Daily Political Poems on Twitter the funny ones: Peter Keeble
30 March 2010 (the baby boom vote)
We've romped over the plains
of the fin de steels years,
a horde of Gauls
reaching you on oar zimmer frames
to demand you look after us all.
7Apri12010
Forget about that wretched moat,
uphold the status quo
just focus on the glamour show
and don't forget to vote.
7 April 2010
Election Cycle: Disillusion, dissolution,
desperation, obfuscation, reelection,
prevarication, disillusion
9 April 2010 (MacLennan withdraws as Labour
candidate following rude tweets)
It's easy to deride the emails of McBride
and sweet to expose MacLennan's tweets:
a trend for Labour Scots to tie themselves in knots?
10 April 2010 (Tory tax break to married couples)
Oi Dave You marry cos you good bloke
or you good bloke so marry?
Praps torys snort coke to be posh
or is it they posh so snort coke?
12 April (The election campaign hots up)
They paddle faster in the pedalos,
working up a froth before the tidal wave
can catch them in its trough
along with all their peccadillos.
13 April (Publication of party manifestos)
Line the manifestos up
see how they run
the red the blue the yellow and the green
and all the colours under the sun:
hit do they mean?
17 April: (Icelandic dust, the pathetic fallacy reversed)
Look into the sky's limitless jade:
particles of sand and glass hide unseen
like a forgotten debt waiting to be paid.
Twitter is a social network site whose entries (known as tweets) are restricted to 140 characters, including spaces & punctuation. To see the rest of Peter's tweets and fillowfuture ones put Twitter Peter Keeble into Google.
Peter Keeble
Sunday, 2 May 2010
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Deconstruction
Deconstruction
1 watched a feather dancing on the air
that otherwise was quite invisible
for 1 could neither see nor feel nor hear
the slightest movement of the atmosphere
and freely thought of this in my mind's eye
both a puppet moved by unseen wires
and a ghostly spirit in the ether
and many other contradictory things
prescribed to me by language and society;
but never as what it was just like
which most of us have hidden from our sight sight:
now we have all been cast adrift by capitalists
who deny shared feelings and fraternity,
we fail to see the alienation of our humanity.
Peter Keeble
1 watched a feather dancing on the air
that otherwise was quite invisible
for 1 could neither see nor feel nor hear
the slightest movement of the atmosphere
and freely thought of this in my mind's eye
both a puppet moved by unseen wires
and a ghostly spirit in the ether
and many other contradictory things
prescribed to me by language and society;
but never as what it was just like
which most of us have hidden from our sight sight:
now we have all been cast adrift by capitalists
who deny shared feelings and fraternity,
we fail to see the alienation of our humanity.
Peter Keeble
Diction
Diction
The horrible chocolate lashes my tongue
A diction too far.
Flags outside point skyward,
dithering hems print sound waves
across the Western Ave.
A coffee cup, filled with sugar, milk and truth,
writes rings in an honest saucer.
Cigarette smoke lurks,
its subconscious laid down
on the flaws of youth.
Nicotining taste buds from memory
Begging on its knees
To take me back
into the fold of smokers
by the front door,
their minimalist fire brigade
burning up the carnival
of a frozen spring.
Jerry Pike
The horrible chocolate lashes my tongue
A diction too far.
Flags outside point skyward,
dithering hems print sound waves
across the Western Ave.
A coffee cup, filled with sugar, milk and truth,
writes rings in an honest saucer.
Cigarette smoke lurks,
its subconscious laid down
on the flaws of youth.
Nicotining taste buds from memory
Begging on its knees
To take me back
into the fold of smokers
by the front door,
their minimalist fire brigade
burning up the carnival
of a frozen spring.
Jerry Pike
Sunday, 28 February 2010
On Becoming Gregorz Harluk
On Becoming Gregorz Harluk
Hot chocolate, drinking chocolate
hot chocolate, drinking chocolate
chanted Gregorz, in Russian
from that inner advertising space
reserved for catchy commercials.
It felt good, no question
as my new persona
swept into minus five
icing hair, casting me back.
to those Western Siberian days.
Not sure Wembley was ideal
for new life, but I felt younger,
despite forgetting my DOB.
The expected mug shot, not required,
I could be anyone,
I gleamed with tomorrow’s whirled imagination.
A doll’s nest of new choices, each more exciting
I could do, I could try, I could be, but mainly
this dodgy leisure centre card
would give us an extra squash court
for those tricky nights
when your breath freezes
to the walls.
Jerry Pike
Hot chocolate, drinking chocolate
hot chocolate, drinking chocolate
chanted Gregorz, in Russian
from that inner advertising space
reserved for catchy commercials.
It felt good, no question
as my new persona
swept into minus five
icing hair, casting me back.
to those Western Siberian days.
Not sure Wembley was ideal
for new life, but I felt younger,
despite forgetting my DOB.
The expected mug shot, not required,
I could be anyone,
I gleamed with tomorrow’s whirled imagination.
A doll’s nest of new choices, each more exciting
I could do, I could try, I could be, but mainly
this dodgy leisure centre card
would give us an extra squash court
for those tricky nights
when your breath freezes
to the walls.
Jerry Pike
Recorder Scales: C major
Recorder Scales: C major
Confident, I take up the recorder again,
discover the smooth plastic on tongue and lips
evokes once more that dusty, sunlit classroom;
five of us struggling in a clumsy finger war,
getting them, contorted, into twitching place.
As I recall we never knew if we were right,
being asked to play songs from a century before.
Becoming interested, I hunt down the book ,
and open it, study the patterns on staves,
gather instinctive old muscle memories
forgotten like the dots that jump about the page.
Every note of me concentrates until quite soon,
dimly, I see how I’ll never get the thing right,
caring now more about the memory than the tune.
Peter Keeble
Confident, I take up the recorder again,
discover the smooth plastic on tongue and lips
evokes once more that dusty, sunlit classroom;
five of us struggling in a clumsy finger war,
getting them, contorted, into twitching place.
As I recall we never knew if we were right,
being asked to play songs from a century before.
Becoming interested, I hunt down the book ,
and open it, study the patterns on staves,
gather instinctive old muscle memories
forgotten like the dots that jump about the page.
Every note of me concentrates until quite soon,
dimly, I see how I’ll never get the thing right,
caring now more about the memory than the tune.
Peter Keeble
My Violin
My Violin
My Fiddle may not be a Strad
but still its tone is not too bad
It’s not too coarse, nor yet too thin,
the music of my violin.
My father for a modest fee
purchased the instrument for me,
with hopes his evenings would begin
with music on my violin.
Its former owner practiced till
he knew it was beyond its skill,
no hours of practising would win
sweet music from the violin.
No, really? Must you go so soon?
Please wait until I play a tune
That’s sad and suitable to fin-
ish up with on my violin.
John Waddell
My Fiddle may not be a Strad
but still its tone is not too bad
It’s not too coarse, nor yet too thin,
the music of my violin.
My father for a modest fee
purchased the instrument for me,
with hopes his evenings would begin
with music on my violin.
Its former owner practiced till
he knew it was beyond its skill,
no hours of practising would win
sweet music from the violin.
No, really? Must you go so soon?
Please wait until I play a tune
That’s sad and suitable to fin-
ish up with on my violin.
John Waddell
In Hiding
In Hiding
In our waking
we saw the sun
through cracks and slits
in our days
we smelled sour dust
and waste
and misered out
our scraps of food.
And all the while
the hunger gnawed
and the fear clenched.
In our sleep
we heard the crunch
of boots on gravel
in our dreams
they searched for bicycles
and babies
for anything or anyone
that could be hiding
And all the while
the hunger gnawed
and the fear clenched.
We woke each day
and found our sleep
was waking
and our dreams
reality.
Sylvia Goodman
In our waking
we saw the sun
through cracks and slits
in our days
we smelled sour dust
and waste
and misered out
our scraps of food.
And all the while
the hunger gnawed
and the fear clenched.
In our sleep
we heard the crunch
of boots on gravel
in our dreams
they searched for bicycles
and babies
for anything or anyone
that could be hiding
And all the while
the hunger gnawed
and the fear clenched.
We woke each day
and found our sleep
was waking
and our dreams
reality.
Sylvia Goodman
Thursday, 21 January 2010
An Old Soak
An Old Soak
His criss-cut frown
an ink seagull
v-ing through those
four feet between us.
Flat faced
with a square jaw,
he stared.
I stared.
No chickening
no shaping
eye to eye solidity.
Black blink-less irises filled
each sharp angle crevice,
persistent, throbbing.
Awaiting a back down
the water cooled.
His bulbous nose
static through steam.
A motionless
charade of glaze
on that fractured
bath tile of a face.
Jerry Pike
His criss-cut frown
an ink seagull
v-ing through those
four feet between us.
Flat faced
with a square jaw,
he stared.
I stared.
No chickening
no shaping
eye to eye solidity.
Black blink-less irises filled
each sharp angle crevice,
persistent, throbbing.
Awaiting a back down
the water cooled.
His bulbous nose
static through steam.
A motionless
charade of glaze
on that fractured
bath tile of a face.
Jerry Pike
Reconciliation Statue, Coventry Cathedral
Reconciliation Statue, Coventry Cathedral
1 don't remember when 1 noticed it first,
acceptance, creeping up like Mr Wolf.
1 had thought my senses 'frozen by the past.
Indeed, before 1 was caught by its stealth
I'd sworn to never fall for its sly charm
preferring anger to assert the self,
for how could we forget the storm
of bombers in the skies of Coventry,
the startling deaths and alarm; the fear
they'd build their sign here, in this city,
for victims to read, entering their charnel house
with the terrible lie, Work sets you free?
But it seems those who thought everything lost
can now face each other without despair,
consoled although their hearts have long since burst.
Look at these figures with a blank stare
to see a melting of the inner frost
and come to know the hatred they have nursed
has gone, and they are now no longer cursed.
Peter Keeble
1 don't remember when 1 noticed it first,
acceptance, creeping up like Mr Wolf.
1 had thought my senses 'frozen by the past.
Indeed, before 1 was caught by its stealth
I'd sworn to never fall for its sly charm
preferring anger to assert the self,
for how could we forget the storm
of bombers in the skies of Coventry,
the startling deaths and alarm; the fear
they'd build their sign here, in this city,
for victims to read, entering their charnel house
with the terrible lie, Work sets you free?
But it seems those who thought everything lost
can now face each other without despair,
consoled although their hearts have long since burst.
Look at these figures with a blank stare
to see a melting of the inner frost
and come to know the hatred they have nursed
has gone, and they are now no longer cursed.
Peter Keeble
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