The white van vaccine man

Why is a vaccine political?

I don't want a shot in the arm of nationalism

Should the vaccine be exported in a van

Or will there be an export ban?

I imagine a white van man

delivering vaccines around the country

Opening his refrigerated coat pockets to show

a clattering collection of vials and test tubes:

Fancy a bit of Pfizer madam? - hot off the press

or a tipple of Astrazeneca?

How about I shoot you with Moderna?

It's the great hold up

It's a one-armed robbery madam

Literally I'm robbing myself blind

I'd give an arm and leg to be in the position you're in

Oh I wish I had the chance to take all these vaccines

But alas I can't, I'm allergic you see

I tried the Chinese one it turned my head red

I tried the Russian Sputnik and it gave me

A free kick, loose limbs and a few ticks

But other than that no bad side effects

In fact I fitted in well in Moscow Square

They are all a little bit mad over there

So anyway try a vaccine out the back of my van

All refrigerated, never mind the export ban

Why should a vaccine be a political pawn?

I never knew a person didn't want to get born

So why in the hell would they want to die?

For lack of agreement between two conflicting sides

When we all know it's about Brexit and EU's misgivings

Oh who knew the exit would be a farewell without forgivings?

Anyway the little man has to thrive

And Britain is made up of small businesses like mine

I should say forget it and go back to plumbing

But what the hell I thought when I saw a vaccinator thumbing

A ride

Why not help the little guy?

He's just trying to get across the border

Doesn't mean everyone is an Astrazeneca hoarder

But it turns out this chap knew more than first appeared

And he could get a stash of vaccines from a  grotto (as Santa feared)

But that's not the worst place to find them stowed

No I've seen them under bridges and in the forks in the road

I've seen them locked in fridges so none of them could get out

So I'm the vaccine liberator, call me Che Guevara without a doubt

This vaccine dispensation has been a war of attrition

And it needs guerrilla fighters who are willing to do so for a small commission

So come on Madam why not buy an armful?

You've got vaccines from the East and West and none of them are harmful!

Boost yourself up, give yourself a jab, it's just and wink and a nudge, but

It's hardly smash and grab

And you can be sure they haven't fallen off the back of a lorry

Look it says it on the plastic bag - if broken we are very sorry

There is no use in looking like that at me Madam

Well what would Eve have done? Would she have turned down Adam?

And he was sold on an apple and a promise of something better

Well this comes with a guarantee written in bold letters

Product of the EU or Made in China, 

manufactured in Russia or by Uncle Sam Junior

The only one I'm not so sure about is Oxford Astrazeneca

But the clues are in the name Madam, though that's terra incognita

Made in China

Going to China

Get the jab

But no UK, American or Russian prefab

Rubs me up the wrong way

Against the grain

Feel the chemicals rushing

Through the arm vein

You must have the vaccine

Before you come 

But only if it is 

Made in China

Used to be that plastic rubbish from China floats up

Used to be they flooded the market

With their crap

But now they are the market

All kinds of rip offs and add ons

And recalibrations of existing scrap

Made in China

But now it is vast

This world of people and machines

Moving as an ant farm

Industrializing Spring

The march continues

Wave the red flag

They're coming over yonder

While the cat is in the bag

Keep it in there - they cry

Meow, Meow Mao Tse tung

Now he's out

There's no point crying 

Over spilt milk

Something's brewing

It's a rumbling storm

It's a maelstrom of damage wanting to get done

But in the destruction and chaos

Something beautiful is created

Perhaps an idea of the dissolution of power

Being dissipated

But we want no more men with moustaches

Or marching jack boots in our streets

Perhaps a carnival of dragons

And sweetmeats

Made in China

Something decidedly British for us

To accept cultural indoctrination

Like drop it in our afternoon tea

As an afterthought

A little piece of Mao

Or an imprint on a cup and saucer

Look it's already here read it in

The tea leaves

Made in China

The job market

 It's the job market

Take a job for life

Earn enough to have a wife

Take a job until your death

But you can't afford to take a breath

It's the job market

Don't give up the day job

Don't throw in the towel

Unless you want to bank rob

Or listen to the wolves outside your door howl

Take a job and stick it where the sun don't shine

In a factory, in a warehouse

In pit full of lime

And stand in line

in the dole queue wondering who is who

Am I you? Are you me? Are you you?

Cuckoo, cuckoo

Work all day and lose your soul

Work all night still don't feel whole

They take you away like a chinese roll

Place you in a pick and mix

Ready for the grabber

It's the job market

They make the rules we must all follow

But then they take the carpet away

But their words are hollow

And their bonds mean nothing

Despite your loyalty

If they can hire someone cheaper

Then boy you are free

Wave good bye

With a "generous" redundancy

In other words the pay out would be

Too large if you kept working til you're sixty

So they cut and run

The dirty sons of someone or other you see

It's the job market

They work you silly

They work you dry

They work you like a billy goat

They work you till you cry

No more, no more I need my rest

But the pay packet they say

Will cover the rest

You know times are hard

And the goings rough

And you might be a billiard

In game of blind man's bluff

But don't you shout shard

When you see the crucifix splint

They've been hanging you there

By a horse's hair and it's time you split

They work your nose to the grindstone

You clean your hand with spit

They haul you up and make you shake a bone

Then you pick with it in the pit

There could be two ways or there could be three

Of going about it this graveyard malady

But you better get smart kid

You better believe

There is no work of art hid

In the eve of the tree

In the job market

And the gallery is hanging you

In scenes from a crime

It's the last supper

And it's past closing time

And they need to work for man's soul

Because God does no work

And God knows he's in control

He's the creative manager who gives us over time

He can fire and hire us in our prime

But if want a good living you better get in his good books

There's a page or two devoted

To blacked out crooks

it's the job market

They are never coming back

To work on the shop floor

They'll be in the engine room

Stoking the flames of the poor

And wretched ones

Who deserve nothing more

Except if you believe in divine grace

In the Job market that's the place

I'm sure

Ballad of the Gym

 Lifting iron

Barbells pile on

Weight upon weight

Sad, cold garage

Steel eyes and cameras

Look on, look on amazed

Like a spider looks

Constantly surprised

Though unblinking

Robotic and cold

Lifting its arms and legs

Up the silver steel spool

And back on the mat

The square of star jumps

Now I'm a supernova

Now I'm a red dwarf

Watch me explode

Who's watching Mr wolf?

Counting time

Jumping to the seconds

The drudgery of counting

Your life away in bodily ticks

And contraction-expansion of muscle fibres

Like a spider up and down a wall

Well a spider creates a web

Something beautiful

While I surf the web

The internet of uncool

And who knows you Uncle?

Uncle Sam knows all

He twitches his web in NewYork

And there's a tornado in Hong Kong

While I in my gym of body promises

Carry on, carry on

Lifting the kettle, put the kettle on

Polly, take it off again Hun

Back and forth like a serf

And manservant of the humdrum

And I contrast this in my mind

With the beautiful Hungarian forests I could be in

The place of cliffs and whims

And fun, saying come and put the kettle on

To my real hun

The only Hun I call Honey Bun

I long for that back again

I ache more than sinews

From a gym

Ache within on my interweb

My soul search engine

That continually riffles through memories

In the hope of finding a door back in

Or a page in the book of feelings

And hearings of the mind's comings and goings

That gives me any sense of peace

And I realize like through a sandstorm

That I am like a statue made of glass

blowing bubbles

To climb inside to escape sand grains

But I am made of that storm of sand

That is blowing

I am melting that desert life into thicker

Walls for myself

And all I want to do is to smash them down

And break the glass

Shatter these false skies and ceilings

And stop living in this vacuum chamber of feelings

I need to touch what is real again

Spirit of Mars

A long way off in space lies Mars

The spirit of the caves spoke:

Who is that with the eyes of gold shining down her face?

The Sun said - 

It is I, Sun Queen, don't you know it is to me you owe your grace

The Spirit cried:

 no, for millions of years you've dried and scorched this place!

The Sun said: 

no my dear, it was the doing of your Martian race.

They tried to build ladders up to the sky, 

They reached beyond their reach

And from that pride they would surely die

It was as the Martian prophets preached

To try to touch heaven is a mark of pride

So many have done it failed and died

But what they missed in the offing was

To hold on tight to their cherished land

The spirit of the cave looked sad,

How can this be, that they never knew what they had?

Tried to stretch when they should have stayed still

Tried to fetch the impossible will

What destiny has taught them

Is to remain where water still runs in rills

The chorus of the Martian sand dunes

Then all sang in choir:

Oh what has happened to our promised land?

Oh look what has befallen us!

Take heed ye giants and heroes of other planets

Not to follow the example set by us

The water spirits who once lived on Mars are now sleeping in the sand

Take heed, take heed they sing anon in their water lost song

Water water nowhere,and not a drop to drink

The ice fox and polar bear, are unbearably white in ink

The turtle and the whale who once swam our seas

Are lost in the sands of time

Rolled under the rug of memory

And folds of slime and unbegotten mud layer the deep Martian plain

Like an ocean these desert dunes roll on

Swept by the red winds of a planet's pain

Blood red in autopsy of the crime

The all seeing moon Phoebus sings:

My eyes are filled with red, from the blood planet's suffering

I lost my rings, have you found them?

I lost my wedding bells

They lie broken in the sandy ground

No more do their joyous songs sound

I saw destruction from my cold height

But I was hot with rage

Oh these Martians caused the onset

Of the next ice age

How when they had plundered the Martian crust 

For all it was worth they turned their greedy eyes abroad to rust

And rest on Mother Earth

But in building their starships

They were taken ill in toil

And famine, pestilence and starvation

Crept upon them like a relentless snail

But it did catch them in the end

For finally their mission failed

With the loss of resources came the fight for land

And wars sprang up across the globe near and far at hand

Which none could hope to solve or understand

They fought until every last Martian soon was bleeding their blood

Into the ground

Then my eyes turned red to see the flood

Of blood leave its gruesome trail

Abandoned of its life the planet gave up too

And gravity a friend to so many, now became 

a bind for two

The last two souls left alive Martian Adam and a Martian Eve

And they left the planet on the last transport

Out to a distant reprieve

abandoned now the planet turned in its red sunset sinking way, 

out across the solar field for forever and a day 

Then Mother Earth spoke

Her voices sounded shrill

As the yelp of a pup:

Help, help the whelp

They're doing the same to me

My forest fires are burning

Polluted are my seas

My whale's song is drowning

In the dirty tides of misery

The men in their factories

The women in their yards

Building suiting and soldering

Robots for iron hearts

And doing their bidding

And bidding them well

Though they know not their nature's

Are in artificial hell

Developed and exploited

By the few who smell

Money at the bottom

Of the wishing well

Take heed, take heed the Angels cried

From a top the mountains

The well is drying, soon no more

Will flow the fountain

Take heed take heed the wolves howled

Take heed the bears baulked

Take heed the foxes spouted

Take heed the Herons squarked

Listen to mother nature

For she is whispering quietly to us

Press your ears to the ground and feel her cries

Of pain and anguish

No pain no gain cried the fat factory controller

No gain, no rain cried the weathermen

No money no honey cried the cockerel in the morning

Who was following the weather vein

No Sun no flower cried the honey bee

Who was shivering and dying

In an acid rain shower

No love no money cried the woman to the man

Ain't it funny hunny, cried the man back again

And the sworded word fish darted through the shallows

Because that was getting to be all that was left to him

And he looked up through his silver scaled eye

And saw the moon

The moon reflected the sun

Said - I am the voice of all mysteries past

What I have seen has come and gone so fast

I never forgot and I never laughed

Because I have seen life come and go

And I always will last

A reflected glory is what I am

I tell my story to the little lamb

Who comes into this world bleating and damned

To be another leg of mutton

But I shine on like a button

Lost in the endless threads of space

In the sewing basket of a pin cushion sky

That shines with a trillion pin pricks

And I say we are lost like a needle in a haystack

And all this mystery is fantasy

And all this fantasy is mystery

And what I am I am

And can be no other

Brother Sun and sister moon

I look upon the Earth gone soon

And at my back goes red Mars

Streaking a bloody horizon

Sister Sun and brother moon

The yin and yang

Of the silver balloon that floats above

But the big bang 

Will soon cause a mighty implosion

Up and down in and out

The breathing fire

Of inward doubt

The cave spirit rushes 

From hole to hole checking nightly

For the water vole

She was here I swear I saw a mouse

Creeping through my dark red house

But low and behold the water ran out

And then so too did the little red mouse

Soldering on

 I was soldiering on with my soldering iron

When somebody stopped me, I think named Brian

Brian I said, I think.., but he stopped me

It's Ryan he said, pop screw or Siad 

I said can I use a solder to fight this war

He said if you hit it against an iron door

I said can I soldier like I were an iron

He said no but you can iron like a soldier

And solder like a lion

Can I lionize my iron?

It depends on your pantaloon platoon

Well I said how about a panda division

He said don't you mean a panzer division

I said yes I was never much good at maths and in addition

If I substitue one soldier for another will the match

Be played as well?

He said I think you're thinking of the future

By looking down a well, try to focus on the present

With an iron will, 

I said I wrote it last Tuesday

He said with your consitution, 

I'm surprised you're ill

Well the fact is I said it matches my mood

He said it's a game of two halves

Well try eating some food

I said I've nothing to cook it on

He said why not try the iron

So I kept soldiering on

Thinking this beats talking to Byron

You keep working on that electronic circuit

Where the electrons go round, it's an eclectic gown

And they just drop down in poteniality

Same as me

Crowku

 The crow sits in the upper most branches of a bare silver birch

Watching the pale wan sky

Black against almost painfully pale white

And in another tree another crow does the same