Tuesday, March 27, 2018

hibernating frog


I dug up a hibernating frog,
When I levered a buried paving stone,
Out of the ground,
Next to the pond.
I imagined that I was an archaeologist,
Or a grave robber,
As I cut away couch grass and weeds
And prised the slab onto its edge,
But as it hadn’t been buried that long,
The only treasures revealed,
Seemed to be worms and woodlice
Scurrying and writhing away
From the sudden unwelcome daylight.
Then I saw the little frog’s
Long legs kicking
As it hid in another crevice.
Sorry, amphibian pal,
To have so rudely woken you.
Spring’s on the way
But not quite all here yet,
So, catch some more kip,
Until the sun’s well up
And the swifts have returned.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

ZOMBIE CAPITALIST DEATH HORROR


ZOMBIE CAPITALIST DEATH HORROR (© P.R.Murry 12/03/2017)
The dead bad giants
Are alive again,
Once my father believed
That they had been slain,
Or at least, battered
Down onto their knees;
And that Poverty, Ignorance,
Squalor and Disease
Could no longer crush us
With fear and grief;
But, sadly, that belief
Was overoptimistic.
And like something terrific and horrific,
The four zombified monsters
Are re-animated and undead,
Lumbering into a new century
Crushing those who cannot pay
Smashing all obstacles in their way,
Rewarding wealth and spurning need,
Driven by the power of greed
To ensure capitalism’s control
Of our bodies, our brains our souls.
So now we must dig a deeper hole
to bury them forever.



PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE PAYMENT INTERVIEW (A PARTLY FICTIONAL ACCOUNT)



A Nice Nurse knocked on my front door,
So I showed her up the stairs,
To my first floor flat.
I asked her to observe,
The difficulty that I have
In ascending to my abode,
For it is an overweight and arthritic old man,
Who writes this ode;
And coughs as he does so, remembering,
Forty years of heavy smoking
Plus decades more of breathing,
Polluted city air.
So I pant up the steps,
And sit, wheezing, in my chair,
As the Nice Nurse questions me.
She asks if I can wipe my own arse,
And how frequently I pee,
How I catch the bus or train,
And, how many pills I take,
And when I walk with my walking stick,
What progress do I make?
At the end of the interview, she explains
That in a month or so,
A verdict on my payment will be made,
It could be cut, it could be raised, it could even be doubled
Then she holds up a bucket and says:
“or just kick this now,
Save the government some money and trouble.”