What’s so sodding top-notch about ‘democracy’?
Just because we don’t all drop off joblessly
with leprosy and dropsy, we think it spotlessly
grand and lofty like some pompous opera, see,
but bombs and poverty still hover ominously
over Coventry, our wants all lost at sea.
Is Thatcher policy what the Scots want to see?
Does a crossed box in ten million obviously
make you free? Honestly, would monopolies
by majorities look good to Socrates?
Or would they look like mockeries, hypocrisies,
mediocrities of media-sovereignties?
Our leaders bleed us, feed us the noxious innocuously
so what’s so sodding top-notch about plutocracy?
Apathy in the UK
is voting for those who say
“Vote for us in clued-up millions!
We’ll really act on your opinions!”
Apathy in the UK!
Roses with no bouquet.
Now voting for the fake and gimmicky
is the height of political activity.
Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right
the Apathetic Army chants, marching in a slouch,
labelling me lazy, squeezing from their clefts trite
words of spending, taxing, as I, slumped on my couch,
scribble “The only good liberal is a dead liberal,
and his name’s John Stuart Mill, so there.
A vote for anyone is a vote for frilly drapes
and protection rackets, that’s why I don’t care!”
Left Right Protect Capitalism Left Right
and central governments and their ordinary slaves
toe the straight tapering line bereft of light
to see or read or let ideas out of the caves
at the end of history, where meaning is minimal,
our old party wrapped round Mister Blair
like a wet pair of jeans shrunk out of its shape
to fit its turncoat master. That’s why we don’t care.
Atrophy in the UK!
A sniffle underneath a duvet
that votes, that sparks no fulmination
against our history’s culmination.
Atrophy in the UK!
Let voters strike! And then, touché!
We don’t want to participate
in your single-party state.
Comments
Gilbert | September 1, 2008 - 15:55
Fantastic!
It reads well and would be(is?)a great performance piece.
"Honestly, would monopolies
by majorities look good to Socrates?
Or would they look like mockeries, hypocrisies,
mediocrities of media-sovereignties?"
Eminem, eat your heart out!
chuck | September 1, 2008 - 16:49
Excellent piece macjoyce. Apathy is the problem. People have more or less learned to live with powerlessness. Politics has become people management.
Macjoyce | September 2, 2008 - 11:18
Thanks, Mr G. I've performed this a few times and ought to do it more often. I'm not especially a fan of Eminem but he was there in the back of my mind as I embarked on my rhymefest. Cheers!
www.myspace.com/norwichfacetransplant
Macjoyce | September 2, 2008 - 11:24
Thanks for stopping by, chuck. I think the murder of socialism is the problem. That's when the apathy really started. People have come to accept liberalism as an acceptable new form of socialism, as though the gap between rich and poor isn't widening all the time and as though immigrants are flowing in not because they're a source of cheap labour but because this country believes in a happy cuddly multicultural ghetto society.
www.myspace.com/norwichfacetransplant
littleditty | September 3, 2008 - 01:10
brillo macdoodlestrudle - just keep telling it how it is, and i will try a piece or two on how it is here - Sao Paulo - apathy?...after horror and hopelessness - is there apathy? Maybe...
Macjoyce | September 3, 2008 - 11:45
Hey Nicaroonie, thanks for calling round. You're in Brazil now, are you? Is it anything like the film???
Someone said there could be no poetry after Auschwitz. But there was. And yes, there was apathy too. It's because of Tony Blair. When the Tories made those posters of him with devil eyes, they were right for once...
www.myspace.com/norwichfacetransplant
littleditty | September 4, 2008 - 22:47
In Prisms (1955), Theodor Adorno wrote that 'To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbarous.'
(Have you seen the film ´City of God´ ? You might like that one...)
Macjoyce | September 5, 2008 - 17:07
Ah, Adorno, was it? I might've known...
I wonder if he meant just poetry, or whether he was talking about art in general. Seems a bit unfair to pick on poetry.
No, I've not seen City of God. Or V for Vendetta, for that matter.
www.myspace.com/norwichfacetransplant
ashleemale | October 25, 2008 - 21:19
Wow.... all I can say.
If only I was as talented as you.