…On Politics

PCP (Political Correctness Pill)

by Carey Lenehan

I pop it in my mouth, this political pill, feel it fizz on my tongue
and the back of my throat go numb,
Feel it whizz in my bloodstream
This PCP
Suddenly I become,
a POLITICIAN.

Now, I believe, I never inhaled
when the joints were passed at Uni.
Now only I know the way
the rest of you should live.
Well, just like me, of course

The effect of PCP
changes everything I see
The new black is white
and all the shades in between
As a Politician, only I know
How to manage the roads, or Justice, or Crime
or how
You should manage your time

In this Democra-sea, the pill changes me…
Now, I don’t say what I think, but only what I think
you want to hear.
Now my opinions are loose,
change in my pockets,
available to the highest bidder

Let me check the text, to see what comes next.
Now I’m a man for all people, everyone equal,
below me.
Now I’m a prince amongst men, hobnobbing when
I should be sticking up for the poor, but
you see,
I’m not poor any more.

Now I must think of the years after
the effect has worn off,
when the nobs that I hobbed
whilst under the influence
will give me the job
of my dreams and all this PCP, wil be
behind me.

*****

You said you could, made it your call,

chanted it from the rooftops,

amplified it from the stage,

sang it from the library steps,

breathed it, dreamed it, voiced it,

sent it to the world, pursued it

and now look,

you did it.

Just like you said you would.

But, with all that is broken,

as you stand before your faithful,

reflected in the glitter

of the tears on their cheeks,

returned a hero

on the shimmer of their eyes,

I hear you say it again,

those three little words

which mean so much to so many,

so promisingly declared,

and all I can do is wonder,

Yes, You Can,

but Will You?

Will you fix the ills that have long been done

behind closed doors, in our name, but not in our interest?

Will you wrest the wealth of the people

from the grubby hands of avarice,

free our stolen liberties, crushed beneath the stamping dabs of Baal?

Will you wipe away the rusted corruption,

kick away the barricades between Us and Them,

Will you banish the sneaking parasitic spies,

spinning their webs of mistrust deep into the heart of society,

and give us back the freedom to live in privacy?

Can you do that?

Will you undo the sweeping insults

rendered to the contract of your nation,

those longstanding words whispered in Patriotic hearts

and etched in history,

‘We The People’… ‘all men are created equal’…

and obliterate the addendum

snuck in there so discreetly which goes….

…’all men are equal, although some, are more equal than others’…?

Will you right the wrongs

of the suited sycophants who have stolen your gold,

take back the power from the syndicated snakes

who have constricted all that is good and true,

so that they can profit

and we can suffer?

Will you re-civilise the new barbarians who have re-ransacked Rome?

Will you free the faraway peoples your predecessor enslaved

with  costly bombs and unjust values,

who demonstrate their despair

with bloody roadside death and dusty tears,

and reassure the world that you are different

or will you

be the same?

Will you speak the same empty words,

walk the same dappled line between interests,

pleasing everyone who can pay,

betraying our trust,

dumbing us down

as if we were helpless children who

do not,

will not,

can not,

understand why you might need to change your promises?

Will you proffer patronising words,

hiding reality behind a smokescreen of double-speak,

because someone told you this is how it is done,

even though most of us know

there is a different story lying underneath?

Will you speak the truth

or will you lie,

because, you can do that too,

can’t you?

If I could,

I would ask,

Are you  for real, Barack Obama,

or have we been fooled again

and how long will it be

before we know what we have done?

Yes, we can,

Yes You Did

The real question is

Will You?

Can I?

by Carey Lenehan

Can I put the leaders of the world on trial,
Force them to climb down
from their ashened pedastals
and confess the wrongs
they have done to my world,
in the name of
Politics, Profit, Power and Control?
Can I stand as judge, jury and executioner,
to the godless hypocrites who have lost control
of their compassion
and sold out to vanity?

Can I set literal traps for them
as they skulk their verminous paths,
under the guise of philanthropy?
Can I?

Give me the eloquence
to prise loose their hold,
over the trusting flock,
to rescind their crippling pursuit of
the demon of wealth,
to nullify their overwhelming greed and
halt the creeping fungus of deceit
that threatens to obliterate
all hope and human optimism
to a vague electric memory?

Can I try,
with the power of a keyboard pen,
to eradicate the subversive and self-serving,
to rectify all the evils they have done
as they
steal the future from our children,
whilst they
gouge more riches
from the bowels of our planet
and astound the dispossessed
with their bottomless avarice?

Would I clamber
to the highest mountaintop
and shout my unceasing anger to the heavens,
and if I did,
would it make a difference?

*****

FAREWELL TO TONY BLAIR

by Carey Lenehan

So, farewell then Tony Blair,
Finally leaving
No 10.
And what happened to all those promises
you made
Way back when
Foxhunting was a bloodsport
Instead of a con
Now they hunt
on the black
Instead of in red.
Well done Tone’
Your future is secure, lectures,
dinner party speeches
for big bucks. For a luxury home,
or two.
Still handsome enough for publicity
hounds
While the NHS collapses
to its knees and
trains fall off the rails
But
You’ll be alright.
Interest rates about to soar
Homeowners
dispossessed,
Immigration set to rise, joblessness
no less
Schools descending towards
anarchy
War raging out of control.
What have you brought us to Tony Blair?

At least,
Maggie Thatcher
Won.
So,
pack your bags, bag your kids
take the ‘old bag’ and head for the Med.
Berlusconi, Sarkozy and crew
All have villas
To welcome you
And
You’ve left us with Gordon.
Thanks a lot

*****

Ode to Gordon Brown PM UK

by Carey Lenehan

Oh Gordon, my Gordon
Just promoted,
already in a Cold War,
to add to the hot one bequeathed you
by Tony and George
Now,
you are being fired upon from all sides
In your fine new job

Well done,
filling those big shoes that Tony left you.
Are they now feeling,
a little tight?
How, do you maintain that ready calm
when all about you
are losing theirs?
You resemble the benevolent school master,
the parish priest of the good flock.
Baaa.

And whilst the pyrotechnic terrorists,
doctors of your falsly flagging credibility,
incinerators
of our hopes for change,
lay false trails for the newshounds to scent
You secretly stockpile biometric desires
on our souls.
Take my eye, over my dead body

Security, security, security,
those three words echo
through the death throes
of our liberty.
We will be safe
for Gordon, my Gordon
will incarcerate anyone.
Anyone at all who thinks
his way, is the wrong way.
You wait and see.

The thought police perfect
their isometric tests
to determine if I am likely to be
a threat to the thoughts of others,
because
I think what I want.
For the sleepy people must not dream
of revolution, or change
for such insurgency
must be detained, according to…

Oh Gordon, my Gordon,
How you have tamed
the Russian beast
and now
those weapons I feared
are pointing at you
instead of me.
Did you imagine that so soon
you would be caught between a Bush
and a hard place?

But you will prevail, my rugby hero chum,
Genius, ministers son,
you will revenge
the roof of Melrose Abbey
and all the stolen taxes
from times gone by.
Make the most of the good times
Haven the London rich
Criticise the Bradford poor
Soon, it won’t be England,
any more.

*****

Trial and Tribulation in the End Times

by Carey Lenehan

The Minister’s son wipes his weary brow
levels his single eye at the cloudy sky
and asks
‘Father, why do you try me so?’
The holy father looks down from above
frowning in discontent at his wayward son.

‘Trial is my way, oh Good Son,
Heed the messages I send you now
and the tribulations will end
Ignore them, believe not in my unending wrath,
and disaster will walk in your land

I have loosed the Four horsemen,
to remind you that, the Great Island
you have come to rule over,
is sinking.
It is you who must become aware
that the Antichrist walks your world
And I have given you the task, to stop it

First I sent you FIRE,
clattering through the London streets
in a Mercedes Benz,
blazing in an airport doorway
from a Cherokee.
Did you not see the flames?
Did you not hear the screams? Don’t say,
I didn’t warn you.

FLOOD soon followed, drowning the summer
from merry old England, drenching
the strawberries at Wimbledon and
filling the streets of many towns,
with mud,
and stinkier things.
You think you got it bad? Be glad
you are not ruling in Asia.

PLAGUE, is riding now,
sending out those invasive little germs
artificially made, abiding, in tatty laboratories
just waiting, for a chance
to proliferate amongst your beasts,
but be careful my son, for the people are next.
And you will not be exempt from that one.

PESTILENCE will follow,
it is just a matter of time.
A plague will fall upon your houses,
a dearth of crops, a winter of discontent.
Ladybird, locust, mosquito or flea,
perhaps a little drought
I haven’t decided yet,
but be sure, it will come…

So heed me close,
do not consort with devils.
Do not sell your soul to the demon
of corporate need
Remember my good, and clever son,
what the scriptures dictate
The Antichrist
is your responsibility now
and you are failing….’