My Poetry: She Is My

She is my first beer:
Quenches my thirst,
And eases my wary bones

She is my second beer:
Dulls the edges of the day,
And makes me want more

She is my third beer:
Turns my legs to jelly,
And intoxicates my head

She is my fourth beer:
Making me forget,
And want to dance

She is my fifth beer:
An invitation,
I cannot bear to refuse

She is my whiskey:
Puts a grin on my heart
As she lays me to bed.

My Poetry: How Long Before We’re Wearing Stars On Our Pyjamas

I

The real oppressors of your freedom
Are not wearing jackboots
Hijabs or stars on pyjamas.
They don’t bare arms on jihadi TV.
They don’t wear uniforms.
They don’t wear dog collars.
They don’t speak in foreign tongues.
They don’t cross borders.
They do not wait in hoodies
At the end of your street.
They don’t wear angry faces.
They will not be your friend.
They do not live in your house.
They are not the latest knife crime stats.
They do not listen to Rap.

They’ll be wearing suits
Matched with secret ties.
They will wave false flags.
They will steal your freedom
In the name of protection
While you skim social media.
They will be the face
Of faceless corporations.
They will engineer forced migration.
They will create borders
By which YOU are told to judge people.
They will fracture society.
They will manufacture fear.
They will not be ‘voted’ in.
They will not stand for democracy.
They will be the establishment.

II

The disease of business elite
Infects Westminister with greed
Party neutral donors

Wine, dined and 69ed
On luxury yachts
So moneyed vultures can pick
At bones of asset-stripped nation.
Common’s benches lobby
For free-trade dream.
In side-room deals
Corporate whores dodge tax
Compliance bought with a nod and a wink
And a six-figure membership
To a company’s board.

Unions vilified in the press,
Castrated in the Commons
By neck-tie terrorists
Conducting ‘collateral damage’
To single mum housing estates.
Screwing Proles further

In their poverty hole:
Give us slogans telling us
‘We’ve never had it so good’
But we’re still fucking slaves
As far as I can tell,
Bull-whip and yoke swapped
For social media anxiety
Oppressed obsessed with eastern patsy’s
While unelected law makers erode rights.
Food-banks feed first world hunger
While fat cats suckle cream
From a nation’s wizened breast

III

Drug company CEO
Withholds cancer cure
For another fist full of dollars.
Cash strapped hospitals

Buy into postcode lottery,
It could be YOU who stays
The rest left to pick a God and prey.

Oil tanker spills black gold

Into crystal blue waters

Marine life destroyed
Conglomerate shrugs

Trying to protect bottom line.
Paid off congress publically tuts
At another sea disaster,

Then pockets back-hander.

My POetry: I Rehearse Your Death

I re-read the lines of the poem
They are not particularly sad
Or good,
But I imagine the words spilling,

Like tears, from my lips
As I say goodbye.

I do this often, even when
The words aren't special,
The meaning unpure,
The setting uninspiring.
Still I search for the text

To understand what you meant to me.

Which might explain how I feel
As you lay before me
Skin stiffening like cooling wax
In silk lined pine box.
I do this because...

Because one day
It will not be a rehearsal

On commute back home.
Preparation so when
The call comes

I will still be able to breathe.

Blunt sword that carves
A piece of my happiness
From my mouth, 

My cheek, my day

With a stranger’s soft musing.

I re-read the lines of the poem
And think, I will call
You again soon enough
Just to make sure you're alright
While I still can.