The Weeks Strewn Careless

O what have I

what have I done

it has all come

around and so

fast tho days are

slow and drag

dullard attacked

sick to the last

How wrong was I

now all is run

and wan the sun

rays sliding low

and the weeks thrown

strewn careless

mudded and cracked

kicked to long grass

And here I am

somewhere inbetween

a virus, a cure,

a symptom, really

another simpleton

greying hoping

that the distant sunset

is controllable yet

That I may yet learn

what I may yet be

absurd though it seems

deranged or defanged

when shadows are long

purple orange glows

and catches your eyes

then there is no more light.

Y2OK

Been wand’rin online and it’s toxic stuff.

There’s very little social ‘bout some of this guff

and it’s gettin’ worse, it’s hellish ruff

an I’m thinkin’ that I’ve had enuff.

But lyin’ there my eyes won’t shut

so I log in and check who’s up

and whirrin' weird, whose life is stuck

like mine, like yours, like all are fucked.

Posers and posters, cretins, cucks,

dingbats, ballbags, out-of-lucks,

wizards, witches, prayless Pucks

sharin' idiotic muck;

where half-dead heroes, hopeless drunks,

sticky-brained with ghastly gunk,

can learn the truth: The world blew up.

We died in the Millennium Bug.

The Saddest Word of All

The saddest word of all

describes the final living member

of a species.

This terrible little word

we invented to remember

the living dead;

the creature whose future

is to be forever lonely,

and nothing else.

The saddest word of all

we created, because we created

the endling.

Do you think they know

that it's goodnight when they die?

There's no peers

and no elders to lean on

when life becomes a messy danger?

Do they fear it?

Millions – trillions of years. Aeons

made the animal beautifully suited

to their place

to their space, to their species.

In a world that humans have spent a century

gleefully wrecking

in the name of expansion. The irony

is as cutting as the obnoxious moniker

is misnamed: ‘growth’.

Humans can do anything

and meld the world to our needs

crazy quick;

no other life on this planet

can even hope to keep pace

with the rampage.

But we explode things and dig holes and build

such shrines to the power of money:

at what cost?

What a world where such an idea exists.

Where our guilt preys on our minds

(as it should),

but all we are capable of doing

to assuage that nagging brain

is to coin new words.

So we write these poems about them,

mannered stanzas which weep drear, for endlings

make us sad.

The NHS Is A Money Pit, Well...

The NHS is a money pit

Well so fucking what

so fucking what

The ROI isn't worth it

Well then, fuck off

fuck the fuck off

It belongs to us and we all pay in

cause healthier people are happier people

and if I don't get sick myself

I'm happy my investment helps somebody else

Cause I'm not a psychopath, see?

The world don't jump just for me

Even if it made a profit

I'd put it straight back into the coffers

The NHS is a money pit

Well so fucking what

so fucking what

It chomps its way through all the tax

And that's better than war

better than war

You ask why you should pay for strangers

but you don’t think it through enough.

Maybe that stranger puts out fires

or is the parent of your kid’s best mate

or gives lifts to teenagers out too late

and sees them safely home again

or fixes the crack on the iPhone screen

or writes the music that makes you spin

The NHS is a money pit

Well so fucking what

so fucking what

And for the days I’ve got left to live

they can have what they want

cause I ain’t a cunt.

Interesting Times

This timeline we’ve stumbled into is extraordinary.

Who was it set the parameters as weird as can be?

It’s a curse, not a blessing, when you read the signs:

Damned to try and live in these 'interesting times'.

World-Building

I woke up today convinced that it was important to list a load of poetry characters I've written/invented. This is probably not all of them but it's a good chunk. I don't know why either. Soz. 

___

The FBI

Commander Lieutenant Pickles ‘Sniper’ McGhee

^ ^ ^ ^

Pumpernickel Justice / Agamemnon Tailpipe /  Celeriac Mahatma / Aguilera Fud

__

BADDIES

Double-Cut McKenna (Demon Cowboy Ghost)

‘Diamond’ Zeke (Professional Gambler)

The Wind God

Billy Bubblebath (Circus Owner)

Johnnie, the Happy Idiot

Glum King Leopold

Seagulls

International Hitman (2019)

Fink Macropolis

The Evil Kiladon

The Sticky Man

The Devil

David Lord Breakfast

Randall, the Tycoon

The Businessman

Hemingway

The Ket-hole Jester

Lucifer

God

Fascists

Trillionaires

Billionaires

The Great Clown Pagiluci

the anticulturalist

Kerouac and the Beats

Second-Prize Steve

Wrong Way Bigfoot

Working Class Tories

__

GOODIES

John The Woodcutter

The Wind God’s Daughter

Granddad Pat, The Travelling Man

Betty Bailey

Coal, the Mongrel

PiePie the Magpie

Guiseppe Terromoto

Jurgen, the Hoover

Supreme Man of Justice

Jesus

SYM-R-3

A Talking Flea

Spidge and Spodge (Cats)

Jeeeeeves

Iesu

Papa Boulanger

The Villagers

Gringo

A Beautiful 6ft2 German Girl, Possibly Trans

Esmarelda Evans

Jacarinda Slater

__

LOST SOULS

The Oaf

Maude

Robert Stanley Raney

Jones

Carlton Wuck

Luckton Carr

A Girl

Oedipus

Castor Dog

Charlie Fall-A-Lot

Johnny Alone

Gordon

She

The Glorious Widow Albertini

God

Nobody

The Impresario Barry Smalls

Chappy, the Octopunk

Lucifer

The Man With the Bubble-Wrap Skin

Sunday League Legend

Eugene

Mary-Lou

Singleton Dalia

Jerky Spider

Joe

__

LOCATIONS/TIMES


Pax Robotica

Winceworld

River Big Big

Vintage Food Cafe

The Despair Shop

Nantporth

Treborth

Golgotha

Rot Away Beach

A Garbage Alley

A Garbagey Alley Behind the Launderette

Restaurant Bins

One Day in July

Yr Wladfa

Some Buses in Shropshire

Down in the Catacombs

This Forgotten Spot

... and so on

Mary of Llanerchymedd

There’s a fish carved on a stone

and the stone’s in a museum

near a well supposed holy

where Mary’s (maybe) buried

though the well’s overgrown

it’s said Saint Augustine

came to visit Ynys Mon,

to this place extraordinary.

There’s an M carved on that stone

which is now in the museum

and the legend says it must be

the Christian name of Mary

escaped clutches of Rome

(or some such diarrhoea).

I guess we all fall for baloney

when there’s sod all on the telly.