Gloriana (reprise)

Aboard Gloriana, a stately last leg for the Olympic flame

Evening Standard, 27 July 2012

The five-ring circus has woven

this nation into a tapestry

of sorts, its emblematic flame

shuttling all over Albany,

reminding us that patriotic zeal

is now the only sanctioned bigotry.

So get behind the flame, hurrah!

Your indifference smells of heresy

in a land where any Olympic dissent

has become unacceptable, socially,

like wanking in public places

or over photos of Her Majesty.

We can each of us carry a torch

for the games, for democracy

is spoken here if not always practiced

in the interests of the majority.

The royal barge awaits, our chance

to put a torch to the monarchy.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

The longest walk

Wrong flag at soccer game angers North Koreans

Los Angeles Times, 25 July 2012

Though none dared dissent

into the tunnel now slips

one player, stalling

only to tighten

her laces and stretch loose

her tight quadriceps,

dazzled by the roar.

The tunnel runs north to south,

by a leap of faith

she becomes reborn,

her cord thus severed, she breathes

freedom and glory.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Dustbowl snake

Crisis looms as extreme weather hits crops

The Guardian, 23 July 2012

The viper winds down Victoria Street

its colours fluorescing in the sudden sun.

One man waits it out on a roadside wall;

ice cream trickles over his fist and drips

onto his flip-flops, he stares beyond the day.

Curses fly as immigrants rise up wielding

squeegees like machetes, and there but for

two-for-ones in Tesco’s... It’s only waiting

keeps us anchored. At the serpent’s head,

biodiesel drips like rain onto cracked soil.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

The murmuration

Starlings in danger after numbers plummet 80 per cent

Telegraph, 20 July 2012

Watch your own back yard

for that is where it will start,

the sequined flock gathers, turning

over your shit, unearthing worms

then scattering over the garden fence,

and up, into the internet,

tweeting half-truths, conjuring smoke

from murk that won’t be coaxed

to flames, turning a million

opinions, or turning a single opinion

a million times over, returning

to your home to roost as a swarm.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

The Murmuration was featured in volume 38 of The Journal

The greatest spectacle on earth

Lack of exercise is as bad for you as smoking

Mail Online, 18 July 2012

A circus is coming, and over London
hangs a feature bereft tarpaulin,
grey as the skin of a child fleeing
the rubble of her flattened home.
Tears run down my window pane.
It is six weeks since the last full moon.

Confined, we are obliged to live
under the weather, and while we wait
for a forecast of more of the same to come
the evening TV news lambasts us
for sitting and watching what they put on.
The dog wants its blanket back.

It’s tempting to exercise just to get warm.
Nothing extreme, mind, possibly running
a bath. Or taking a hike to the fridge.
The wife says the lawn needs mowing.
I tell her I’d need a submarine. She says
fetch the damn mower, I’ll plug it in.


(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Declaration of war

Civil war declaration to change course of conflict

The World Today (ABC, Australia), 16 July 2012

‘Can either of you tell me,’

the conciliator said —

and, though we’d only gone along

for advice on the mortgage,

like ADHD

or a folie a deux

just naming the complaint

its invocation

conjured into being

the need for a painful remedy —

‘when you first noticed

your marriage was failing?’

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

The sole survivor

Over 200 feared dead in Syrian attack

The Guardian, 13 July 2012

They picked him out

from a gut-spattered nook

among the leftovers

of a brother and two sisters,

no crib for the living there,

they said,

no rest for the extant.

The commanders taking stock

dust him off, pat him down

and force him to stand

for hours, his charred fingers

knotted behind his head,

keeping him from clearing

the bile from his mouth

or the past from his eyes.

They mistake his tear-tracks

for a traitor’s fears,

beat from him names, times

and places, credible details

of cowardice and treason.

At the pocked wall

they offer him a cigarette

which he declines

out of a habit of surviving.

(c) Slush Poet

Tumbleweed

Olympic travel chaos as M4 reopening delayed

The Telegraph, 11 July 2012

I was drawn to a stillness

like Christmas in the snow at dawn

and held in thrall by the sight

of wild daisies sprouting

from a crack in the elevated stretch

of the M4 from Heathrow.

Spectators crowded round

to gawp like the dead reborn

in a spontaneous communion

of awed disbelief.

We expected bedlam.

We expected to be over-run.

We expected to be crowded

off our own streets

and out of our homes.

We have conscripted an army.

We have posted lookouts

and placed machine gun pods

on the rooftops of schools

and old people’s homes.

We demanded gas masks,

the council gave us phrase books.

We look up and find no words

for what we see, for henge,

for relic, for tumbleweed.

(c) Slush Poet

Voici la différence

François Hollande due to meet the Queen

The Telegraph, 10 July 2012

This is truth,

a passage hung with old masterly proof

of succession, each oil on canvas

upholding this: Elizabeth.

And how the monkey rattles the bones

of his cage, it takes my breath

away. This grand Republican stands

nerved to parlay with hands damp,

sweating her gloved fingertips

being touched to these presidential lips

and remembering to release

my grip. A throne is after all just a seat,

said Bonaparte, but how odd

to be an atheist received by God.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Mother Bear

What Drives the Kremlin's Syria Policy

The Moscow Times, 5 July 2012

Bear hunkers down,

an unlit bonfire of firs

in a bleak-forest dell

at the arse end of town

beyond IKEA and PC World,

upon a clutch

of sterile eggs, foiled,

cold and seeping, mulching out

into the bloodstained ground.

Bear dares not move;

while the gorged earth blushes

about her stand, she broods

that the geese will come home

one day still to roost.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Wellmeaning

HIV test will be sold over the counter

METRO, 4 July 2012

They mean well who say

there there, be strong, don’t cry

over contaminated bloods, or diagnostic delays.

They mean well who say

if only you’d told us all sooner

your boss, your landlord, your insurer.

They mean well who say

things’ll get better, wait and see

as if, eventually, bills will pay themselves.

They mean well who say

needs must keep up your strength

though days crawl away beyond any liminal faith.

They mean well who say

a wise man counts his blessings

when your CD4 chart shows a dead cat bounce.

They mean well who say

you can beat this thing if you just keep fighting

despite the indictment of your DS1500.

They mean well who say

go right ahead, we’ve seen it all before

as your modesty curtain is drawn around you like a hex.

They mean well who say

it’s never too late to seek forgiveness,

if only you can live with having outlived your friends.

They mean well who say

all of life is contained in this moment

and make holiday plans while removing their masks.

They mean well who say

it’s a blessing you’ve been moved off that ward

a further step closer to the exit, quiet and dignified.

They mean well who say

we’re so glad we had this last chance

already in the acceptance stage of mourning.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Puppy fat

Parents fear talking to children about weight

Daily Mail, 2 July 2012

You do look great

if only we could tell you so,

but what's left on your plate

could sate Africa.

We over-compensate,

super-size the servings,

dishonestly narrate

your teenage TV viewing;

she's too thin, we say,

she's really not so fat,

but the recalibration

washes over, fails to take.

And borrowed anxieties aside

you do look great.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet