Gimme that Ole Time Religion

 

“Huh!” The herald hangels hing,

“Hiccups are a Yule-y thing.

“Stone the crows and mercy mild,

Mary’s popped another child!

“We know that nations won’t arise –

Just got squashed by Him-of-the-Flies.

“Don’t ask us what you should do;

One’s enough, but as for two...”

“Hark!” The lesser choir wails,

“Nathaniel’s born. How Daddyo pales!”

Confusion reigns; more’s the pity,

But no one’s drawn to Nathanielianity,

So God’ll give this one’s mass a miss

And, for Wisdom’s sake say nowt re this:

Mum’s to leave the runt behind,

Where Herod’s army’s far from kind,

But, lo, her firstborn’s free to rise

And rubber-stamp triumph on the skies.

“Hark! Heralds all,” the soldiers yelp,

“We’ve saved the day without your help.”

Check the Malls

Tramp the malls with pots of lolly,

Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la!

‘Tis the time for New Year folly,

Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la!

The poor have chipped glass, not a barrel:

Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la!

They’re dressed in old and patched apparel,

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la, la, la!

See the Brexit dole before us,

Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la!

Pawn the harp and flog the chorus,

Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la!

Swallow down the Tories’ measure,

Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la!

Poverty’s their lasting pleasure,

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la, la, la!

Dropped and dead the old year passes

Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la!

With greater splits between the classes,

Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la!

Grinning, scoffing all together,

Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la!

Tories rampage; there’s no tether,

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la, la, la!

On Meters

 

“Carol Ann Duffy to mark phasing out of gas meters with a new poem” – Guardian headline

Metre meter? Nothing neater!

Pete demurs, aside o' Rita,

heater next their 3-piece seater,

as they teeter to delete a

tweeter fleeter than a greeter

who buttonholes the metre beater

bent on bashing out those feet. A 

tweeter tweets it's not a treat a

poet needs to metre meter.

     Are Reet and Peter in the right

     when they delete the tweet on sight? 

Hidden God

       
         Lithograph: Durham Cathedral

The cathedral is always above

their heads, squat on the scarp,

foundations a platform of smoke,

clutter above the sinking lane

where a chimney-sweep turns to the inn,

a miner in this small city of bends

and stacks and black soot clogging.                               

Down at the turn, a churchman,

smirking, strolls with his cane,

his wife with kerchief to face,

upright as trees

on the rise behind,

a slant of morning between them.

Out in the churned land,

jigs and rigging riddle the fields,

dark folds piling

for heavers who stumble,

ants on the mound

where the pits’ gain’s tipped

and the brakes clump,

dirt on the wheels in the sludge

and mush of it back to the burning,

the sheer bluff blind at its corner,

his gaiters protecting

the pick of her pattens

in the dearth of the smudged sun’s shaft.

The way down to cobbles continues to kilter,

the usual cart, all falter and lumber,

a goad over the horse.

Hard and Soft

 

For R.G.J.

An hour before he’d slept through the service

where song had swelled in tune with the sea,

which moved, as his blood once had,

to soften the outline of stone into shape

though its core was as old and canny as earth.

Rain battered rhythmically inland.

At the back end of a winter’s day

when the sun pitched dark in a Welsh sea,

the chimney did what he’d hoped it would;

puffed dust from the chapel onto the wind,

shared him over known and steady valleys.  

Grandma’s Wool Basket

 

Times of choice

and each was not a lead

she should have tried.

All ties bound

hope to weakness

before she followed

one whose touch

unravelled in wounds,

no strength in death,

but design.

I stay, picking and picking

at threads in a fading skein.