Superwoman to the rescue !
Le Pen: mightier than the sword,
greater than Joan of Arc,
sexier than Hillary and Maggie Thatcher,
way better hair than TRUMP,
up-front and national,
able to leap obsolete concepts in a single bound;

Votez avec sagesse.
[ borders / language / culture ]

This is the reasonable opposition-proposition.
Bonne chance. Que le jour de gloire arrive et que Dieu benisse la France...

et vous, Madame.

I was overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response this poem received when I posted it last month.  As it seemed to resonate with the current prevailing mood, I figured I'd try a quick spoken word video to go with it.  

Thank you again to everyone who commented on, liked, added and reposted the written version.

https://youtu.be/wGxRvuMWCig

Credit for filming and editing goes to Cornelius Something of Manufacturing Content  
manufacturingcontent.co.uk

The Culture twists and shrieks, wracked by
violent spasms of regression, recoiling in
pain and terror, contracting inwards
like some giant spider god dying.

Maybe snake oil will
offer a cure.
Perhaps we can
purge the demons
by drilling the right
holes in the right
skulls.  We could try
electro-shocking our way
back to 'normal'.  We
might even rediscover
the benefits
of leeches.  

We're building walls
and burning bridges.
We're forgetting the
lessons we never quite
learned.  We're watching
ourselves watching ourselves
watching ourselves on
an endlessly repeating loop
of tiny glowing screens.  We
willingly downsize our
worlds until we have to make
ourselves smaller, just
so we can still fit.

The future is closer
than we realise.  It's just
not as big as we
thought it would be.

So I'll have mine
and you'll have yours?
who could ask
for anything more!
grey beards march
the union jack
build a wall
and send them back!  

Grudge, sludge
a sanguine view
****** off
and take the cue
hide, plunge
aristocrat
run the field
like an old tom cat

Narrow pass
and capital flow
falling crude
and currency woe
deep depression,
mutineers
the mastermind
of project fear!

Silver spoon
at Hampton court
madness waits
in Davenport
divisible
and off the grid
**** it up
100 quid

Helen’s horsemen
unified
the springbok club
will never hide
plebiscite
in deep despair
an open scroll
Trafalgar square  

Grapple, grovel
sentry shame
along the shore
of river Thames
king of wankers
lord of beat
break the rule
of old elite!

Stone the posse
bullets bare
load the chambers
fists in air
voices, faces
haunted souls…
should i stay
or should i go?

The desperate scramble to
rationalise; the burning need
to make sense of the
nonsensical, this
all-too-earnest search for
answers, for some guidestone
that will help us decipher
the craziness scrawled on the walls,
a key that might unlock that door
which currently bars the path to
sanity and reason.
We put polls in the field,
conduct surveys, devise
better, more probing questionnaires,
consult eminent
psychologists, sociologists, economists,
go blind on data
tabulated into every conceivable form,
cite studies, historical precedent,
strive for any, any answers
that will explain to us
how we came to
this.

And maybe the reason is
less complex.
Maybe
we got what we
deserved.

Hard frost and treacherous footing.
Nobody wanting to admit
that the new year
tastes an awful lot
like the old year.

None of our heroes
have been supernaturally resurrected.
There's the same
rank toxicity to our fears.
The jaunty carnival of ****** and maiming
continues unabated.
Death remains as senseless.
The corridors of power
are still slippery with slug trails and viscera,
and all the janitors have been
indefinitely furloughed.
It's cold, and
the bus is late again.

Still we persist in believing that
today will be different to yesterday,
that all those wrongs will be righted,
that the proper order - as we each individually, as
thin-skinned gods of our own personal
nuclear universes, perceive it -
will be perennially restored,
the buses will all
run on time,
and no one good
will ever die again.

But the truth is, this year
tastes an awful lot like
the old year.
I could be wrong, I guess.
Maybe everything will
turn out
fine.

An open letter
to those poets
who align
to the center:

                                        When prose sits in the middle
                                         it resembles gift-card drivel.
                                             It cheapens your work;
                                              your use of italics irks.

Choose a side.
I don’t care if it’s
left or                                                       ­                                right,
                ­                                                                 ­ Or center-right
                                         ­                                                     or alt-right­
(whatever that is).

The indecisive
have a lot to answer for
us being                                                       ­                                                  divisive.

Did that centered
poem you wrote
distract you from
casting a vote?

Stop fence-sitting
                                                   ­         in-between
and enjoy a
splintered 2017,
                                            ­                                                   from one side.

What I have is a pitch
angled at nothing
and I envy the limber crowd of bees,
and I envy the spider’s easy meal.

The low hum of a wash cycle
competes with, then dislodges my dirge,
gradually builds a golden,
natural looking wan expression.

Diffident? Go out and meander
content to accept the indifference of meaning.
This walk is not a protest.
This work was only ever play.

Suitable for all skin types
our explanations can’t help themselves,
run like British accents on trade
and explain away any need for help.
Non-streaking conceits
you know best how much you are worth.