Boris Johnson

and so to bed

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

We don’t abide by your pettifogging rules / in any of the ancient, most honourable schools / we’re too busy flogging in the vestibules / acquiring the emotional and spiritual tools / to perpetuate the Divine Right of Fools

I’m sorry, old chap, I don’t mean to lecture / but in the exalted realm of the executive director / we follow a much more dynamic vector / wealth creation, privilege protector / morality’s just philosophical conjecture / wholly confined to the public sector

So forgive me if I seem obtuse / but you’re really such a silly goose / surely you see there’s just no use / in asking us to introduce / measures to rein-in our abuse?

It’s the natural order, ad infinitum / I know all the terms and can easily recite ‘em / or fetch me some parchment and I’ll happily write ‘em / at a ceremony in the city to awe and excite ‘em / if you have rich friends be sure to invite ‘em

So pray to your maker and drop to your knees / stick pins in your cute little effigies / you working class nonentities / please! / if you’re hungry I’m sure there are charities / to keep you in cake and crudites

Honestly! / All this moaning about disparity / is a cause for lordly hilarity / certainly not humanity / just settle down please and enjoy your austerity / do you think it’s easy living in prosperity?

And so forth, and so on

Remember what nanny used to sing?

early to bed
early to rise
makes a slave
behave

or what was that other one…

night night
sleep curled
don’t let the bed bugs
rule the world

big dog

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

there was major alarm
down on the farm
someone ratted the animals out
the pigs all squealed
while the chickens appealed
fussing and flapping their wings about

the sheep muttered privately
the donkeys stood quietly
a crow looked down from the roof
the ducks on the pond
peeped out from the fronds
while the old horse stamped its hoof

save big dog!
cried an elderly hog
he doesn’t deserve this fate!
it wasn’t his plan
when you all overran
and kicked a hole in the gate

big dog was silent
watchful, defiant
he’d find out who sounded the warning
for now he’d sit tight
sleep through the night
tear out their throats in the morning

status update XV

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’m Peppa Pig on the telly again / the one where Daddy Pig’s voted PM / in an episode entitled PORCE DIEM / where the power goes straight to his flat pink head / but he gets depressed and stays in bed / sick of all the media bleating / about who missed another COBRA meeting / or who exactly paid for what / and who took a free break somewhere hot / or who had a party or who did not / and how it all goes from bad to Patel / via Barnard Castle and Hancock as well / and lucrative contracts for the PPEs / straight to the pockets of the VIPs / that’s Valuable Insider Pals if you please / and how Pappa Pig was brought to his knees / valiantly fighting this deadly disease / and how he was NIBBLING not SWALLOWING the cheese / when the Dick-led Metropolitan phenomenon / were zip tying women on Clapham Common / and other areas of lockdown London / and his hilarious Peppa Cabinet were battening / on the catered buffet for the non-party gathering / while the rest of the general population / were serving the interests of the mother nation / surrendering basic circulation / even if they missed the lonely expiration / of Auntie Flo in her nursing accommodation / then queued for the rudimentary cremation / and hurried home for the official celebration / a gloomy Zoom with the other relations / (Peppa Pig is a porky old lark / but sometimes I’ll admit it gets quite dark)

I’m a rampaging robot / called THE BREXIT BOJO BOT / which Team Tory marketed as a Terminating Polyglot / and threw together in their Right Wing Workshop / but tragically forgot / to fit a big red button marked STOP / and now the B3’s totally lost the plot / speaking & sparking and running too hot / using up what little data it’s got / to screw things up a terrible lot / and tying the country in one big knot / BEEP BEEP Irish Sea Bridge BEEP BEEP Royal Yacht… / BEEP BEEP we may party but you may NOT / meanwhile tossing dodgy coins down its slot / babbling and bubbling and burbling a lot / until Sunak says Deadly Force Authorized, TAKE THE DAMNED SHOT

the johnsonator

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

listen & understand! the johnsonator is out there
with its hyperalloy rumpled suit and crazy clown’s hair

I need your clothes, your boots and your funny money
as a standards advisor stubs out his fag on its tummy

part Old Etonian, part after dinner speaker
fully armed fantasist and serial cheater

and it absolutely will not stop
till you let all talk of investigation drop

and it can’t be reasoned or bargained with
although you might possibly be pardoned with

a donation or two to the party coffers
because it’s always open to sensible offers

Boris Johnson World

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Hands up who’s been to Boris Johnson World?
Everyone?
Jolly well done!
So you’ve seen how wonderfully obscene it is!
How bullshittingly, boosterishly green it is!
How my stop motion cabinet
is a hilarious cartoon magnet
for trough loads of moolah
My friends – we could stand up here and dance the hula hula
and still, it appears, you’d sooner
vote for us
and the great big lies on our great big bus
than vote for a party
that’s boringly honest and honestly quite farty
So – my friends
I heartily recommend
Boris Johnson World!
Where our trotters are spotless and our tails are curled!
Where public projects are constantly oversold!
Where the Union Jack
Is available out back
to the highest bidder with the tallest stack
and that
my friends
my…erm

Lost it

Uhhh

Forgive me
Forgive me
Forgive me

Johnson, Treason & Plot

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Remember, Remember
The Third of November
Johnson, Treason and Plot
I know of no reason
why the Johnson Treason
should ever be forgot
BJ and his companions
Did the scheme contrive
To overthrow MPs and Parliament
for cronyism to thrive
A three line whip from above
To approve the committee’s overthrow
But, by providence, him they catch
With a dark purpose and a yellow thatch
A stick and a shake
For Paterson’s sake!
If you won’t give me 100,000
I’ll take two
the better for me
and the worse for you
A vote! A vote! Justice to choke
A penn’orth of shame but coronas to smoke
A pint of Brexit to wash it down
And a seat in the Lords to reward ‘em
Holloa, boys! Holloa boys! Make the bells ring!
Holloa, boys! To Marbella, boys! And nobody pays a thing!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!

(with apologies to the old folk rhyme)

Ubu Roi revisité

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Pere Johnson
marches on
shouts ‘Brexit!’
waves a toilet brush about a bit

he’s some kinda monster
with a shitty sceptre
but no one cares
as he pouts and stares

and sleaze?
oh pleaze!
with his wife Lady MacCarrie
whom he didst royally marry

he cuts a jolly caper
through the ballot papers
rewarding old chums
with a kiss of his bum

and the scandalised committees
he tosses in the privies
wiping his arse
with the photographs

of the opposition
whose weakened condition
means they have no answer
for this particular dirty dancer

but wait! there seems to be growing disquiet
the audience is angry and starts to riot
Pere Johnson’s stock unexpectedly plummets
so he calls an election but this time with puppets

…with apologies to Alfred Jarry

The Legend of Boristannia

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Once upon a time
in a land far, far away
from you
the EU
or any notion of accountability
lay a fabled land of limited respectability
led by the warrior Boristannia
dressed in a suit he’d pulled from his pannier
with a nest of golden hair that didst
his mortal minions keep transfixed
because he knew well how to artfully shock it
to make it seem shaggier the more you clock it
and have you reach for the comb in your pocket
because he’s obviously too brilliant to worry about looks
like an Einstein, maybe, or a Michael Foot

just a guess

but I digress

And verily
most merrily
and hail-fellow-well-met pseudo-militarily
in his right hand he didst clasp a trident submarine
that handily doubled as a pegging machine
and a shield cast from the purest pig Latin
that in
times of embattled TV debate
when the questions weren’t falling all that great
and his collar didst feel a weeny bit hot
he couldst wave the shield about his person a lot
until the questioner quite forgot
what it was she’d come to ask
and the moment wouldst pass
and the whole thing feel like a Whitehall farce

and lo! Boristannia’s statue on the plinth
that I’m sad to say these many years sinth
hath been pushed in the harbour
didst formally boast in addition to said armour
one monstrous & mighty
and really extremely quite bitey
LION!
symbolisin’
I’m surmising
the huge amount of lion
he didst did

Anyway – that’s Boristannia, god forbid
My rent’s due Thursday. Lend us a quid.