1. |
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Are We Nearly There Yet?
There are always the days we will want to forget …
… but will sadly remember.
Sliding scales on a downward trend,
From Octobers to Novembers and round the bend to
Groundhogged Yule logs and “we never knew, there’d be,
Nothing new … new years”.
A million resolutions in leu of a revolution,
That may or may not be televised,
Yet needs to be realised, so we can claim the real prize,
Of a righteous constitution,
Get wise and reject the compromised refrain
That you can expect to hear again and again …
Turn and face the strain … ch … ch … changes
Are what we need
To ensure it’s more than just the chosen few …
Who succeed.
Because the criteria for choice is skewed
And when you allude to wealth being a measure of achievement,
I can see common sense has suffered a bereavement.
And while you may be vehement in your disagreement,
I will take your opinions on board …
Like a ship’s captain takes on board infected rats,
Yeah … call me a bigot, you fucking fat cats,
Getting morbidly obese as you feed us scraps,
Diverting world attention with fabricated facts.
You know a few bullshit brass tacks
Will get the wide eyed plebs and proles,
Behaving and berating like arseholes.
“It’s the immigrants, it’s the poles, it’s no border controls,
That will bring England the brave to her knees …
It’s asylum seekers, it’s refugees!”
As they digest a diet of right wing nob cheese.
Millions stare salivating as privileged classes gorge their arses,
Suckling on an unsustainably swollen breast,
Mother knows best but is repeatedly raped by the beast,
The one percent …
Triggering a winter of discontent that will last for all seasons,
Where the pursuit of peace is labelled treason …
And if money is not your God …
You’re considered a heathen.
This well established establishment of yours
Continually skips through revolving doors of plenty,
While our continuous chores leave our bellies empty
Is that how it’s meant to be?
You’re busy manipulating the subjectivity
Of fairness and equality,
Blatantly dragging out your career’s longevity,
Spitting on morality and your personal integrity …
If you ever had any.
You move the goalposts so often these days,
You’ve put them on castors,
Anxious dancers for your puppet masters,
Attention diverters from displeasing disasters,
“So sorry we killed and maimed and hurt yer,
But you got in the way of our ‘cash converter’!”
I face palm myself so much these days, my cheek’s gone red,
Tossing and turning in bed,
While I figuratively and literally pull hair from my head,
Common senses dead or too close to death …
Even my scrabble tiles keep coming up with “WTF”.
So as we drive down the road toward equity,
Through the wind and the rain and the snow
And the kids ask “are we nearly there yet dad?”
“Well kids … we’ve a long way to go”.
|
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2. |
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Fodder, they are just fodder.
Front line, masked heroes.
Bowing to their commander.
Boris Johnson,
What a proper plotter.
Face up to it folks.
They are just fodder.
Keep the working classes in order.
Whilst we are safe in our mansions and gardens.
Keep them,
Bowing to their commander.
No sir, this is not tory slander.
It is a reality.
Disabled, old and key workers.
Fodder they are just fodder.
So smile at them,
You safe applauder.
Clap at them for getting,
Sick, sick, sick, sick and sicker.
Bowing to their commander.
No more PPE,
Till there all a gonner.
Just keep on clapping son.
Coz they are fodder,
Just fodder.
Front line masked heroes.
Bowing to their commander.
|
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3. |
||||
Argumentum ab auctoritate
More than we can tolerate
Kurfuffle with Dfeffle, people
Vote Poroging criminal
The Carehome killer from a
Privileged position, neither
PPE provision nor
Honourable ambition
Dysfunctional track and trace purveyor
From an incompetent brexiteer
Bojo Hero of St James,
Fake sore throar, Not
in my name!
Fish rots from the head down
Safety advice from the wicked clown
International laughing stock
Lie to the queen, delay lockdown.
Print it on a bus, Boris we
Don’t believe a word
inside your refrigerator
Self-isolating, traitor
Make the rich richer, paint
This grotesque picture, fight
For the right to vote the your favourite
Psychopath self-beneficial
How’s your eyesight?
comings-and-goings, pay the
Price of his Wrongdoings and
three word slogans
That’s not a crown, it’s just his hair but
He’s the real virus. Donald’s
stockpile of Remdesivir
denied us, wash for 20 seconds
2020 - the year the world changed forever
The only solution is allowing the NHS to access your big data - as we speak
the NHS is being sold to make the worst 2% of us more influential
But we can still save lives now, and you know they’ll get it sooner or later
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4. |
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Up on a pedestal built of ignorance
sits Bozo Boris
smugly grinning
He stutters his way through press appearances
Pretending he has a heart
Faking his ability to lead us through crisis
We are meant to trust a man who cant even brush his own hair
Yet his dad asks "can the working class even spell Pinocchio?"
As we see through the lies that drip like infant dribble
From the mouth of his fuckwit son.
Can you spell integrity?
Or better yet, give me the definition of competency!
My 4 year old daughter is more clued up on how to stay safe from corona
Than the man who is responsible for running our country
Running it into the ground more like
Then he has the absolute audacity
To be proud of his fictitious achievements
Has his supporters crying like children in a playground
That those who hold him accountable for his actions are just plain mean
"Stop bullying him, he has a hard job
He had corona too, didn't you see?"
Well I'm sure as hell he suffered more comfortably than you or me
Had the best possible care
No waiting to be ventilated
Having his ass saved by the very people he claims are unneeded
Foreign Drs who are at risk of being sent back to where they came from
Funnily enough lands they were never actually born
Pakistan? No, Boris, I'm sure you mean Birmingham!
But please, continue to tell us that we will be safe
As long as the british public use common sense
"Cents? But we're British we use pounds and pence!"
You're expecting idiots to be smart
But at what expense?
We are your guinea pigs
The lab mice that you test your crazy theories on
Herd immunity
But not in your rich, prestige community
Let the commoners go first
See what happens when the pandemic is at its worst
a few hundred thousand fogies and scroungers wont be missed
Less money spent on the benefit scum
More money to spend on expenses so you don't have to take a pack lunch from home
Claim the cost of that £15 sandwich back
Never mind that you could feed a school kid for a week with that
But £75 a week for a man to literally live off
Oh, how vile of him to take from tax payer's money
a measly sum to get gas and leccy
When you get paid a fortune to talk out of your arse
Cupboards I doubt are sparse
So why do you need to be paid back money spent on fancy meals
Your second homes
And dodgy deals?
When you say the word scrounger look in a mirror
Look at your friends in parliament
And you'll see one clearer
The sooner you are gone the better
We need an actual leader
One who sees the world clearer
Who is neither rude, racist nor crass
A leader who is there for his people
no matter their class
At this moment, anyone but you.
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5. |
||||
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
I’m sure I heard him right!
I check my ears for wax or worse,
My signal, my sanity –
But now
Brazen
He repeats his phrases
His false praise
His promises
His hollow promises.
I check again
And again
I’m sure you are all doing it too –
That ‘Come again?’ moment,
Open mouthed
Gob-smacked
Horrified
Frozen
Moment?
Liar, liar, pants on fire,
Don’t you hear the national cry of anguish?
Don’t you feel the slow ooze of contempt
Trickling
Slowly
Dribbling out on prime time TV?
Liar, liar, pants on fire,
Smug, secure from real scrutiny,
Immune from the soft touch queries,
The neutered, pointless, polite enquiries
Cushioning your fall from grace.
I’m sure I heard you right,
But looking around me I shrug,
Slip into easy denial,
Join the hopeless cases
And breath in
Your praise for ‘our great nation’……’the best, the best, the best…’
Your meaningless promises of safety.
Your lies
Your sweet, sweet lies!
Your poison.
I swallow your poison,
Roll over with the rest
Sinking below the watershed
In silence.
Liar, liar, pants on fire,
Feel the love,
Smirk at the passing parade,
The cortege,
And the nation, in grief
Simply
Lets you off this time
With a smile
And a last hapless breath.
Andy Summers May 2020
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6. |
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I don’t have a problem with use of the term ‘vulnerable people’ in this crisis,
But I do have an issue with the way the government and the press have used it to stop society’s osmosis
Of respect and empathy between different sections of society,
So that if people do discriminate against others they no longer have to take proprietary.
There is an extreme overuse of ‘only’ as a prefix to the phrase,
It almost seems that in this new normal inclusion is a forgotten craze,
Now it seems possible that the we are not part of the government’s recovery plans,
Some of us have even been asked to sign DNRs to make room for people that can’t be bothered to wash their hands.
The vulnerable are people,
The vulnerable are sons and daughters,
The vulnerable are mothers and fathers,
The vulnerable are brothers and sisters.
The vulnerable are valuable,
The vulnerable are activists,
The vulnerable are role models,
The vulnerable are the future.
In this comic book apocalyptic world don’t forget about the people you expect to be super humans,
Because there is no Charles Xavier in the government to treat us as ordinary humans,
Please don’t just abandon the people that you cheered on with signalled virtue,
We need people with your privilege to carry us in the public mood.
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7. |
||||
There’s vacillation
and no vaccination
for the nation
at this crisis point
of pandemic survival
Now wagging fingers
apportion blame
and wage war
simultaneously
before lifting
bureaucratic shovels
and shift shit
faster than gearing up
the released Prometheus
juggernaut of C19
as it cuts along
the one way
dotted line
of blame culture
tearing up the pathways
poisoning the arteries
choking off the lungs
as it road rages through
hit and run
after hit and run
It’s indiscriminate nature
underlines the fact
that there seems
no clear leadership
in these furloughed fields/streets
of the nation’s health
when all the public wants
and all the public expects
is not what the
public is going to get from
the decision makers
and commitment haters who
have followed the health science
to the economic crossroads
only to turn right at the junction
towards disassociation tactics
and the concept of
it’ll all be over
when it’s over
and more importantly
when we say so
Acceptance
now that track and trace
Satnavs have lost connection
and have no way
of seeking out detection
Respect has gone
The leaders have shifted
their ministerial handclap
to assigning and
apportioning blame
to where they say
it went wrong as long
as it wasn’t them
Half the population is
still in mindful lockdown
The other half not so
if it means getting a pint
on the Costas
The facts have disappeared
from our five o’clock screens
and health expert challengers
to government decisions
have been removed from
causing too much media
embarrassment
Arguments are hushed and lulled
into a false sense of security
that goes beyond
a measure of tape
on carpeted floor
In a marbled hall
snake pits of
hissing whispers
that become bellowing rumours
protested misinformation
that will be bleached
from whitewashed walls
that witness words
but won’t write history
when all this is tested
contested and accounted for
against the statistics
of death and illness
Of bleating politicians
apologising for not
having a disaster plan
when a disaster
was potentially imminent
Of having poor infrastructure
Talking about big numbers
index linked to pound signs
and throwing money at anything
giving the sense of positive usefulness
Used to assuage failure and guilt
should they ever feel it
as they demonstrate
simpering empathy where possible
and pouring out insincere sincerity
over the gaping wounds of
personal and financial loss
and in so doing
pay the sweatshops
of the world
to pay pittance and manufacture
safety equipment
by the million then
tell us we are well equipped
Tell us there is no risk
in shaking hands
Tell us we have nothing to worry about
before locking us down
and guiding us not to see anyone
except in our
social bubbles of conscience
that drift past
living room windows in waves
of emotional relief
And still no one knows
where the Covids lie
Are they in fact
fact
or another fake news day?
Fictional characters of a
confused mind’s eye?
And no one knows
whatever belies
the source and transmission
of the unseen enemy within
And no one knows
even though we try
to understand the risk
The assessment
The probability
The contractability
The contactability
The R factor
X factor
of percentages of percentages
And who will live and
who will die
amongst ruined truths
and constitutional lies
and will the epitaph
of this pandemic
read of genuine sorrow and loss
and professional sacrifice
or be one of mixed political and
social apathy and the
ignored advice
from the suited world
of a World Health academic?
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8. |
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(By AJ Ball)
You killed my faith, in the system, in democracy, through lies, greed fear, and hypocrisy.
Pushing rules, and regulations too far strayed from the confines of rationality.
Common sense taken a back seat to your misguided driven philosophy.
So let's de throne this jester, looking like a wet lettuce, empty headed child molester.
The future's not set in stone.
Every government fears to be overthrown. Because any king can lose his head, as history has shown.
(By Blind Johnny Smoke)
In lies you trust
The structure of morality rusts
The concrete foundation of our democracy is cancer ridden
The values at its core now all too well hidden
Feigned compassion that never actually happens
Thin sincerity that's an insult to our dignity
So called expertise in a disease rife in communities
That you wouldn't set a foot in
Unless election day was coming
And you need our renewed permission
To carry on your devious mission
To cement your seat of power
While the proles die by the hour
Cos you can live with those casualties
In your twisted brand of democracy
But remember
The future is not set in stone
Every government fears to be overthrown
Because any king can lose its head
As history has shown
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9. |
||||
1. Lie like a cartoon villain. This is an essential part of disguising your ineptitude, lack of humanity and your inability to do anything that is not in the interest of yourself.
2. As McFly once said ... “It’s All About You”. So don’t forget it. Anything that appears to be, even marginally, good about what you do is purely consequential and unintentional. Remember caring and compassion are weaknesses.
3. Make sure you know the cost of everything, but do not concern yourself with the value of anything. Saving a hundred grand on a community facility is money in the bank. Don’t worry yourself with the consequences of this saving and the fact that it may well run into millions. This will be picked up by your friends in “private enterprise”, who donate to your party and keep you in power. So that’s money well spent.
4. Change your mind ... a lot! This will give the impression that you’re “following the science”, when in actual fact, you are following the money.
5. Avoid difficult situations by hiding in a fridge. It is better to, literally, have eggs in your face, than figuratively, having egg on your face.
The same can be said about milk shakes, though these appear to be restricted to blatant racists, rather than closet ones, for the time being. Your time will come, so find a convenient SMEG to hide in.
6. Make sure your friends and party donors take priority over hungry children. It really is astonishing how very little food one can buy with £30, isn’t it? Remember when mater used to give you £30 pocket money in the sixties and it was almost enough to maintain your coke habit? Well, those days are gone! Gruel just isn’t what it used to be!
7. Employ, promote and grandstand non white party members and M.P.’s in an attempt to show how wonderfully diverse and culturally aware you are. Rejoice in the fact that there is no monopoly of scummery, so when you are called out as a racist, you can wheel out that old trope, “How can I be racist when I have black and brown friends and colleagues?” Remember that references to Muslim women looking like letterboxes and black people being piccaninnies with watermelon smiles, is just a bit of good ‘ole English banter.
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10. |
||||
All these dazy
Stockholm syndrome sufferers
Beg for my restraint from the inside of their comforters
And I’m so tired I’m just waiting for when they come for us,
So I can turn to you and say
I guess Londinium was right then, huh?
Its like they’re saying
“I know there’s legitimate
Criticism but now why bother?”
Like I’m not supposed
To say they’re using “key workers”
As cannon fodder.
We’re usually accused
Of playing political football,
But at these times
We’re all stuck inside
And they need a new way to describe
That phrase so that it applies to all.
So, this is it:
“Politics Soup”
And if you can’t swallow, I’m sorry, but I won’t hide
Behind until whatever time
Is convenient for you.
Because neither the virus
Nor the rights are getting better,
That’s the truth.
Frankly, we should make political capital
Out of difficult times,
Because difficult times
Are where the hearts and minds
Of others, cannot be made docile
Or their attention not set aside
By the latest treat,
Or celebrity headline.
So yes, I apologise
That my existence
Is inconvenient.
But at this juncture
The correct attitude
Is not to be lenient,
But instead, to hold a knife
To the throat of the establishment.
For that “wait and see” mentality
Trotted out Rodney King to give a speech,
Bruised and beaten as he was he pleads
For you to stop the violence please
But the verdict remained 4 “Not Guiltys”
And whilst I’m not yet advocating anarchy
And I in society still just about believe
What I’m saying is that
The results can be foreseen.
For some of the measures
Simply do not seem
Necessary for protection.
2 and a half years’ detention?
Where’s the justification?
When the W.H.O. says 14 days isolation?
And however could these policies
Not exacerbate discrimination
Happening up and down the nation
If you’re black or if you’re Asian
Whilst the media machine has shut down proper debating
Under the guise of not politicising tragedy.
But to those of us with eyes the tragedy’s
About to begin,
As military boots step over bodies
And as the truncheons ring,
If only we had seen it coming,
Oh wait, we did.
And the majority of the body politic
Spent time only shunning our warnings.
Accusing us of running, before the community could walk
Well, I’m pleased to tell you now, it is too late to talk.
It’s already law.
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11. |
||||
On the 26th January 2021,
the U.K. reached a terrible milestone.
One of the worst to be recorded – to be displayed
in history books of our future – marking this day.
Over one hundred thousand Covid-19 deaths in the U.K. to date.
Our country holds the fifth in the world – worst death rate.
We hang our heads in shame
knowing actions were delayed.
The Prime Minister stands before the Nation extending sympathy to those who grieve:
the many thousands of bereaved
whose ‘fathers and mothers,
sisters and brothers,
daughters and sons,
and… grandparents… have been taken.’
We ‘Stay at Home’ to ‘Stay Safe’. We do as we are told – to protect lives, to protect others from death;
to protect the overstretched, bulging, bursting, overflowing torrent of Covid-19 patients pouring into hospitals, flooding the N.H.S.
Yet I am not proud. I am not proud of the U.K. - the mistakes that have been made.
The delayed original lockdown should have been brought in earlier so more lives could have, would have been saved!
Lessons not learnt. The Prime Minister states that ‘we did everything we could’ but he did not follow the lead
of other countries locking down early to ensure Covid-19 could not spread and feed.
So now, over one hundred thousand lives have been lost to date,
over one hundred thousand dead – died a gasping, choking Covid fate.
Lives gone. One hundred thousand husks of flesh left on cold mortuary slabs, stiff and grey,
over one hundred thousand deaths and still rising like floodwaters today.
The pandemic a ‘National Tragedy’. Our government has been ‘behind the curve at every stage’.
We are a nation drowning – flooded by grief – and rage.
MEL WARDLE WOODEND
STAFFORDSHIRE POET LAUREATE 2019-2022
27/1/21
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12. |
Hope
04:36
|
|||
I am positive that I want us all to be safe,
I am positive that I will do all I can not to spread this infection,
I am positive that I don't want to see anyone else I know die from this thing
I am positive that I have seen enough people around me falling dangerously ill with this thing.
I am trying to stay positive.
I am positive that life could be so much worse even now,
I am positive that my own sacrificed freedoms are a trivial price to pay,
I am positive that I AM still free,
I positively feel appreciation for those who still have to face risks every day,
I am positive we have a different and vibrant future
I am positive that doors will open once more,
I am positive that we will breathe deeply without being scared,
I'm positive that nearly all of us can be stronger than before.
I positively believe this.
I do.
I am also positive that this pandemic has been abused,
I am positive that many power wielders need to stand accused,
I am positive that I am suppressing the outrage that I am feeling,
Towards those who have positively milked the cow of suffering.
Positively rolling in profit from product,
PPE and IT, R&D with a big slice off the top
Cronyist favouritism and morbid opportunitistic knife parties,
Driven by greed not need, profiting from disease,
The foulest of deeds committed by the inept,
While victims and bystanders simply wept.
So many tears.
I am positive that nearly all of us will get through this,
I am positive that nearly all of THEM will get away with their viral sins,
I am positive we need voices for change,
To challenge corruption, to bring them shame,
To aspire to leaders that serve us all not just the top one percent,
To aspire to a humanist system not blind capitalism in government,
I positively will be one of those voices,
I positively believe that there must be better choices,
I positively want our next steps to be taken with hope not fear
For a brighter day, for a brighter year,
It is not in my nature to give up,
I am positive of that.
I have hope.
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