fact, opinion and poetry (not airy-fairy)


Saturday 28 December 2013

Winter Is Just Beginning

A subtle winter chill
Gives a kind of physical thrill,
But really not a pleasant one.
Is it only the beginning?
Will it run and run,
As it did last year?
So cold it brought me fear
Of hypothermia.
At least I'm not on the buses now.

Arab Spring

We've blown old Libya all to crap,
While media spout a lot of pap
About an Arab Spring.
This story has a falsehood ring,
As covertly they weapons pour
Into Syria's sea of gore.
The Arabs are having the kind of Spring
That feels like bitter Winter.

When Arab youth rebel and riot
Our leaders think that's fine;
When British youths do just the same,
They're called disloyal swine.

Why are we told we should be pleased
By an Arab world in flames?
The Tory bloodlust's not appeased,
They keep on shouting blame
And threatening intervention.

The Arab population's grown
So fast it takes away your breath.
Malignant neighbours study this,
And want to see mass death.

Old Ways

The bosses have no mercy
On old ways of feeling.
The changes they've imposed
Have left the people reeling.

They've got the younger people fooled
They think this crap's their own.
They'll be lucky to survive
Until they are full grown.

Season's Greetings

It's too late for "Merry Christmas",
Too early for "Happy New Year",
We're lost in a kind of limbo
Of conventional good cheer.
I don't know what to say to folk,
Tongue-tied by an exotic fear;
So I mumble and I stutter,
My greeting is unclear.
Then I just say "Hello".
 
This was written and posted between Christmas and New Year,
in case anyone is puzzled. 

Wednesday 25 December 2013

A Soldier's Wish

Let's hope that we don't keep the peace
In lands where it does not exist;
Where battles are raging without cease
And generals rule with an iron fist;
Where bullets fly,
And peacekeepers die,
And the idea of peace is pie-in-the-sky.
Let's hope the pols don't throw our lives away,
Just so they can mendaciously say
They did what they could for peace.

This is unusual for me in that it is fictional. The reader is to imagine it 
spoken by a soldier, which I have never been, thank God. It was inspired 
partly by the UN Secretary General calling for more UN troops for 
South Sudan. It is also due to a set of military memoirs I read a long 
time ago, whose author complained about being sent to keep non-existent 
peace and getting shot at by both sides.
Pols is an abbreviation for politicians, popular in the US. 
 
On a similar topic: Joining Up 
 

Saturday 21 December 2013

The Ballad of the Leader

"So tell me now", the leader said,
"What lies shall I tell this week?
I think I need some brand new fib
To help me subdue the meek."

His advisers puzzled and scratched their heads,
As the nation's outlook was bleak.
"Perhaps you could say you're on their side?",
Said the first one to dare to speak.

"On their side?" asked the leader,
"You must think them utterly daft.
I'm kicking the shit right out of them,
That's my pleasure and my craft."

"The bigger the lie the better,"
The daring advisor said.
"People are truly credulous,
In fact, they're easily led."

"They'll believe any lie that's repeated,
If you just say it often enough.
The more far-fetched the better,
That's the art of the outrageous bluff."

"I must set them at each other's throats,"
The leader cunningly spoke.
"Whip hatred up to fever-pitch,
Give them a scapegoat they'd like to choke."

"I've said that I care for all of them,
But that tale doesn't work any more.
The people are seeing through my bs,
To the ruthlessness at my core."

"Perhaps," the advisor suggested,
"You could say you love those who work hard."
"That's a fine idea," the leader replied,
"Among liars you are the bard!"

"I'll be on the side of those who strive,
And I'll claim that the poor are lazy.
I can save quite a lot of money,
By blaming the sick and the crazy."
 
Of course, this is about Hitler and Goebbels. Anyone who thought
it was about contemporary leaders should be ashamed :-)
 

Thursday 19 December 2013

To the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police

When asked why they had given payouts to people who had sued them without due cause, the Met spokesman said that it was cheaper just to settle. The idea is dubious; publicising it idiocy.

A policy of settling lawsuits
Will bear a harvest of bitter fruits.
To ignore the merits of the case
Leads only down into disgrace.
Claims should not be settled thus
Or, with time, things will get worse.
Greasy chancers will appear,
And fire in lawsuits far and near.
Nuisance suits will form a blizzard
Till paying them off sticks in your gizzard.

Icy Rain

Icy rain slaps on my thighs,
As from a tap that's opened.
It thunders down with sudden force,
It's freezing chill a potent
Sign of nature's waywardness.

We hope that nature will behave,
And yet its poise is delicate;
Stability is what we crave,
But all hangs by a thread,
In point of fact.

 
On a similar topic: October Rain 

Heart's Desire

We can't escape our heart's desire,
Even when we dream of sacrifice;
We're ineluctably compelled
To do exactly our own will.
If we try not to be self-serving,
It is because that is what pleases us.
The self-image that we hold in mind,
Owns allegiance unswerving.

We can't escape our heart's desire.
To say we can is to be a liar
Even unto our secret self.
What we do is what we want,
Even when we placate fear.
We're caught in the grip of passion's fire,
So we can't escape our heart's desire.

The only way to change our fate
Is to cultivate a different dream,
See ourselves a different way,
Adhere a little less to hate,
Enslave ourselves to a different scheme
Of more subtle aspiration;
And yet we often reinstate
Feelings we have long cast off.
We're burning still in passion's grate,
Trapped by lust's relentless fire:
Thus we can't escape our heart's desire.
 
dedicated to Ian M Banks, Scottish SF author,who kicked the bucket not long ago.
I wrote this in response to a rather odd preamble in one of his books, on the topic
of selfishness. I thought his discussion interesting, but a little naive, due to a lack of 
knowledge of yoga psychology. 

Saturday 14 December 2013

Race Hate Killer

Joe Franklin left no word behind
When he was executed.
Withheld the last thoughts in his mind,
His sentence not commuted.
They stuck the needle in his arm,
With intent to do him harm,
And sent him on his way.

Did he just not want to share?
Or had he finally ceased to care?
When held awaiting execution,
He made a thorough recantation,
Of all his race hate murder views.
Yet somehow that didn't make the news,
The way his final silence did.

He'd been in jail for thirty-three years,
When they finally killed him off;
Prosecutors boasted of justice done:
Please excuse me while I scoff.
The wizened old man they put to death,
Was different from the hard young thug
Who stole his victims breath.

They used a cunning sexual lure
To draw forth fatal confessions.
Hard to see a motive pure
When they mingle the professions 
Of prosecutor and prostitute.
The Supreme Court failed to refute
A very unsafe conviction.

He'd been in jail for sixteen years
When the Missouri siren came.
He unwisely had no fears,
Boasted he was to blame.
He thought he'd be in jail for life,
Wasn't warned he was in danger;
Shot off his mouth, to impress a beautiful stranger.

His doctor said that he was crazy,
Confessing to crimes he didn't commit.
Were the prosecutors lazy
Or did they just not give a shit?
In either case, they didn't solve the case.
Their devious and lethal acts are base;
They're much the same as him.

His victim Larry Flynt spoke out,
Against his fatal sentence.
But Larry's views didn't carry clout.
His ranting didn't make much sense,
As he raved of crippling Franklin instead
Of the State's idea to strike him dead.
So Missouri killed him as they wanted.

Franklin killed both Jews and blacks,
In a series of deadly attacks.
It seems he tried to start race war,
Unleashed a mini wave of gore.
Yet in the end his acts were futile:
No man alone could corpses pile
High enough to make a difference.

Like Breivik he was willing to act,
While others merely warmed the air;
But his killings proved useless in fact,
As no-one really seemed to care.
These one-man wars are truly quixotic,
Though they aren't always psychotic.
Political strife means nothing without results.

The world is full of tough guy talkers,
Boasting of all the killings they'll do.
Most are only keyboard warriors,
Or blowhards babbling over beer.
Breivik and Franklin are a kind of victim,
The only ones who were too dim
To know the others didn't mean it.

They thought they were striking a match
In a gunpowder magazine.
But there was a fatal catch:
A problem they had not foreseen.
The others were like empty barrels,
So the violence did not go viral:
The rest were only play-acting.


This story first caught my attention when I saw the headline 'Executed man leaves no final word'.
I read of his death, and found his lack of a 'dying declaration' tantalising. Was his repentance 
genuine? It had been published in a Mid-Western newspaper a scant week before his death. I 
wanted him to leave a final word, either confirming it, or admitting he had been needle-ducking, and
was still an unrepentant Nazi. But he didn't. I could think of a myriad reasons for his silence, and it 
got under my skin. Perhaps he thought his newspaper interview was an adequate final word? If so 
he was wrong. Not for the first time.
      I was also struck by Larry Flynt's principled opposition to his execution. Franklin had shot 
him for publishing pictures of inter-racial sex in Hustler magazine, leaving him wheel-chair bound. 
Flynt said: “a government that forbids killing among its citizens should not be in the business of 
killing people itself.” This made a deep impression on me. If only he could have confined himself to 
that without ranting about crippling Franklin, he might have had more influence.
      It was only when I started fact-checking, after completing the poem, that I found out 
about the dodgy conviction. He was sitting in jail in Utah, serving life without parole, when a 
Missouri prosecutor, Melissa Powers, wrote and asked to see him. At the time, she moonlighted as 
a glamour model, and was a bit of a blonde bombshell. He asked her to send a photo, then agreed 
to see her. She was probably the first woman he had seen in 16 years. He boasted of various crimes
to her, as she wanted. He was not warned she was planning to kill him. He already had, as far as I 
can tell, a reputation as an unreliable confessor, and been diagnosed as mentally ill.
      If he was, in fact, a paranoid schizophrenic, he may well have had psychotic delusions of 
having committed crimes which he had not. He had, as a child, been violently abused by his 
drunkard father, and may have had concussion sequelae as well. A lot of serial killers have major 
brain abnormalities. Not a few confess to crimes they didn't commit. The Crossbow Cannibal made 
up tales of invented murders. Myra Hindley confessed to killing someone who was still alive. We will
never know if he killed the man he was executed for.
      He had confessed to another crime for which someone else, a man named Beard, had 
already been convicted. Beard was eventually released, with great reluctance. It's clear that law 
enforcement didn't accept Franklin's confession in that case. They accepted them when it suited.
      What the Missouri prosecutors show no insight into, is their similarity to him. They both:
1) Decided that someone else's conduct was unacceptable;
2) Determined to kill those persons for it;
3) Carried out the killing in a way which required absolute dedication;
4) Used deceit to obtain the goal.
      The main difference is that he has made a show of repentance, and they have not.

      The complexity of this topic makes it problematic for poetry. I did not know this when I 
started out. The poem grew and grew as I learned more. It could easily be twice the length.

Friday 6 December 2013

Big Society

People seem cheerful in spite of it all,
They shrug aside the cup of gall
Served them by authority.

Children in the Cathedral sing in a choir,
Effortlessly tuneful little girls.
They seem happy and free of ire,
Oblivious to being betrayed
By those in charge of their future.

The Government loves those who work hard,
Even more if they don't demand to be paid.
In the Big Society, those with money are fewer.
Charity's become the rich man's best card.

Sunday 1 December 2013

A New Erection

Grey plastic phallus rises,
Erect and dully gleaming;
Looms over the canal,
Fraught with hidden meaning.

It's full of student bedrooms.
But why is it so tall?
This city's rising higher,
No-one now builds small.

The city's older buildings
Are dwarfed by this new edifice.
Walls of plastic cladding
Now are thought to suffice.
 
It's near the Statue of  Liberty (yes, Leicester has one, though it's smaller than the one
in New York). It's discordantly tall,a narrow tower of oval cross-section. The plastic walls 
suggest a reduction in standards to me. Tall buildings are expensive, yet it has cheap walls?
The high strength needed at the lower floors to support the weight of the upper ones,
puts the cost up. 
     This city has seen an enormous boom in construction of student dormitories,
owned by private business rather than the universities. Most of them, at least 
in the canal area,  are designed to blend in with their surroundings, which are
mostly Victorian factories. This one clashes.
     There must be some planning decision, some change in basic values, behind its
construction. 

Translated Verse

What then is this translate verse?
Bereft of all its cadence,
Rhymes and rhythms ruined or mocked,
Reduced to a kind of faded stutter,
Faint echo of an alien text
I cannot comprehend,
Which only tantalises,
Forever beyond my grasp.

1914 and All That

Had they all read Malthus
Those who sent men off to war?
Trying to keep the numbers down,
To lose the surplus in the glaur
Of Flanders fields,
In attack after futile attack?
Smiling as they waved them off,
Knowing they would not come back?
Charging horses onto barbed wire,
Or marching men into machine-gun fire
Dressed in fancy clothes?
Had they foreseen unemployment,
Revolution and disorder,
And chosen instead a mass interment?
Marched them off in battle order,
To their nice new cemeteries?

See the faces of royal cousins,
Like as peas in inbred pods,
Sitting in their palaces,
Untroubled by the dreadful odds
The hapless proles faced at the front.

In ancient times kings led their armies,
Ventured onto bloody fields,
Swung the battle-axe themselves,
Relied upon their strength to yield
The fruits of victory.
By 1914 that was over,
They lived their lives in fields of clover,
Rather than in mud and blood.
Those were left to lesser mortals.
 
I've been reading a collection of poetry created to commemorate the centenary of
the Great War, and felt moved to write one myself.
'glaur' is a Scotch word for 'very thick mud'.