and pointless.
In any case, Republicans are mostly bible-bashers
who don't believe in natural selection
Despite the fact that we all have fish bones
in our necks from our evolutionary past.
They really should have stopped breeding a long time ago
even before Reagan began to appear in cowboy films
Where did all the Republicans come from?
Who was responsible?
Please tell us so we can find them
and beat them around the knees and ankles
with sticks and raw sewage.
Oh dear, now we come to the Bush family?
Such an abomination of nature
they're even more twisted and wrong than the previous lot.
They're so faulty and inbred
they could even be members of our very own royal family.
What sort of a gene pool do they have in Texas?
It's so small it may even be subatomic
Similar in size to a quark or even a Higgs-Boson
and that's a very small particle/gene pool.
REPETITION
Life consists of experiences
That's all we have
except memories of previous experiences
Why do we seem to prefer to live in memories
rather then experiencing something new?
And how much of our experience
is genuinely new anyway?
So much of what we do and think
is merely repetition
of a previous action or thought
Memories are inherently unreliable
they are not an accurate record
they are coloured and shaped by our present mood
If memories aren't really memories
and experience and thought is mostly repetitious
then what do we actually have?
What does human existence really consist of?
Ah, there's the question
The one that poets and philosophers
have been begging for years
begging for an answer
May I posit that, like matter
what we have is Potential Difference
We all have the capacity to reach above the mundane
to transcend the daily grind of anxiety and doubt
to silence the incessant, futile chatter of our fragmented minds.
So why don't we?
Why do so few even try?
There's no indication that this will cease to be the case any time soon
and therefore no indication that the chaotic mess of human society
will be resolved any time soon.
Until then, we will always have poets and philosophers.
I've been a slave to poetry and philosophy all my life
I don't mean that I look to poets and philosophers for answers
though that used to be the case
but rather that I write in order to understand
I now have most of the answers I always sought
If I had all of them, would I still write?
Sarte said that people write in order to understand life
Does that mean that when you understand life you stop writing?
Writing is my life
I don't really do anything else
nothing that interests me anyway
So if I ever had all the answers and was completely content
would I actually be worse off?
If you can pass each day happily
without thinking about all this stuff
then be thankful you're not a poet
But somebody's got to do it
Well
I have to
PORNIFICATION
Some of us men have sense
Don't stereotype us all
I personally hate violence
and porn and football.
I'm deeply disturbed by adverts
with women in revealing tops
clearly dressed as schoolgirls
displayed on our bus stops.
What message should I take from this
and does it matter much?
Does it bother other people
or am I out of touch?
Is it a post modern joke
I wasn't invited to?
I don't want porn at bus stops
But some obviously do.
I once saw a girl of twenty
and written on her t-shirt
was 'I'm gagging for an F.C.U.K.'
is that how modern girls flirt?
For half a horrid second
a primeval side of me
pictured what I'd do to her
up against a tree.
I'm a gentleman
I'd never cross the line
but others often do
not just from time to time.
The bus stops are bad enough
but this was so much worse
I felt physically ill
at my testosterone curse.
I wanted to warn her about
what had flashed through my head
but it would doubtless be
a tricky path to tread.
I loathe this kind of branding
that doubtless comes from men
provoking my libido
again and again and again.
You may think I'm overreacting
but listen to the next verse
and then tell me that
this isn't all a terrible curse.
Once I saw a girl of eight
with mini-skirted hips
her hair all in bunches
and scarlet painted lips
the image of a prostitute
she walked with her mother
I wanted to punch that woman
but of course I didn't bother.
Instead I bottled up my anger
and a violent urge to cry
'when did this start happening
and someone tell me why?'
Why would a mother do that
does she think it's fancy dress?
Where do you buy those clothes from
who are they meant to impress?
All they did to me
was leave me in distress
what did the future hold
for this junior mistress?
Not to mention the 'Playboy' skirts
And 'porn star' t shirts
Is that what people now aspire to?
I really wish I had a clue.
This isn't unconnected
to the adverts using sex
to sell me everything from razors
to Vitamin B Complex.
It's all so disturbing
I don't know where to turn
from the provoking images
into my eyes they burn.
I don't know where to go now
but I thought I'd write this poem
Cos if you're a woman
these things are all worth knowing.
They may not have occurred to you
but here's my point of view
is this how things should be?
Is there anything we can do?
That woman with the t-shirt
is of course not to blame
and part of me liked it
to my everlasting shame
but I wouldn't be surprised
if she thinks a suffragette
was an early 80s punk band
that's how bad things can get.
Emancipation isn't
getting your tits out
and drinking tons of lager
and behaving like a lout.
Being a man isn't
competing in stupidity
so grow up now
And find some lucidity
And stop the post-modern rape jokes
And stop acting like blokes
And act like a human being instead
Start thinking with your head
We all need higher ideals
To feel what our neighbour feels
Embracing humanism
Isn't high idealism
It's just realism.
PACKED LUNCH
Once in junior school
I couldn't stomach the food
my mother had given me
cos it wasn't very good
sandwiches I didn't like
filled my tupperware
every day at lunchtime
I wished that they weren't there
I tried to eat a bit of them
but couldn't manage a sliver
so on the way home
I threw them in the river
The next day once again
I had some similar muck
packed up in tin foil
just my rotten luck
I don't know what was in them
whether it was fish or hog
and so it was, when I got home
I flushed them down the bog
Sadly, though they floated
and were soon discovered
and therefore I was punished
they locked me in the cupboard
That last line was a lie
but I couldn't find a rhyme
for the events that actually happened
when I was told to apologise but wouldn't
and ended up standing on the landing for an hour
looking at my fish tank
They had a weird idea of punishment in my family
1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4 hundred times
I wish you'd shut your face
I cannot stand your idle thoughts
I wish you knew your place
It's further down the food chain
than a human should reside
but that's your place cos you're
something amobeas can deride
1 2 3 4 thousand times
I cringe at things you say
you never cease to amaze me
it just gets worse each day
Ideas drip from your mind
I just wish they were fewer
cos everything you say is
like the outflow of a sewer
1 2 3 4 million times
my skin crawls when you speak
it makes me questions Darwin
that a mind can be so weak
If you see a book it frightens you
and science is a far off land
there was nothing natural in your selection
you cannot have been planned
1 2 3 4 billion times
you fail to think each day
a life of hate and ignorance
is your moronic way
you're pointless and redundant
there is nothing you can do
however many times I try
I can't see the point of you
Forgive me if you think
this is just bitter polemic
I wish you were just one person
but you're now an epidemic
WI-FLI
I wonder
if a mayfly
ever thinks
about the good old days,
when it was only lunchtime?
8 THINGS YOU CAN DO ON A TRAIN
1
Go to the toilets and rub
a dead fox across your face
it may just possibly
improve the smell of the place.
2
Sellotape a photo of Hitler
onto a beer mat
and then smear his face
with a gallon of pig fat.
3
Pretend you're using a laptop
by folding some cardboard in half
and writing a windows error message
to make the Mac users laugh.
4
Pretend you're using an i-pod
by placing a