WordSalad: The Poetry of Luke Prater

Chancellor George Osborne with The Budget neatly packed away

✩

The Conservative Government of The United Kingdom, in their Annual Budget announcement of Wednesday 23 March, revealed they are cutting the rate of tax for the richest (those on incomes of £150,000+), and reducing age-related Pension benefits.

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Watch Murdoch Junior jump from the kitchen.
The scandal, instead of slipping,
surges like blood-pressure of
the doyen McDonald’s masticator.

A nasty carmine enriches dirt on
the hands, glooping a sullied syrup -
‘Murdoch’ a little too much like ‘murder’
(as in ‘getting away with’).

The Father, The Sun, the Wholly Toast.
Well, almost. We won’t be happy until
Sun is ripped from Sky, and Fox
is hounded into a hunter’s barrel.

Er, Amen.

✩

James Murdoch, son and heir to the mighty News Corp media empire currently run by his father Rupert (which includes the Fox Network), has stepped down as top dog of the corporation’s European arm in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal of last Summer that is only intensifying as an official report, which will almost certainly be damning, is imminent, and further trouble in the form of The Sun newspaper revealed as rife with high-level bribery and corruption. The Sun is under threat, as The News of the World was, and likewise Murdoch’s share in British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), which, just before the scandal broke out, they were making an aggressive play for majority share in. As Murdoch Junior retreats to New York a token third-in-command, News Corp sways on unsteady foundations. How they manage to keep The Times and The Sunday Times upstanding, quality papers is beyond me.

Bad News (Pt I) relates to the News of the World closure, which was the best news I’d heard in a long time. This could be even better.

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We cannot live an afterlife in lieu;
the next is predicated on the last,
dependent on the lessons: many, few.

Not satisfied rewriting teachings, you
absolve him of his race, Semitic cast.
Yes, Yeshua ben Yosef was a Jew.

Depict him as Caucasian, and to woo
those acts he railed against (wage war? Aghast).
Step out of stone, of darker ageing hue.

No ‘Jew’ as the Messiah, yet you view
their lineage as sacred scriptured past.
Yes, Yeshua ben Josef was a Jew.

His sexuality’s been taken, too,
and Maryam declassed, a whore (out)cast.*
Such carnal inadmission tends to skew.

Staunch Theocratic hegemony’s due
its Karmic fate: no Heaven’s Gate, at last.
We cannot live an afterlife in lieu -

it rests upon the lessons: many, few.

 
 
✩

*Pope Gregory the Great‘s homily on Luke’s gospel dated 14 September 591 first suggested that Mary Magdalene (Maryam/Miriam) was a prostitute: “She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark. And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices? … It is clear, brothers, that the woman previously used the unguent to perfume her flesh in forbidden acts.”(homily XXXIII).

(Source: Wikipedia). Sources generally: several over many years (none including Dan Brown), and just the tip of a rather large iceberg. It was pretty difficult packing even this much into nineteen lines. I feel a free verse rewrite coming on.

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Eleven strings to arch my bow,
eleven rings in resting row;
totemic as a calving cow.
Polemic: I can’t use them now.

A cat-o’-nine-tails, had nine wives;
tense nine inch nails, I got nine lives.

On seven seasons’ greedy suns,
unheeded sev’ral warning guns.
Spent seven years in great Tibet -
and seven years in bale regret.

Five dances, spinning, and five chances
in circles spin, Five Rhythms dances.

Three phrases, through three stoic mazes,
prove places full freeways from stasis -
this room, this room, this fucking room;
hushed prayers to weave light into loom.

One person, one. No other people.
One wall, and brick; no chink, no peephole.

Spin spin the Earth, maintain its turning;
rotate this man, stretched flesh is burning.

☆

This piece I scrawled almost illegibly on a scrap of paper in a near-dark room in May 2004, when completely bedbound. I lay motionless in the dark for so long, my body went onto a 25-hour clock (a bizarre yet factual occurrence when one has no light), and went round it twice (waking up at 3am/at 5pm as my morning, and everything in between) I also became so thin with muscle wastage I literally looked like I was dying of anorexia. It wasn’t until 2008 that I typed it up, and since have tried about three times to rewrite it to a standard at least shareable with my poetry friends. I failed twice, and thought it was a good bit of personal catharsis charting some deep, dark space that would serve only as poetic journal entry. Finally, after forgetting about it for months, I saw it there in my archives and tried the meter trick: going through the entire piece making it metrically exact, which forces rewriting in many places and thinking very carefully about word-use. Here I have used iambic tetrameter (second half with an added unstressed syllable on the end). Whether it’s done the job is hard to judge for me, but the initial reactions have been positive.

(Image: The Seven Suns megalith, Ireland)

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Ha! The News of the World
gossip of soulsold hacks
paparazzi moralacks
xenoflags finally furled

BSky bid force-failed
spivspin media mogul
facing humble pie

The Does were had by the Fox
but hunting is back in season
gun down the repulsive reason
for agit-prop missile-locks

☆

Odious Right-Wing media magnate Rupert Murdoch‘s global News Corporation enterprise, which includes Fox News, the disgustingly self-righteous and xenophobic British Sun tabloid and until very recently the equally heinous News of the World, has finally found itself in a quagmire that means more than just the loss of the bid to fully acquire British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), and a closure of the News of the World. The British Government was ready to bend to the man and allow him even more media influence in the BSkyB bid, as suddenly out came the mobile phone-hacking scandal – abducted children, 9/11 victims, 7/7 victims mobile voicemail messages had all been hacked for the sake of news headlines. The corruption inherent in News Corp is embedded deep and thick, as senior police officials and others have been forced to resign having taken bribes from the News of the World. The octogenarian Australian admitted to having the “humblest day” of his life after a member of the public landed a cream pie square in his face during a Parliamentary hearing on the 19th of July 2011.

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Cameron (Conservative), Clegg (Liberal), Brown (ex-Labour/PM)

Burnt marshmallow of
Blue and Yellow
tastes like toasted cancer.

I’ll answer you
Yellow-Blue,
cos you got my vote,
you chancer.

Hear “fuck you”, Yellow-Blue

Clegg’s Brown-nosed Cameron.
You lied before like the others did,
now showing your true colours, hid

did you know
Yellow-Blue
makes false-economy Green?

We know you now,
Yellow-Blue,
we know where you been.

☆

UK Political Colour-Codes – Blue = Conservative; Yellow = Liberal. Brown is the colour of excrement, and also the surname of the UK’s ex-Prime Minister and Labour Party Leader (they’re supposed to be Red, i.e. Socialist, but in fact showed themselves to be further Right than the Conservatives, particularly in aligning themselves with George W Bush’s Centre-Right Administration and going to war in Iraq under false pretences). Green is Green and should be at the top of the agenda with the Economy, but seems to continually get overlooked. I’m sorry, is ‘Green’ and ‘Economy’ (or perhaps ‘Corporate Profiteering’) an oxymoron extreme? It appears so.

The UK Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition of May 2010 has thus far looked to be a farce, with Conservative Leader and Prime-Minister David Cameron (left) pushing around his Deputy Prime-Minister Coalition partner Nick Clegg (centre) of the Liberal Democrats. The recent bullying and propaganda to secure a ‘NO’ from the public in the Alternative Voting system reform Referendum and the Lib Dems suffering a drubbing at Council-level elections one year on from the General Election of 2010, is a sure sign that Clegg is under the Tory thumb, and that Liberal voters are disillusioned. Clegg pledges to change the status quo and stick to some of the 2010 Election/Coalition promises. We watch and wait.

This was written following the UK General Election and Coalition Agreement in May 2010 and now all of a sudden, one year on, seems very much relevant again.

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Ding Dong (Merrily)

We wring our hands
while they ring their tills
and the kids ring their friends
to compare presents.

I’ve got swollen glands
and a string of red bills
haunted by the Ghost
of Christmas Presents.

Week Fifty-Two

Not feeling all that festive, guys
in fact, I’m pretty blue
hear my plea for sanity:
abolish Week Fifty-Two

A giant lit-up plastic Santa
atop their roof askew
disgusting ostentation, people
bad taste, pudding-breath, you

I have a friend who calls it ‘Glutmas’
think that’s funny, don’t you?
Kids want bigger, better, more
despite the debt accrued

The Season of Weakwill, oh boy
stinks like last week’s stew
bin the hearth, forget the table
abolish Week Fifty-Two

“…The Disneyfication of Christianity”
said Cupitt; Clergyman, too
a Gentleman and a Scholar, Sir
yet shares the opinion of few

“Do they know it’s Christmas time?”
– Band-Aid, on Geldof’s cue
Hope not. What if ‘They’ ain’t Christian?
(Though applaud your work, I do)

“This mindless Festive glut”, she wrote:
a poem damn driven to do
mindful moderation, please, or
abolish Week Fifty-Two

Not a fan of that nasty Grinch
with skin a ghastly hue;
wanna to call me Ebenezer?
You’ve missed my point of view:

‘Tis the Season to be warm and cosy
through darkest days, it’s true.
So see some friends, drink some wine;
forget the whole kit n’ kaboo’

Hear my plea for sanity:
abolish Week Fifty-Two.

Geldof released a second version of Do They Know it’s Christmas? in 2004, twenty years after the original, again with a bunch of stars from the music industry (only one or two from the original line-up). The Darfur crisis was the main focus of this charitable act. Geldof, you deserve the Knighthood. But what the hell is that cover picture supposed to tell us? The line “Do they know it’s Christmas time” bothers me a little, as if they would only be happy as Christmas-celebrating, er, Christians, stuffing themselves with turkey. What if they’re Muslim? Or from a Polytheistic African religion/cult? I can’t find out who did the artwork for the cover of the CD, but it’s offensive in many ways – an African child, cadaverous with starvation, standing in snow, and looking on (and excluded from) a scene of typical Northern European/American Christmas (how cute that the big-eyed reindeer are looking kindly in the child’s direction though… aww). A cosy house with opulent inhabitants gorging themselves, no doubt, on rich food and drink and singing Christian Carols. Why depict a child out of natural habitat (and in one where he/she would most certainly die very quickly of hypothermia, being naked), out of cultural context, and quite possibly religious/spiritual context also? It doesn’t bring home the point, it misses by a mile, and is just plain offensive. On top of that, it’s the old make-me-feel-guilty-because-I-happen-to-be-born-a-Westerner charity trip. F**k off. I’d like to kick the cover artist in the face. So would the kid, probably, if he/she had the strength (and hasn’t died of hypothermia or choking on their own vomit by now).

Merry Christmas, everyone! Splendid. Me, I’ll honour the Solstice.

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two words
(etheree)

the
tenth of
december
is human rights
day. one more token
gesture, lick and stick a
label on one day in three
hundred and sixty-five, to give
the west: civilised, free, sweet moment
to dampen a cloying conscience. two words:

Guantanamo Bay.

two words (free verse)

the tenth of december is human rights day.
another token gesture, lick and stick a label
on one day in three hundred and sixty-five

to give the west – civilised, free – sweet moment
to stifle a cloying conscience. two words:

Guantanamo Bay.

Two Words (Shadorma)

Friday tenth
December: Human
Rights Day. Yet
another
gesture of label-licking
and label-sticking

to let the
civilised West, forced
ethical
compass of
the Free World, to stifle a
strained conscience. Two words:

Guantanamo Bay.

Nearly eight hundred Arab Muslims were incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba after President Bush declared his “War on Terror” in the wake of the horrific events that made the date 9/11 one never to be forgotten. Many of these men were tortured at prisons in Pakistan and Afghanistan (among other places), before being brought to Guantanamo Bay in January 2002. Nearly nine years have passed, and there are still well over 100 men imprisoned there. Almost none have been charged with any criminal offence, and likewise been given the right to demonstrate that their imprisonment is illegal under United States and International laws. They simply exist, without charge or trial, not knowing when, or if, they will ever know freedom, suffering serious Human Rights abuses. The hundreds that are now gone, charged, or emancipated (and one or two having committed suicide in hopelessness), endured several years of the same treatment. Obama, isn’t it time to end this despicable affront to Human Rights and almost a total contravention of the Geneva Convention, as you promised you would (not to mention US and International Law)? If they are terrorists, try and charge them legally. Those (several) that aren’t, are living proof of complete disgrace to our claim to being the ‘Free Word’ and a civilised culture. I wrote this on UN Human Rights Day (December 10th). You could be forgiven for not having noticed that such a day even exists. As of February 2011, 172 detainees remain at Guantanamo.

On the forms here: I wrote this as an Etheree first – created about twenty years ago by an Arkansas poet named Etheree Taylor Armstrong, consisting of ten lines of unmetered and unrhymed verse, the first line having one syllable, each succeeding line adding a syllable, with the total syllable count being fifty-five. A concise form, meant to focus on one idea or subject (information sourced here). I tried it in Shadorma stanzas too - old Spanish form also strict in syllable-count. Five lines as follows: 3-5-3-3-7-5 for a total of twenty-six syllables.

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Tony Blair addressing Britain

Ex-’president’ Bush and Mister
Blair thought they’d play God,
create Hell somewhere.

Take those black, widowing hands
and say your earnest prayers,
because, sure as Hell:

you’re going there.

.

☆

This was written in 2009, when Tony Blair’s New ‘Labour’ Government was still pacing the Corridors of Power in Westminster, though he had wilfully, as planned, given up the Premiership to Gordon Brown by then. Quoting something about ‘health’, and admitting popularity was a problem (for him, and for his Party), he resigned an ashen-faced shadow of the young and vibrant man who came to Government with a landslide in the 1997 UK General Election. The ‘War on Terror’ continues, George W Bush and Blair never held to account for quoting ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (and links to Al-Qaeda) as reasons for  invading Iraq in 2003. None were found.

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The One with the Curls

What became of my summertime girls?
On that field grazes a cow.
What became of the one with the curls?

Malaise like a flag unfurls;
on that field lazes a plough.
What became of my summertime girls?

Through Winter, desolation uncurls.
Those people and places are gone, now -
what became of the one with the curls?

What became of her coy string of pearls?
I need dreams to help me along, now;
what became of my summertime girls?

I’m far from these fanciful whirls.
The maze up ahead asks me: how?
What became of the one with the curls?

The Ladies have all met their Earls -
ach! Wo ist meine Frau?
What became of my summertime girls?
What became of the one with the curls?

The First Day of Spring

Embittered Winter cast Himself away
upon a gale, and swept elsewhere on it.
The Sun shone brightly, Summer’s bold entrée.

I hungered madding Springtime to betray
Her colder cousin, knowing time befit;
embittered Winter cast Himself away.

See dancing trees in wonderful ballet;
the singing breezes happy to admit
the Sun shone brightly, Summer’s bold entrée.

Birds felt the change before the break of day
and joined the breeze in strains, pale-morning lit.
Embittered Winter cast Himself away.

And you and I, socks off, we tread the way
across the grasses, under trees we sit.
The Sun shone brightly, Summer’s bold entrée.

Old man, invigorated, bright, though grey,
he mumbled praises like some Jesuit.
Embittered Winter cast Himself away;
the Sun shone brightly, Summer’s bold entrée.

☆

The villanelle, along with the Italian sonnet, is my favourite of the old forms. I was drawn to the villanelle at University after discovering Dylan Thomas’s immaculately-wrought, deeply moving masterpiece Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, which became my favourite poem of all time (and is still right up there). The two above are old ones I have dragged out and edited. New ones shall be written! Amen.

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