loops for a full thirty seconds of Prime Time. Everybody is whistling or humming it at work and on the tube. That evening, Bill tunes into the ad after watching the ten o'clock news. He raises his glass to Roland's memory. As it happens, the first royalty cheque for twenty grand is propped on the mantelpiece. How Rolly used to turn them out! Pity he'll never roll another.

© Philip Lee, June 2016.

better in better out

better in better out

the Tories on Britannia

- or -

2 parties for the price of 1

Watch & Listen on YouTube

relief at Aphrodisias

so Britannia this Carian

tableau of your subjugation

by Claudius the God was

a first appearance in sculpture

the meekness of the model whose

crookèd arms & open breast lack

of body armour or rancour

predict what time made manifest

when Hardy kissed Lord Nelson's cheek

the victimhood England expects

transcends all stabs of Netflix sex

for bronze or marble which at least

have the flint of Amazon zeal

uphold your pose as murderee

the yukkie bookie

you stick your right wing in

your right wing out

in out

& shake it all about

you do the yukkie bookie

and you turn around

that's what it's all about

oh oh the yukkie bookie

oh oh the yukkie bookie

oh oh the yukkie bookie

downtown

turnaround

town let's go

you stick your left wing in

your left wing out

in out

& shake it all about

you do the yukkie bookie

and you turn around

that's what it's all about

oh oh the yukkie bookie

oh oh the yukkie bookie

oh oh the yukkie bookie

downtown

turnaround

town don't go

the last refugee

I wish the doctor were here

who tick Johnson diction ear

sorry not you Boris dear

Tory king of satire cheer

up this reader with warm beer

then haul in old Britannia

whose leaking hulk rules off-shore

through waves of bankrupting whores

that throw themselves on her laws

always been with us those poor

slaves to the stock exchange floor

toss them a line make them share

holders of the common fare

ground like scoundrels in the dirt

wide lanes grifter

wide-lanes grifter

rustle up a radical centrist

liberty taking right on leftist

hell's bells ring out for ye alchemist

fusion curse the cause of this feckless

world don't watch yr daughters go topless

do what thou wilt shall be their business

keep one eye on all stock exchanges

speculate according to changes

orangutans have in their cages

struggle to say watchamacallit

drive backwards thru rushhour traffic

leave old Beryl when she's in peril

most of all hog that centre carriage

love thy spouse & cheat on yr marriage

With apologies to Clint Eastwood