Tuesday 26 July 2011

Rebekah Brooks


 
I like bad girls,
I like them rough and tough,
 I like their temptress looks,
And I have to now confess to you
That I am in love with Rebekah Brooks

She’s mates with the superstars ,like Madonna and Sarah Brown
And if she gets pissed off, she can close newspapers down
Those svelte power suits that long red flaming hair
She’s always at the centre of things even if she wasn’t there

And even though things, did not always go as planned
She had the boys on the Parliamentary  committee
Eating out of her hand

Her coquettish smile leaves me trembling
I love her cute dissembling,
When she has such trouble remembering
When criminality was at large
Even though she was in charge.

You would have thought that her reporters
Would have lined up for a smacking
When their editor had detected a spot of illegal hacking
But she didn’t

And all that she can say
Is she was away on holiday,
That these events cause much dismay,
 In an, “I’ve been caught out sort of way”

No worries for her about the law, I would have thought
For Rebekah has already considered that, and the law’s been bought.
Forget Dave, Nick and Ed if, for you, power is the key
For Rebekah is much more important than that,
She runs the slumber par-ty
Which is a bit more influential  than those political ones, I fear
Whose hidden manifesto was to have  her  most nibble-able  of ears

Or maybe more..........

They gazed at her, and their self seeking libido erupted
Queuing up to have their principles corrupted
Her beauty and good looks are a source of constant wonder
But there is one thing you should never forget,
And that is
Rebekah has  your number


My Death

Will
Be
A
Quiet
Affair.

Inside Out

Inside out



It’s true that we are
What we do,
And not what we look
That’s not just an aphorism, not just a hook
We should be  judged by our words and not by the eye
No snap judgement to pass him of her by
Spending time on appearances, hair make up and face
Can never be enough to arrive at the right place
For what is the you which you have packaged to proffer?
We’ve seen the decoration but what is the offer
Which is not to say that we should not be proud
Nor should not be allowed
To look our very best
But the test
Is your deeds
What you wear may be your window to the world
But what you say is the window to your soul, unfurled
Your body is that which you were given, but your words are what you choose
Something which you can never ever lose
Take pride in that which you harbour  within
Whether tall or short or fat or thin
For the greatest achievements were never with the plastic surgeons knife
But personal endeavour, determination and strife
For appearances in graves are pitifully few
The more profound question “What did you do?”

Monday 18 July 2011

Body Image



Too tight, too big, too low too small
It never quite fits the way that she is
The straight down hips, the protruding ribs



She can buy kids clothes, looks like a doll
Aspiring to the appearance of a juvenile
To regress  playing  hide and seek  for a while



His milky arms pause in contemplation
Youthful beauty paraded and bare
Sculpted chin ,supple calf beyond compare



In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo



Bacchanalian excess wild conflagration
Yet never quite enough to sate the pain
From the outside in, gorging refrain



A  grotesque weight bears down
Willing wilful disfiguration
The final gulp sweet peroration



Cat walk strut alluring sway
Turn that shoulder then walk this way

Thursday 14 July 2011

Take Five

Grey skies
Shroud for mans toil
Home of heavy metal
Trusty workshop to an empire
Sweet dust

Proof house
Proofed not proven
The armourers true friend
Cannon rifles and pistols bear
Its mark

Crowds roar
Test match drama
The Kop singing the blues
Tall tales of heroes and villans
As one

Roads hum
Spaghetti hub
Drawing in, taking out
Carriageways to prosperity
Non stop

Mixed up
Colours and creeds
Cathedrals and mosques call
Diverse tongues with a common voice
Rich blend

Sunday 10 July 2011

Second Thoughts – Seconded

I am now in receipt of your poem of July 10
But I really am not sure that I can consider you again
A seconds thought I haven’t even given you for your heartless crime
And if I could, I would give you, even less time
I admit that things have since not gone entirely my way, which is to say
That my position has now become somewhat, well quite a lot, worse
As will become apparent, in this plangent tear stained verse.

The blond bimbo who seduced me and promised such sexual heaven
Has cruelly deserted me for an estate agent called Kevin
I see that your capacity for vitriol
Is clearly undiminished
And you still delight in humiliating me
Even though we are still finished

You complain that my fingers did not caress
That my hands were slow to roam,

Well maybe, perhaps rightly

But that is the irrefutable effect of a
Neck high cotton winceyette nightie,
You see – and weird ,genital jewellery……….
That rattled, while on, you endlessly prattled
About something or another
Invariably my mother
Which was not nice or wise
But that woman you despised,
For seeing through your tricks and your lies
She would cut you down to size
Which was not a ten as you used to fantasize
But a few sizes larger……………………
And although you tried desperately to shine and impress
That Harvey Nicks bag still held a skirt from BHS

Not that there were not some good times

Seeing you fast asleep, past a door ajar peeping
I loved you most of all then – because you were not speaking
Jehova’s witnesses feared our house
And salesmen would not call
For they knew that if they solicited you
They would leave with bugger all.

You’re intensely annoying, and bolshy and brash
But without me you would have so little to lash
When writing’s a chore and you scream in frustration
I act as your muse and help with punctuation
Although sometimes I find your caustic words riling
I have to confess, that they can also leave me smiling
You’re the mistress of mean and of cold-hearted looks
But it’s me that secretly buys out all of your books
And although first you said ,”I don’t” and not, ” I do”
Your witty entreaty means I now ,” just might” too.

Saturday 9 July 2011

I Don't Either

When I asked you to marry me and you said no
I just wanted you to know

That I didn’t mean it.

That I should want us together, it was not so
So you might as well go
Just turn on your heels
There will be no appeals
No lamenting no squeals -just satisfaction

On my part

That you should actually work on the supposition
That my absurd proposition -was serious
I said it for a laugh, it was a joke and a half

And you were the victim.

It would feel just like dying
To have your tights draped about drying
And shoes littering every cupboard floor
And however many you have, always needing more

And the fights over whether the toilet seat should be up or down

When up it would prompt you to mutter and glower
But when down it might be inadvertently showered
And you’d want children , now, that would not be any fun
Because genetically it’s best that of you there’s just one

It’s over, how can I hold any strong passion
For someone committed to last year’s fashions
Someone who should have discovered what make- up was for
Someone for whom Trinny and Susanah would have shown – the door.

I don’t want you any more, the memories are raw, too sore

My mother had warned me that you were not good enough
That you were simply not made of marryable stuff
Your motorbike tattoo forced me into conceding
That you may not have been a woman of the requisite breeding

And your deep bronzed tan came from cans not Cannes
A walking advertisement for downmarket brands
Your highlights are fading just like my love for you
Your roots like your soul are now exposed, as I tell you we are through

I have someone else lined up you see
Someone younger, slimmer, lither
So when you say to me “I Don’t”, I reply, “Well I don’t, either”

Monday 4 July 2011

June Catch Up

Nuneaton Poetry Day at the Fountain

Nuneaton I salute you on a lovely summer day!
Would I rather be anywhere else ? No chance, no way!
Is there anywhere else for which I could reasonably hanker
Than on the banks of the beautiful River Anker

Your name came when the nuns stopped at Eaton for a rest
And decided that for this fair town chastity was best
Nowhere else would think of piling a hill so very high with mud
And then deciding to call it simply Mount Judd

For leisure you sought the finest retail inventor
Who proceeded to deliver you the famous Rope Walk Shopping centre
The names of the illustrious who have lived here resound for evermore
Like the wonderful Larry Grayson, and his pleas to “shut that door”
He entertained us regally, till we had reached our fill
How strangely inappropriate that he should have come from Camp Hill

It was George Elliot’s Milby too, of writing fame and splendour
Who by ambiguous use of first names became the very first gender bender
You are twinned with Guadalajara in Spain, and Cottbus in Germany
But there is only one place that Nuneaton should be twinned with- and that is Hungary.


Cambridge 1969

Victorian splendour defines the place
Every corner seeping distant echoes
A monkey puzzle tree once stood to the right
Dull colours burned bright in the summers light
Half remembered memories struggling to make sense
The shrill cries of childhood transcending time

And maybe I could come top in art this time
The battle, the struggle to take first place
Mixed palettes and hues assailing every sense5
Rainbow paint glides and scratchy lead echoes
And a simpler world of primary light
Orderly queues standing to the left and right

Transcendent precepts of what’s wrong and right
Neatly dispensed knowledge in perfect time
Some stark serious and stern and others light
A sometimes blissful sometimes savage place
The insistent ring of the hand bell echoes
Impending calm quiet discipline and common sense

The rudiments of games now etched as sixth sense
The field surely arrayed to the batsman’s right
The dull distant thud of a four echoes
For once it will reach the boundary this time
And I was taken back to another place
When joyous spirits soared free and cares were light

Of strange culinary concoctions we’d make light
When spam and semolina made perfect sense
The hall a bustling aromatic place
Where manners were learned and the rites of right
Rituals observed over generations and time
Slaves and servants to the lunch bells echoes

The walls the grounds resounded to echoes
To images of bright then flashing half Light
Of a long lost but rediscovered time
Where blinkered youth yielded to knowing Sense
And the head teacher stood for what was right
In this strange yet comfortingly familiar place

A place now painted in autumnal light
Distorted echoes finally make sense
It was right to reminisce for a time

Don’t Stop

The moist tenderness of my kiss will dry
Your trust will be misplaced
The all consuming rage of lovers will falter
Leaving only the faint toll of hollow memories
What you seek you shall not find here
What you think you have seen has deceived you
For the pain of what might have been
Weighs lightly against that which was and is lost
Too heavy a burden, too high a cost