Sunday 30 September 2018

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Dieu et Mon Droit

Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing; - S.F. Smith

what exactly did the Yanks rebel
for the price of tea the use of forks
why they stabbed us in the neck of course

Braddock's awful death meant squat to folks
who from upping sticks to cross the pond
staked their pensions on the other side

don't the history hucksters have it so
Woolfe dislodged Montcalm by gall not guts
more redcoats were killed by Injuns than

Minutemen George had no right to tax
States who never voted 'gainst the French
as if Louis would have charged 'em less

aye your rebel's cause is ever just
righteousness has always triumphed rich
picking how they turned a blessèd cheek
sang God Save The King in other words


pertinence

must we listen only while that hot
head whose ticker tape of lies & half
truths regales & moves a ship of fools

better the Yanks we've heard nattering
far across the stark Atlantic night
where the strains of Melville's hammock strung
bowsprit wide on copperplated ark
trawl indifferent seas for poetry

'longside Whitman's craft & Longfellow's
Ginsberg Kerouac all have remarked
somewhat deeply the star spangled main
stripes unfurling from a rising moon
tongued in silver their Pacific lines
light a flarepath to the shores of Mars


deus ex machina

what if Job appointed someone whose
god was like that sleuth's on every night
rides a mean old bike the meddlesome
priest known as Brown

lets him choose whose sins are innocent
plus he's working for the bloody crown
not above breaking laws on the sly
nobody knows

audience excepted country town
constant scene of murders everything
goes though Brown's unfazed like where he's from
ain't no birds sing

btw if anyone should call
one of these nights say I'm fishing off
Hinkley Point for tadpoles what's the score
quite had enough

Britain seeks a hero at this time
batgirl hatcheck wallah no one's fussed
tortured soul or crook whose only crime
claims to be right


Never Say You Weren't!

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