And God created Jobs

(The Lord giveth,
the Lord taketh away).

Windows broken, adamant Steve
threw the Apple.

And He saw that it was good.
Really fucking good.

(RIP S.J. Feb 24, 1955 – Oct 5, 2011)

Soya suckers
tofu tuckers
take yer curds
out my whey

yogurt truckers
fasmati buckers
organic turds
soil my clay

Goa-packers
free-love jackers
floorfeet lackers
scratch my board

compost sackers
tantric frackers
Osho yakkers
yank my cord

need a damn re-tox retreat
crack the keg n’ pass the meat

Namaste.

✩

(I jest, of course. I love you all. Well, most of you :)

Dad was a racist cunt.

Not
that I minded the leather-faced bugger,
‘cept when the bigotry became a bludgeon.

From
a different age; his outrage at being thrust
into the midst of multicultural mélange

was audible two doors down.

Dad was a racist cunt.

but
he frowned on the National Front. “Neo-Nasties”,
“Hitler-Spawn” – we fought like buggery till dawn,

till
drawn and shit-knackered, shattered – and we still
can’t squeeze out the despicable spectre.

No,
Dad was for Red Constitution. Working-Man’s-Rights
kind (Brit Whites, mind); Trad Labour scrimp-n’-saver.

Toffs
as bad as the fookin’ Blacks and Pakis. Got yer back,
mate, if you save me a place n’ a pint n’ not a damn

word ’bout Third-World affairs.

Dad, the racist cunt, swims in my ink;

writing,
I hear the Professor’s mantra – Show, don’t tell – soft,
steady, in the ears of this arid mind, wooing monsoon.

Dad
thought he’d taught his son nowt about the merits of
bigotry; resting in rotting plywood a few feet beneath

stunted State turf, he’d shown him The World.

Hic sum; es ibi.

Si in medio occurremus,
demergam, quia

alas non habeo tui.

basic translation:

I am here; you are there.

If we meet in between,
I drown, because

I do not have your wings.

elaboration:

I am here; you are there.

If we touch in between,
I follow the fate of a
thousand seafaring wraiths:

I do not have your wings.

✩

Wanting to try two things out here – simplicity, and Latin. Which, it turns out, are not mutually exclusive.

Just for interest, the Latin for the more elaborate version looks something like this:

 
 
Hic sum; es ibi

si in medio tangèmus
fatum patiam idolorum
miliorum nautarum, quia

alas non habeo tui.
  
 
Much thanks to poet friend Francesco Vitellini for his help with the Latin.

geocentric chart

✩

Ptolemy was the foremost proponent of the hypothesis of a Geocentric Universe, where everything revolves around the Earth. (Irrelevantly to this poem, this was shattered by Copernicus/Galileo, much to the Catholic Church’s extreme disapproval).

.

✩

(Illustration: Etching from Marcus Gheeraerts’ 1567 fable Pride Comes Before a Fall)

To all Readers: Google Friend Connect widgets (where you can follow a blog if you have a Google Blogger account) are no longer available for non-Blogger sites (such as this). Instead, Google are using their new Google+ Pages feature, which links directly here and vice-versa (link is at top of side-bar, or click here). Clicking ‘follow’ on my G+ Page will allow you to be notified of new posts if you are a Google account holder (incl. Blogger, I believe). Thanks all, greatly value your continued support.

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.

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.