Category poems

after Pastor Martin Niemöller

“They’d send a limousine anyway…”
The Clash

Play the man, and not the ball.
[written after Labour Party conference]

what if doormats were suddenly sentient?
what if elephants nested in trees?

of the British Museum find
in some forgotten room
an old earthenware lamp

To the apologists for genocide who choose
to walk in no-one’s shoes but their own

I have eaten
the future...

by now, of course, you’ll know
the way the day panned out

In all the stories from the funeral...

is for those politicians and journalists
who will now sing the praises
of life spent in public service

Start twenty-five years ago,
at least...

And spare a thought
for those Conservative MPs
who will stand in the House