poems

levelling up!

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

levelling up!
levelling up!
from Lloyds of London to the Cheltenham Cup
welcome to UK plc
all for one and an extra one for me

where everyone’s a squiffy squillionaire
offshore schemer and property heir
cubs in the mouths of pater and mater
bringing them swinging by their bright blond hair
to the safety of the family lair
in Eton Wick, Buckinghamshire

levelling up!
levelling up!
a stripe of blood and a stirrup cup
for every golden, hyphenated child
running free in the Hunter wellington wild

a place where everyone’s equally called
to Marlborough College or old St Pauls
to debut at the Oxbridge ball
and intern for next to nothing at all
at the family firm on the thirteenth floor
with all your options rigorously explored

levelling up!
levelling up!
with a toast to the boys of the Bullingdon club
the monogrammed button paragons
patrolling the upper echelons

because all it takes for your Alexander or Tamara
is a guiding hand and a swipe of mascara
some Insta pics from the shores of Bora Bora
to maintain their fit and fabulous aura
and somewhere bougie to swing the tiara

levelling up!
levelling up!
personal trainers and body scrubs
Gucci guys and polo queens
in OK! (I’m Calling Security!) magazine

all of which wouldn’t be so bad
if the general population hadn’t been had
by a moneyed elite with a long proboscis
sucking the life from the public pocket
levelling up – such an empty phrase
when the working class is the one that pays
but hey, I’m genuinely sorry to say
your moaning’s just graffiti on the arse-end of posterity
so zip it, old chap – and here’s to Austerity!

A Right Ol’ Blighty Brexit Playlist

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Why be blue when you can be Red, White & Blue?
C’mon me ol’ Muckers! SingalongaBoris to all yer old favourites!

There’ll be fuel queues over
The shite cliffs of Dover

Pack up your business and your flame clad flat
And smile, smile, smile,

It’s a long wait to buy a turkey
It’s a long wait I know
It’s a long wait to buy a turkey
And the Christmases I know!
Goodbye Piccalilli
Farewell Leicester Cheese!
It’s a long long wait to buy a turkey
with bare shelves on show

Boiled Beef and Carrots
Boiled beef and carrots
That’s the stuff for your Priti Patel
Good for her mates in the Met as well

We’ll vote again, don’t know where, don’t know wheeeeeeeen

He’s a Boogie Woogie Tory Boy
of Company House

Keep the home debt burning

The Boris I love is up in the gallery,
The Boris I love is smirking now at me,
There he is, can’t you see, waving his pedigree
As merry as an idiot that sings on a tree

Download now!*
*(Electricimity permittin’)

Free cardboard crown with every purchase!*
*(delivery pending)

the truth about that alien

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I finally finished my time machine
it really wasn’t that hard
I found some tetrafluoroethylene
and filled up in the yard

I kicked it into gear with my toe
roared off for the mid-Paleolithic
three hundred thousand years ago
if you wanna be specific

I was there before I knew it
parked the machine in front of a cave
a Neanderthal man came out to view it
He nodded his head; I waved.

Actually he looked a lot like me
short legs, tattoos, teeth
draped in a cloak that was hairy and scary
with nothing underneath

I stayed with the family a number of years
we hunted for buffalos and aurochs
they taught me how to make clubs and spears
I taught them basic hydraulics

We snacked on berries and mushrooms and roots
we got along just fine
they played me tunes on a bear claw flute
I played them Metallica & Rammstein

But Time is as cold as a glacier
they aged while I stayed young & fit
I had my bike to cheat nature
they just had to put up with it

In the end I knew it was over
I’d seen them through all kinds of scrapes
like that mammoth who trashed the enclosure
or that bear who clawed all the drapes

Or the months we were trapped in the cave
by a sabre toothed cat in the valley
but I trained him with scraps to do tricks and behave
and we called him Thomas O’Malley

They held a party when it was time to go
it was really quite a night
we danced around in the falling snow
and the flickering campfire light

They painted my picture with ochre
it was rough but complimentary
I brushed the snow from my motor
and roared back to the twenty first century

And now I’m reading a magazine
a dig that was strangely dramatic
Did Aliens Visit the Pleistocene?
(copyright National Geographic)

my new laugh

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

I’m working on a mirthless laugh
for reading things in the Telegraph
or listening to Boris on radio stations
making speeches at the United Nations
something hammer horror-a-ree
the only proper response to his oratory

I’m practicing a bitter kinda chuckle
for hearing how the country buckles
beneath the weight of this crappy Brexit
a flat kinda snicker that somehow reflects it
(I think the weight of all this sovereignty
is really starting to do bad things to me)

I’m busy rehearsing a scary guffaw
for pieces about how they’re helping the poor
I’ll crease like Gary Oldman as Dracula
with a blood-crazed grin and some gothic vernacular
(or maybe I’ll go for the next best thing
a Tony Hopkins chortle as Professor Van Helsing)

status update XII

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’m Bear Grylls / running for the hills / with a bottle of vodka and a parka pocket full of pills

I’m the King of the castle struggling to explain / the dragon on the ventilator, the knight in flames

I’m James Bond / undercover in the pond / ducks on tux, holster full of fronds / eye to eye with a cute Russian newt / who draws a water pistol but cannot shoot

I’m Johnson Senior / Brexit dreamer / up to his chins in kleftiko and retsina / toasting home with a florid demeanour / passport, conscience & keys in the beemer

I’m a young hamster with his whole wheel ahead of him

I’m the deadbeat poet who fantasises / as the Tory party metastasizes

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s / I think you’ll find that’s the usual procedure

I’m Donald J Trump in an all night diner / speed-eating burgers in a riser-recliner / nothing could be finer / than to be in Carolina / with some hydroxychloroquine inside ya

I’m the microscopic big reveal / I’m a tardigrade on a catherine wheel

I’m a jellyfish raised in a jelly mould / whose comedy bulges are a joy to behold / but the Netflix series gets put on hold / when the hidden stingers are finally unrolled

I’m Batman sprawled on the batmobile / batpants buffed, batjackboot on the wheel / sexy batpout, naughty batwink / I’m Batman, baby – what’d’ya think?

I’m Timothée Chalamet’s terrifying scene / in a remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea / when a giant squid faps with the submarine

I’m ET / increasingly uneasy / neck-stretchingly queasy / watching playback on the VT / gosh Stevie – is that really me? / I knew you wanted alien but … sheesh

I’m true crime scripts / I’m Bloods v Crips / I’m Professor Plum on the Ottoman with the Walnut Whips™

I’m a health & safety officer in a correctional facility / checking the electric chair connectivity / straps & utility / four leg stability / a gold star pass for profitability

I’m a legion of Lionels, a battlegroup of Dougs / I’m wandering the bootcamp desperate for hugs

I’m bored St Peter swinging on the gate / left for work early, came home late

I’m the Met police / off the record, off the leash / feet in boots and boots on beat / on heat / a dozen ziploc ties apiece / tried and trusted techniques / please ignore the random shrieks / we’ll be round for you in a couple of weeks

The Just Useless League

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Let the people cheer and the villains tremble!
It’s time for the Just Useless League to assemble!
Borisman! Pritiwoman! Raaborg! The Sunak!
No sooner on holiday than flying back
to pull on their costumes and go on Sky
to tell us they’re putting the army on standby
and explain the current state of affairs
is anyone else’s fault but theirs
and throw headfirst through the nearest exit
any reporter who mentions Brexit

Brexilla!

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Aargh! Another monster Tory Kaiju!
Hopelessly trashing the joint to spite you
Rampaging round a bad model of the country
Knocking over all and sundry
With their rubbishy rubber tails and claws
Cliche stamping, wretched roars
Swatting away the Remain-voting wankers
Chewing flaming petrol tankers
Taking a nuclear dump on the city
(And back for a sequel, more’s the pity)

a child’s miscellany of old nursery riots

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Ring-a-ring-a-tories
A pocket full of stories
A crisis! A crisis!
We all fall down.

Sing a song of Brexit
A pocket full of lies
Four and twenty tories
What a surprise!
When the pie was opened
The shit began to stink
Wasn’t that a dainty dish
To serve us d’you think?

Baa, baa black car
Have you any fuel?
No, sir, no sir
A quarter full
Some for the drive to work
Some for coming back
And some for the supermarket’s
Empty racks

Incy Wincy Boris, climbing up the spout
Down came a shower of rain and washed poor Boris out
The Sun hit the shops next day and dried up all the rain
So Incy Wincy Boris climbed up the spout again!

Tory Tory quite extraordinary
How does your portfolio grow?
With secret deals to grease the wheels
And riot police all in a row
And riot police all in a row

Hey diddle diddle
Fat cats on the fiddle
Cash cows jumped over tycoons
All the tabloids laughed to see such fun
And the dish ended up in ITU

skinny dip

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I stripped
for a dip
in the sea
at the nearest nudist beach to me

it was such a fine and liberating feeling
peeling off everything
in an open position
with none of the usual transition
difficulties
on a crowded beach with no changing facilities

and how lovely
to stride and then dive into the sea
wearing nothing but beach shoes
to defuse
the pain
of the pebbly terrain

and then coming out
lying face down and drying out
draped naked on the pebbles
in nothing but freckles
my buttocks as free as two white bloomers
washed ashore from one of those schooners

how the novel writing course went

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

at the risk of sounding overstated
my literary output’s constipated
why, I couldn’t tell you
I read a varied menu
of wordy stuff
plenty enough
written roughage
to unblock the blockage
and push out a novel of considerable merit
but all in all I just can’t get it

which is why I joined a novel writing group
in the naive hope
I might escape the rope
of my unending novel writing nope
and find more productive ways to cope
with themes and arcs of such breathtaking scope
I’d be signed on the spot
hotter than the hottest author they’ve got
the latest sensational over-nighter
to take ten years to make it as a writer

the final session was with an agent
kind and warm and patient
explaining all the ins and outs
the yellow book road to the publishing house
the mountain of scripts she has to read
skimming them at speed
two on the go
and one on audio
not to mention all the authors on her roster
everyone suicidal they haven’t won the Costa

and whilst she talked I got the impression
this novel writing thing was a doomed profession
like bailing out a boat with a sieve or something
words, words, words said Hamlet, which was grim
and look how it ended up for him

to make things worse
there was a guy on the course
who was a force
of malevolent nature
some kinda retired major
interpersonal skills of an alligator
who KEPT interrupting
totally disrupting
the literary agent’s flow
and honestly? I don’t know
how she kept her cool
and didn’t just knock him out with a bar stool
and it made me wish upon wish
I was a bigger and better literary fish
the kind she might be looking to hook
if I only I could write a bestselling book

‘And WHAT is this thing called?’
yelled the Major, with a particularly severe look
when she happened to mention The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook
and then he grandly pulled out a gold fountain pen
and asked her to repeat the name again
so he could scratch it down in slow and tiny writing
sighing in a way that was murderously inviting

but then – maybe I’m just like the major
a self-deluding literary failure
who joins yet another writing class
to try push a novel out of my arse