sarkozy x pryce x huhne

sarkozy will sleep in jail
with his head held high-
proud of his shamelessness
comforted by his lies
it’s peculiar how many
politicians have convictions
that relate directly
to their economic interests
some presumably entered politics
to pursue pure crookery
others i suppose become
corrupted by opportunity
and the third category are dragged
into crooked torrents
by the scum that forms around them
i wonder where chris huhne
falls on this scale

i found it quite silly that sarkozy said he would have his head held high in jail. i instantly thought, he is quite a short man isn’t he? the french elect short presidents. not since jacques chirac have they had a leader of physical length. and then, thinking of corruption, trump was too obvious a comparison so i turned to the chris huhne / vicky pryce caper earlier this century, for the sole reason that it was amusing.

jog on by the desire path

jog on by the desire path
avoid the horse’s rear
badly i write
the fronted adverbial
pick acorns like a reindeer,
chuck a right
ariana throws her dummy at me
and theo puts her in the bin
two hours drive
to a twenty minute sauna
jog for a period
in a lancaster lane

flick it spin it pull it bop it
turn it off, put it in my pocket
this is techno, we can’t stop it

michael gove has a lot to answer for, but this particular bit was aimed at his reform of education in england. why are they telling children about fronted adverbials? caringly, nobody did about this.

the rising of the cult of the solutionisers

veering into the giddy stratosphere
my plus one request gets a kb
leaving me in mild peril
overran sesh so i only ran four kloms
then was late and to the wrong fireside yawn
a tedious rant that also overran
now i’m late for dinner and sober
so i take the motor for a spin
down dark windy lanes to the train car swap
solutionize became my siren
elevate and inspire to escape my horizon
if it isn’t part of the solution
it tends to be precipitate
selena lookin woman in dumbstruck awe
and though it was nice to participate
when the cult disbands to autumn sun
i prefer to solve,
in search of my elixir.

there were some lovely days in september last year. i spent a lovely week on a dadaist retreat in the home counties. oh, and i was training for a 10k. the solution / precipitate bit is a reference to a toothpastefordinner comic from probably about 2008.

segreillious

charlie kirk caught one
in the neck
i may not support the second
amendment
but that was brave
to make a stand
for his beliefs
despicable, racist,
misogynistic
as they were
he will be pleased to find
the afterlife is segregated
and he will be
with his friends

i don’t want this to be read as gloating or anything. this poem is essentially a diary, and it is a year since kirk’s murder now. i don’t even think this poem is ironic. it was a reaction to his death, which itself was ironic. i simply state that his beliefs were despicable. i didn’t celebrate his death.

forget about yesterday and chorus

today…
was better than yesterday
though work is stretching me
into a vacuous husk
sealed up with snot
trapped in my head
with brain fog,
climbing to-do mountain
but it could be worse
imagine what yesterday
was like

this is the trilogy of four to the floor
the future before us
has been foretold
hand pumps gave us feudalism
we got capital from coal
techno determines
the rate of profit will fall

ah this reminds me – my august last year was even harder. last year i had a new job, and i was on my first ever family holiday with my girlfriend’s family. i was still picking up the basics of how to perform my role, while my project was continuing at pace without competent leadership. fortunately things are less stressful this year.

thinking about my history as a ferocious blusher on the weird work week road trip

storm away with amy
on the weird work week
road trip
yet wherever i go
i’m always me
and find myself adverse to
reverse columbo,
so i hold my tongue
pathologically, i realise,
in the hotel power shower
my beetroot trauma
my painful blushing
the loss of limb control
the shame and the denial
too scared to ask
for the haircut i wanted
until i was about middle aged
nobody ever explains
the numbers
it’s not taught in school
i still hate barbershops
turn it up or turn it off
this is techno, watch it launch

continuing to describe my busy august. week one – move home. week two – move all my stuff. week 3 – trail run half marathon, seven hour drive each way – week 4 various odd jobs at the old place, dump runs, hand over the keys, week 5 – seriously wtf how long is this month?? go on holiday with my girlfriend’s family, and our other flatmate moves out so we have some living space in our home again.

dance like nobody is watching, write poetry like nobody is reading

kids tend to like me
my therapist said
because i am
weird in the head
i feel things intensify
or barely at all
but you know that i love
the slow, sad songs
a masked dancer pirouettes
down the cycle path
which is then autocorrected
to psychopath
i’ve seen her again since
wearing her cowboy hat
and i’m jealous but happy
that she has that
it didn’t occur to me
to wear an actual mask
an invisibility cape
draped on for the dance

and the thing about moving home is that, as well as organising your new home, you also have to sort out things with the old home. changes address. get a new doctor (best add that to my to do list). get all the last stuff out the flat, clean the place. and work / usual life commitments continue unabated.

car vermin

the sidewalk was invented
by ambrose walkside
or so i learn from the chatbot
to protect cars from
jaywalking serfs.
mounting the pavement
a man driving an suv
in an act of derangement
on his third attempt to kill me
i got away,
with his licence plate
can i be arsed to go to court?
probably not
he must have been having a hard life
no doubt he will kill me
another day
then someone else
almost reverses into me twice
but i’m sure it is not
me that is the problem

i moved in with my girlfriend on the first. we had a flatmate overlap situation for the first four weeks, so the place has been massively over-furnished and lacking in storage. boxes everywhere. quite stressful.

i really did strongly consider going to the police about this guy. a witness reached out to me. but to utilise the violence of the criminal justice system against someone for revenge doesn’t sit well with me. i realise there is a public safety issue as well. i’m hoping the guy was just having a bad day.

a rare moment of candour

ministry of war
at least it’s honest
in a prevailing atmosphere of
bad faith positions
like when you say,
i want to ban immigrants
i’m a country that otherwise
would have a declining population
it is impossible to construct
an argument that this is
fundamentally anything
but a contrived way of saying
white faces only, please!

i’m keeping my posts short this month – i had the busiest month. i moved in with my girlfriend on the first of the month and life has been a bit mad since.

this bit was about pete hegseth changing the department of the defense’s name to the department of war. how’s that going for you, pete?

the last day of summer and chorus

i sleep in
on the last day of summer
and it’s clear
the things i love, want, need
are the same things
that drive me to despair
listen careful, listen clear
this is techno that we hear

this is the trilogy of four to the floor
ai can tell us
what we already know
for the measly price
of the climate disaster
the technofuture
can bring it round faster

thank you for joining me for the second stanza of part four of the love epochal: technodeterminism. i think that must be the 20th stanza so far. join me here next month and every subsequent month for more poetry, as the love epochal continues.