Brexit

A clockwork squirrel with little feet,
A car with backwards winding
A girl that danced, a waltzing beat,
A bear that walks by grinding.

A bear that walks by grinding
Growls empty words today
However well he’s sounding
He’s throwing us away.

The girl that danced, a waltzing beat
Danced out without a deal
And now she sits with the elite
While we all dance the reel

A car with backwards winding
Has seen it all before
And knows those days of ‘glory’
Meant misery for the poor.

A clockwork squirrel with little feet
Keeps falling off its toes
And going forward to repeat
Its past, it Brexits nose.

Advertisement

Angels

Truth sits in a shattered home,
one time shelter to Mum,
Dad and two small boys:
Angels on the pinhead of politics,
blown over by a wayward wind.

Truth doesn’t pontificate,
brought up over millennia
to speak retrospectively;
a bottled message fizzing at her feet.

As light fades,
those who read translucent eyes
turn inland, seeking lost pathways
through a sorry human space.

Harbour

As torn driftwood, salt and sunbleached,
battered and storm beached,
Thrown onto broken coasts by waves
colossal and angry: a political itch.

Running from little to nothing,
stumbling strathed by gulls, across damp sand
surveyed by thin-lipped authority,
wrapped in red tape and labelled.

Far away, harbour-bound big ships bob,
Plotting strategic co-ordinates
Stowing no thought for those
vested interests they launch and cast adrift.

Deflection

Beware the thwish of arrows:
A hard bow drawn outwards
seeks to deflect attention from internal strife.

Integrity

Oh, for goodness’ sake
stop spinning your false gold thread:
Grimm Rumpelstiltskins!

Vote

Scritch, scritch, scratch,
there I am again
teetering
on the edge of sleep
clutching a ball point
oh Elpis
I left a message for you on a slip
inside Pundora’s box
folded inside disturbed sleep
these desperate disordered times
are too many sheep for me to count
jumping

running

 fumbling in the gloom.

Scritch, scritch, scratch,
quickly, lock me in
and I will vote for you in the morning
my children
none of them have tails
perhaps we will never be well again
docked
writing nonsenses
criss cross
dressing hurriedly
dashing in our hither thither
setting our souls on tenterhooks…

Badger

If we cull our words
so death may be executed
with minimum disruption
we are as vulnerable
as our musky friends.
There is no freedom for
those who bury their heads.

Chess

Political game
Pawns set up to be taken.
Why do we still play?