Category Archive: PETER’S WRITING
The Hermit Kingdom
I’m well aware I’m a little dumb, When it comes to fact I am under your thumb But how can I possibly believe These things he does when in a peeve? Shooting men with some anti-tank gun For nothing; presumably, for fun Because he can. Oh, I know his hair Is silly, but that cannot be fair, When we’ve Hillary and Donald Trump. Showing their dead wigs on the stump Before adoring crowds, which they all share. How do we know he doesn’t care For his people? They talk a different game And subsume their souls unto his fame, They venerate…
Continue Reading →I’m a Friend of a Friend of the People
Image from "Cool Hand Luke" (1967)
(for Joyce Carol Oates, with thanks for Where are you going, Where have you been?) You down there! On the shining path; Hustling that toaster Into your bath, Making plans! Writing letters, Fervidly seeking to Loosen fetters That stay you to the rock! That holds you from the path, Ending all the narrative Within a hollow laugh; Useless as the weather! Swirling in the brain, The keenest void of sound That equivocates the pain Of a clammy, sticky mouth And a tongue that has no end, Giving you a taste The nip before you comprehend. Flooding all your senses So you…
Continue Reading →On The Vigil
Image of President al-Assad by Ranan Lurie
There’s a candlelight vigil in the evening; All gather near the shelters, the rotunda, and they sing For swathes of the oppressed and lines of displaced refugees, But who will light a candle for the cause of this disease? My lion has a calm and pleasant manner when he roars. He’d never sanction poor behaviour, in or out of doors, He has a birthday coming up, so let us light for him A special taper carved out from a line of seraphim. Off you go and wring your hands and change the way you feel, I’ll strike a light for al-Assad and…
Continue Reading →Mr Justice Raffles
His Honour writes his judgments like a crime novel; Resemblance to the dead or living is coincidental; You joined the Law Society – Defended with due piety The ineffectual thing – Raised no more than your profile. Cold rictus from the sand dune’s sting, By inches, so you burned To set rump on throne, and have it said ’twas earned. Invested, outed, by and by, Always the bad guy, Chained by secrets and precedent, Liver corroded by time, and spent Lapping the waves of the future, Colder then warmer the groove of the suture; A Judge must not deign to…
Continue Reading →Home and Hosed
'...to early beds'
The wind is spent, the dust is down, The light is playing tricks, It filters in, fades, reappears On the tar of platform six, where The schoolboys are disgorged, Attached like leeches to their cause, Splitting hairs and splitting heads, Home and hosed to early beds, Lemmings diving in the sea Line up blindfolded by the wall. “That is not what we meant at all” Say mother and father, watching us slip In their vice-like grip. Through the tattered world, the stink Punched full of holes, the useless salty water Stings, taunting us to drink.
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