Simply

It's one thing
To kill
The animal
For its meat

It's one thing
To kill
The best
That's a danger

You can stand
With your conscience
On flies
Slugs and bugs

But to hunt
And murder
For sport
Is simply sick

Will

So if the state decrees it,
Our will can be our will no more.
The freedom to arrange our assets,
Subject to proof and accounted for.

Histories and details to be provided,
For why relatives have been left out.
And who's to say the reason isn't valid,
That you've got something to be unhappy about.

They go on about the importance of faith,
And the values personal to you.
But if there's anyone you've disinherited,
They'll allow them to line up in a queue.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-33684937

Pamper

A day for eating
Beans on toast
Or a hot from the oven
Sunday roast
Cosy by the fire
In an ingle nook
Huddled up on the sofa
With a summery book
Comfort and pampering
In whatever way
To keep the brooding
Rainclouds at bay

Trust

As a social species
Is it absurd
That we would respond
To the personal touch?

It does not take
Much of a mental leap
To perceive, and yet
How many of us
Receive this in the
Day to day dealings
With forward facing staff?

Few I would think
And so it is I read
With a sinking feeling
Of a new government technique
To manipulate

By mimicking this ideal
In a spate of initiatives
But without
The sincerity of truth
It shows how
Ruthless we've bcome

That we would treat
The vulnerable
In this way
Without the lesson learned
That if we truly respect
Then we can expect
Trust and effort returned

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8e6a38ae-306d-11e5-8873-775ba7c2ea3d.html#axzz3ghFNjxip

GenRent

We only have a desire
To feel safe
Extricating ourselves
From the chafing relationship
Of tenant and landlord
The deprecating effect
Of paying rent
For nothing in return
But a months notice
To clear out
An incentive to feel a part
Not apart
From the community
To place roots
The immunity from depression
And desolation
Of society
And a space
To call home
Which we all deserve
Rather than to spend
Our working lives
Serving up half our wages
To the landowners
Going nowhere
On the treadmill
With each passing stage
Laying a fear to take
Wives and children
The price we pay
Is too dear
For those in the population
Suffering the everyday ordeal
Of Generation Rent

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/22/pwc-report-generation-rent-to-grow-over-next-decade

Language

It smacks a little of racism to me
Reminiscent of Nigel Farage
"Not enough English" is his plea
But he's living in a language mirage

Forgetting that there was a Jewish quarter
And always a China town
Indians and Greeks found their own corner
And each has been held in renown

London has been a city to welcome all
But his words are a bit of a farce
"Can't buy mango's at a market stall"
He just talking out of his arse

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jul/20/terence-stamp-english-is-a-foreign-language-in-london

Beats

The beats shudder
Through the walls
Piercing the hall
With a louder sound
Than the sterero
A constant
Do-dum-do
That pounds inside
Your head
Distracts and disturbs
Keeping you awake
In your bed
As the reverb rattles
"For God's sake"
You want to shout
But you doubt
They would hear you

Sponge

I imagine he was only asking
In order to compare notes
As someone living in privilige
Not reliant on winning votes

Or for that matter any type
Of public scrutiny
A position he keeps through marriage
That provides a guarantee

But I think he's really being canny
Than the media make out
A joke at the expense of public mood
Will always get talked about

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/prince-philip-asks-women-at-east-london-community-centre-who-they-sponge-off-10393967.html

BBC

We've all grown up
With the BBC
The broom cupboard
And Edd the Duck
Were often on my TV

Blue Peter too
I would regularly watch
Dr Who too
Whose quality now
Has gone up another notch

And their commentators
Are all household names
In their unsurpassed
Coverage of sport
And of course the Olympic Games

The radio stations
Without adverts to interfere
Playing a range
Of music that
You would not otherwise get to hear

So why would you destroy this?
Take it all away?
Unless you were helping
Your rich benefactor
To keep competition at bay

So if we want to keep it
It is clear to me
We must stand tall
And shout out loud
That we Back the BBC

Flutter

Fluttering heartbeat
Ball of shivering feathers
Injury grounded

Darting eyes panic
Vulnerability exposed
Worst fear realised

And me as helpless
Walking on by with regrets
No happy ending

Billowing

They're lined up outside
Billowing smoke
Like dragons
Cutting from school

Scratches of flame
Light up with their eyes
As they toke
Pull; Drag; Suck

Before cartwheeling
With practiced flick
Their dog-end to the floor
Scattering
Their polluting seeds

Which grow into filth
And decay
Becoming a fascination
For tiny hands

Sting

A perverse evolutionOf customer service
With its faceless
Inhumanity
Corporations
And their vanity
Regurgitate
Well versed lines
Of soundbites
Trite apologists
Hiding
Behind firewalls
Of vacancy
Empty promises
Blame shifting
Disguised
By thinly veiled
Faked reasonableness
All because the market
Demands ambiguity
To protect
Its instability
Because honesty
Holds a sting
In its tail

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/13/scorpion-lurking-in-tesco-banana-pack-stings-care-worker

Anniversary

Where are all the happy memories?
We seem compelled to remember
Tragic anniversaries.

Here was war, and there a battle fought.
Over things we didn't understand
Fights that came to nought.

That was terror, where many people died.
This was the enacted retribution
For things we can't abide.

But what of joy and song and laughter?
And why are these forgotten
For now and ever after?

Changes

How the Tories love their fictions
In their depictions of those
Beneath them
And how they love to change
The meanings of words
To make life more demeaning
For the poorest
The minimum wage
Has metamorphosed
For those of a certain age
Into the living wage
Never mind the fact
That even those blinded
By ideology can see
You couldn't live on it

And now a levy on renewables
A tax that's supposed
To fall on the backs
Of fossil fuels
To pay for climate change
To counteract
The dangers of global warming
You may as well force
The producers of cabbages
And peas to pay
For the causes
Of childhood obesities

So to a nation
They supposedly want to be
Aspirational
They have ripped out the rug
Of security for the young
Who have been flung almost
Into obscurity
By the grey votes
Of OAP's
Tuition fees and now no grants
So if they make it through
Universities unscathed
By sleepless nights
Unaddled by financial worry
They will be saddled
With sky-high debt
And the constant threat
Of bankruptcy
For all their blood and sweat.
A scant reward
Like water poured on the fires
Of ambition

Throws

How retching makes you feel
like such a wretch.
The thousand yard stare
Into a bowl of disinfected water
Nauseating on its own.
The bleary eyes
Furred tongue
And throat a fury
Of bitterness
A feeling more deathly
Than death itself
Since there is nothing in extinction
Your mind throws up
All kinds of possibilities
Was it something I ate?
Something I drank? (Too much of)
A regurgitation of options
And if you've eaten baked beans: watch out
They'll fly out of your nose
As leguminous missiles.

Standstill

You're having to mind the gap
In the flow of the network
Unions have failed to stand back
From the edge of their strike platform
Barriers have been blocked
By more than oversized baggage
Or tourists fumbling
For a lost ticket
Its as if the emergency stop
Has been pulled mid-station
Leaving confused commuters
Stumbling wildly in the dark
And bringing the city
To a shuddering standstill
Perhaps Boris can now claim
The driverless tube is already here?

Ashes

Forget the Big Bashes
Or sub-continental clashes
Ignore the one-day dashes
It's almost The Ashes

Botham's sweet-store smashes
Boon's and Hughes' moustaches
All the last wicket gnashes
It's almost The Ashes

Warne's tricks in caches
Pietersen's off-side slashes
Series igniting flashes
It's almost The Ashes

Horror

I didn't see the smoke and blood
Or the death indiscriminate

Or soot and tear stained survivors faces
In shock at escaping fate

I didn't hear the detonation
Or the crashing of the train

Or the panicked screams underground
Of bewildered anguish and pain

But I felt the shock of the city
A sense that something had changed

And I felt horror and sympathy for those
Whose lives had been rearranged

Truant

What are we teaching our kids
With this high handed approach
The hand of government
Reaching too far
They're preaching family values
while eroding the rights of the parents
Who despite beseeching requests
Are left with no choice
No opportunity to voice their dissent
Without paying a fine
A form of rent on bad luck
On an extraordinary event
And yet the politicians
Won't turn up every day
They play truant and deny us
Our democratic say.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jul/05/couple-faces-court-children-term-time-absence-school-sick-grandfather

Lionesses

Such roaring successes
After past world cup messes
The England lionesses
Have learned how to impress us

But in male dominated society
It won’t bring equality
In the town or the city
Which must be a pity

So we must help the drives
Against a world that deprives
Our daughters, girlfriends, wives
Of fairness in their lives

We must begin the redresses
Ease up on the stresses
That daily represses
On our own lionesses

Tour

A romantic mixture
Of myth, legends and endurance time trial.
And the ultimate billets-doux
Sent by the French people
To its countryside.
Fields and flowers and expanses,
Wide roads and roundabouts,
At which a peloton
Unzips and spins.
Quaint cobbled villages,
Windowboxed and spruced
Cheers and celebrates.
While mountain passes bring out the mist
And the misty eyed,
Where cloud dreams can burst
Like raindrops.
And the jewel of Paris
Where it ends,
Under the watchful eye of Triomphe.

The race fashions itself
Upon coloured jerseys.
The greens with their explosive
Gun shattering speed,
Swaying and piston-driving in the sprint.
And polka dots hit the heights
With a raw strength,
On the endless, sapping Escherian slopes.
While, like a burning beacon of sunshine
The yellow lights up the front,
And the late night Lantern Rouge
Brings up the rear.
A sense of the iconic
And the spectral,
In which the devil
Can show himself at any time,
Over a three week journey
Of personal joys and hells.

Peas

I wonder what the experts said
When a caveman first cooked meat
"It tastes of carbon"
"It doesn't ooze with blood"
"This idea is obsolete!"

And what about the moment when
Someone first fermented grain
"It's got a nasty taste"
"It made me sick"
"It made me feel a tad insane"

So uproar over a guacomole
Made with peas is no surprise
Though my personal taste
Is to have them mushy
With mash and two meat pies

 http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jul/01/guacamole-peas-barack-obama-outcry

Keeping

The tick tock of time
Sweeps past like a broom
Whisking away
Dust and detritus of history
Hands changing hands
Like feet dancing on tiptoe
To the continuous beat
Of relentless change
Only the emotionless clock face
Stares back spinning
In the same cycle
Start to end, twice a day
And the key question
Just who is keeping who?