Frack off with your ‘global race’

This race you are so fixed upon:
It is interminably long.
Not everyone is in it
And you have to do a lot of
People over
If you want to win it.

Well, frack off with your “global race”
Race to what?

Another’s got.
Theft and rot

A perpetual trophy
For the quickest despot.
And what for?
To grab the lion’s share
Before, well

He who dares

Oh, yeah..
Hey: someone’s gotta lose
You snooze, you

Choose austerity
And serfdom’s flexibility.

All drones
And stepping stones
Keep us lean and mean
And poor..

Telling us we’re flawed because
We’re falling behind some
Who-cares training place for
Automata

Constantly sniping at our young
And everyone
Doing us all down with your we’re not
Fast enough
Smart enough
Making enough

The whole world knows you think
Your citizens are fools. Yeah,
Thanks for that.

You Tools…

All strength and guile ignobly exercised
Come bearing plated medals, furnished
With a thousand overlapping lies.

You’re nothing but second-underhanded
Salesmen, bullying Life into a profitable
Sport.

You put the slaughter into
Sink-or-swim

But nothing screams of desperation quite
As much as grim and low imagination,
Does it?

Where all the globe is a prize battlefield
For carrion in suits to pick and plunder

Yes, split the earth asunder by your dread
Small mind, so yielding to the grass is greener
All you know is the keen comparison of
Superior inadequates
And lazy envy’s gift

See nothing of the wasting treasure
And the measureless potential
That exists.

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Oh, Labour (part 2): Come on, Labour!

Come on, Labour!
Tell us where the country went
When Maggie promised individuality for everyone,
As though she did invent
And then bestow Free Will itself on all.
And do describe the gall her regime had
To asset strip the Brits with nasty tricks
That caused the very rip that Blair repaired in tokens
While he carved, bespoke, the Neoliberal Way
So effing deep, the bastards of today need no instruction

Come on, Labour!
Tell us why the grand construction of austerity
Is hogwash-speak
And shout about that money tree the BoE admits exists
And why it’s quite alright to use it
If it’s sensibly applied
To stuff like Capital Investment
In our national infrastructure –
Do explain how it is vital
For societal sustainment and prosperity

Come on, now, Labour!
Tell us how the spin of choice insults us
When it comes to the utilities
And health and education;
How the nearest school and hospital
Should be as good as every other;
How we should have ownership of things that everybody needs from one day to another
Or occasions of emergency.
And say that public service is a noble cause
And how it costs us less if it’s collectively resourced
Because the act of pooling risk is sensible
And ultimately cheaper to afford
And that the end reward becomes
More evenly assured.
Say how the vision of a well-run State provision serves us all
And that, as much as it ties everyone to shared responsibility
It also gifts a stress less space for individual liberty

Oh, Labour call a halt to this cruel, arbitr’y assault
On any easy demographic.
Name and shame all those who undermine the fabric of society
By splitting all and sundry into categoric lines
And why and how the welfare bill has climbed to plug the gap
Between employer and the neo-serf and profiteering landlord.
Say you’ll cap the corporate ilk that milks us
In the name of phoney isms and expose free market fraud
That grows this top-down corporate socialism;
How this scam is propped up by the tax of those,
Now lucky few who earn enough

Come on, now, Labour!
Tell us there’s no need for all this tough-guy act;
How rare it is, in fact,
For those in need to shun an actual, proper, decent opportunity
And how, if those in government
Have done their own job properly,
There will be plenty chance to work
And that unnecessary, cruddy, blanket threats as policy
Are ignorance and fear
Turned to the useful shirking of a regime’s liabilities

Oh, come on, Labour!
Tell us how Democracy has been usurped
By corporate stealth and bankster wealth
That each successive government
And many of our institutions aid
With so much cynical collusion
And complete contempt
For nearly every British voice
For years and years
Until, our freedoms, hopes, good faith and rights
Are recklessly diminished.
Come on, Labour: tell it like it really is –
Allay my fears and speak for me
Or risk that you are rightly finished.

Oh, Labour (part 1)

Oh, Labour! No, you do not speak for me.
Please understand: I want you to.
I listen and I read and wonder
Who on Earth you think you’re serving.
What am I to think
But that you don’t consider me deserving.
What I mostly see is you preserving ideologies
For which I have contempt
And so it worries me that you might rather form
A carbon-copied government of Hobson’s choice
And so empower yours than be the People’s voice
And raise the fundamental arguments
Against this crazy, neoliberal cruelty.
Your fealty to narcissistic economics is a deathly blow:
That you’d forgo my dignity
To please the grubby tribes with promises
That promise no improvement
To the lives of the majority of citizens you’d claim to represent.

The denizens to which you pander are a poison,
Yet you hold aloft the near-same gilded chalice,
Just as if your lesser malice were sufficient sop
To damp this futile piety and quell the swelling of anxiety,
For all the ‘difficult decisions’ of this inept unelect you cowardly support
Are frankly risible.
How can you keep invisible
The counter to this crude miss-framing
But that you conceive yourselves inadequate to challenge it
Or that you actually believe this farce retains some merit
And embrace the blame you’ll share
When you inherit all you failed to rail against…

Oh, Labour! What’s the point of you if all you’ve got to offer
Is that Labour will be tougher?
Oh, I mourn the loss of intellect;
The caving in to pseudo Reason;
Automatic disrespect for half of your electorate.
I just cannot accept this inability
To paint the bigger picture
Nor the failure to connect the dots that got us here,
That you would use to keep us captive.
Who’s side are you on that you would actively perpetuate
The false and patronising songs
Of Blair’s and Thatcher’s mighty wrongs:

You know that competition is no guarantee of choice
And, that Public Service, privatised,
Removes the People’s voice.
You say the welfare of the country needs a safety net
But then neglect that if it cannot be upheld,
Then your responsibilities have fallen short of being met.
To blame the poor for being poor
When those ‘above’ decide the policies of economic climate
Is malfeasance multiplied unto a treason
And, that you would fall for such rhetorical appeasement
As to advocate a cap, implies your idiocy flows on tap
And, though you utter here and there the odd sage observation
And some worthy remonstration,
They are merely optimistic glimpses pinned on good intention
That are thrown to me as scraps and leave me feeling,
I still greatly fear,
You’d trap the nation in the same manipulative crap.

Where went why?

That why impulse of early youth,
The fundamental key of curiosity:
Does it degrade with each lost
Baby tooth; grow wary of the adult
World of Weary, this now, oh, so-
Needed, though least sought of
Queries? Straight to how and what
And who and where – the why forgot
– the minds of men hop-skip right on
To which and when and then and
There, the reason stops and critical
Thought dies of inattention by the
Why that rarely even gets a mention..

The state of The State

Yes, The State’s in a state

But wait..

For, do not equate that with
It’s-too-big or let’s-get-rid
And cut off your nose just to
Spite your face

For, who is The State?

Not the temporary outfitters of
Misrule and disgrace, seen
Processing through the gates
Of Number Ten and every other
Den of corporate iniquity.

But, then:

Since when did a government
You know of show an inkling of
Intent to mediate our equity for
Common good with common
Sense

Except for that once – long ago –
When the safety net was woven
With a pride,

Justified

By the catastrophic consequences
In its now impending end

But do not pretend that the State is
The enemy encumbering when we
Are the parts of its sum and the heart
Of its purpose and do not mistakenly
Be wailing that Democracy has failed

No it hasn’t –

It’s a messy work in progress,
Interrupted so instead, turn your head
To the opportune usurpers who dilute it
And pollute it and dishonour both
Expressions of our Liberty and Will

Yet still,

Please remember:
You’re a member of this club
And The State,
If we want it,
As we should,
Is Us

Bend over

You can tell me: “Money is no object”
But it clearly is. Collective nouns are
Like that though, you know.

Funny, really…
How it floats on such a fixèd course
Towards the pointy elbowed;

Each digital note, its own blank cheque;
Let, without remorse, on the broad
Shoulders of subservience.

These days, of course, it’s called
Resilience
– yes: some brilliant spark thought it
Chimed more friendly-like – more
Convincing – more pullover-lite

Hardy little Britons –

Look how they bend over
And over –
Subjects to the Right

#torybingo

I’d like to see a selfie of that
Walking troika prat
With a whippet and a tankard
And an old flat cap

I’d like to see him at the old
Joanna playing bawdy tunes
And singing for his supper in
In a working man’s saloon

I’d like to see him do his very
Finest Colin Crompton at the
Wheeltappers and Shunters
And for Stewart Lee to mock
Him

I’d like to see him in the bookies,
Down to his best guess in a worn
Out pair of slippers and a C&A
String vest

I’d like to see him at the Bingo
Marking down his desperation
Working hard to find his House
Competing for his aspiration

Most of all I’d like to see him, in
The interests of the nation, do one
– Yes, just do one – Shapps

Quick! Run and save that boorish,
Grubby, pompous Tory ass before
The proles stop laughing at you and
Come calling out your numbers and
Start baying for your brass.

Tomorrow!

What do we want?
“Justice!”
When do we want it?
“Yesterday!”
What are we going to
Do about it?
“Nothing!”

Just get through today
Keep the vultures at bay
Got the Man’s bills to pay

Oh, when, then?
But when, then?

“Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
And after I’ve borrowed”

“What do we want?
“Peace!”
When do we want it?
“Yesterday!”
What are we going to
Do about it?
“Nothing!”

War’s here to stay
We have battles in play
Better kneel down and pray

But when, then?
Oh, when, then?

“Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
And after the sorrow”

“What do we want?
“Democracy!”
When do we want it?
“Yesterday!”
What are we going to
Do about it?
“Nothing!”

Time to obey
Still the Will
Kill the way
Shed your say
Blindly follow
The madness of men
Until..

When, then?
Oh, when, then?

“Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
And after the hollow”

Lord of the Chance

I danced since the dawning of the feudal drum
I pranced on the hopes in the lives of everyone
I came down from Nanny and parental gifts
My privilege is my benefit

Prance, then, if you are just like me
I am a Lord of the Chance, said he
And I’ll bleed you all, whoever you may be
Unless you’re better at the dance than me

I pranced from nurs’ry to the Bullingdon
I danced to the tune that despises everyone
I thrashed and trashed whatever took my eye
I’ll feel entitled ’til the day I die

Chance, then, is what happened to me
For I am a real lucky S.O.B.
And I’ll fleece you all, wherever you may be
You’re a dancer now for mine and me

I danced myself into a government
By feigned integrity and common sense
Now I’ll cut you down so I can leap up high
A thieving zombie living on a lie

Glance, then, look askance all you please
I and my chums are enhanced with ease
As we bleed you dry, for our prosperity
We’re the DJs now of your mobility

We prance with the City and the CEOs
We dance with the lobbyists and sovereign crows
We glance at the citizens and give no toss
We’re busy building your serfdom cross

Dance, then, for patriarchal glee
Preserving the wealth of the First Degree
And we’ll lead you all, with Tory homilies
For we’re the Lords of the Chance, said he.

Some men

Some men are born already great
As though Destiny itself had hands
As much as any Fortune’s birth.
Some men achieve a greatness by
The virtue of their standing strength
As evidence of living worth. Some
Men have greatness thrust upon them,
Weighted by the cloak of obligation –

Rise and fall
By want
And wont

So dons projected expectations.

Some men continue on long after death:
Their deeds; their words – a breath –
A pledge of new-born consciousness or
Sharp reminder, timely to the lapsed;
A point of poignant place for the forsaken
And the doubting edge (It isn’t over yet).

~~*~~

[Others, not so great, beget fine words

With ease upon the passing of great

Spirits: hopeful to receive vicarious,

Reflective praise – all day, an exercise

In character admiration and seeming

Political politeness.

It is not. It is the due respect they could

Not then, in life afford, for fear their own

Position be uncovered as a fraud.]