Demonstation of Incompetence

Arrested before you’ve protested?
What is the world coming to?
Without even a chance to wave banners
Or throw one or even both shoes?

Shackled but not to a railing.
Surely that wasn’t the plan -
To be singing 'we will not be moved'
When youre being shoved into a van.

Caught in possession of items
That may lead some to think you are nutters -
Attempting to cause serious damage
To a Plant with a pair of bolt cutters.

It seems that the climate's not right,
The environment could have been sweeter;
You weren’t really cooking on gas -
The powers-that-be had your meter.

Although you are rightly concerned
With emissions, you’re sat in the lock up
Having failed in discharging your mission.
Who on earth organised such a cock up?

Like Pigs in Shit

Oh dear, what a pigging shame.
Caught with your snout in the trough,
snorting your expenses claim.

Now everybody knows your name
and your address… and what you watched.
Oh dear, what a pigging shame.

A patio heater? Can you blame
the public for their stone cold wrath?
For snorting, 'Your expenses claim!'

Your reputation’s down the drain.
That new plug wasn’t big enough.
Oh dear. What a pigging shame.

Politics is a mugger’s game:
Talking mounds of useless froth
whilst snorting your expenses claim.

It might be politic to proclaim
you’ve been an Oik and bugger off.
(snorting)... Your expenses claim?
Oh dear. What a pigging shame.



(c)Jude Parsons, 7th April, 2009

Echoes from the walls

(In memory of Nick Jarram, 1982-2009)

Your t-shirt hangs upon the housemates' wall.
When the window is open
the breeze fills it and blows it
in and out as if you were still breathing.

There are empty spaces now
where the postcards you sent
once clamoured for attention
in the collage of club posters.

The cartoon of you sitting
in an armchair like a grandad
is still there on the adjacent wall
amongst the photographs.

Your room is deserted,
your possessions removed,
except for the sofa you bought
which was too big to take away.

Your t-shirt hangs upon the housemates' wall.
When the window is open,
the breeze fills it and blows it
in and out as if you were still breathing.


(c)Jude Parson, March 2009

Daffodil’s Return

(with apologies to W. Wordsworth)

I lift my head and out of darkness come
From my poor stance, my body bowed and bent,
To stare upon this new light they call sun
And raise my face to drink its nourishment.
And all around me, others such as I,
Awakened from their winter-sodden sleep,
Stand up and turn their faces to the sky
Rejoicing in the welcome light and heat.
Beneath the trees amidst the rippling grass
We sway all day, the wind stirring our leaves
And nod to all the butterflies that pass
With heads that dance and flutter in the breeze.
- When all at once I see a man stood there
With pen in hand and face in rapturous stare.



©Jude Parsons, 2006

Contrast in pink and lemon

Along the path beside the garden wall
The cherry trees stand arm in arm, like
Cheer leaders waving at the skies
With fluffy-pink pom-pom balls;
Whilst primroses beneath
Their feathery boughs
Sit lemon-pale
And exhale
Scent, so
Sweet.



©Jude Parsons, 2006