Poetry

In response to the news that the Pope wants to change the words of the Lord's Prayer ...

My body is a timeline
with every thick and fine line
marking a milestone
time-grown
Each tract and fracture
captured
and preserved
a chapter
in each roll and curve

She’s safely shut in and yet Hettie gets out
And she goes to the places she cares most about

Hettie gets out under cover of dark
And she pushes the kids on the swings in the park

Hettie meets Beryl who moved out last June
And they chat about old times and tap out a tune
And then Hettie tells Bel she’ll be joining her soon

Video of Janine performing at NeurodiVERSE, an evening of autistic poetry in Leeds on 22 November 2017.

It includes the poems:

• Being Normal
• Manifesto from Behind the Mask
• No Autistics Here
• Haiku
• Mostly Hating Tories
• BoJo Logic
• Night Tube
• Disaffected Middle-aged Women

The Pfizer guys are haggling with the NICE
And while they talk, the cancer spreads again
You’ll get your pills when they’ve agreed a price

You’ll get your answer when they’ve rolled their dice
And dealt your hand out in their counting den
The Pfizer guys are haggling with the NICE

A tribute to the US pilot who flew and drew a contrail cock and balls in the Washington sky ...

If you've an aerosol can
and a stairwell wall
You've a ready-made canvas
for a spray-on cock and balls

If you're sitting at your desk
and the lesson's getting boring
Then you whip out your ballpoint
and you do a bit of drawing

Pick up the leaflet
pick up a pen
Rate on a scale of nil to ten
how broken is your heart
how much your life is rent apart
Rate your mental state
Is it three or six or eight?

Rate on a scale of nil to ten
Where nil is
I don't give a toss about them'
And ten is
'I'll never feel intact again'

God save one's gracious tax
Long live one's noble sacks
God save one's tax
Send it on holiday
Make sure the proles all pay
I own the islands anyway
God save one's tax

One has to be much shrewder
Deposit some in Bermuda
And some offshore
Take all the dosh one's got
Fill up one's golden pot
And stash it on the Royal Yacht
Then get some more

C-charge
T-charge
Why is it OK

to congest
and pollute
London

So long as you pay?

This poem was published on the Poetry24 website on 29 October 2017.

Step up to the hilltop
take in the view

Look! There in the distance!
the places you played
as a child, where your journey’s
foundations were laid

And there is the path
which led you from home
Growing as you went
coming out on your own

And there in the foothills
where I joined you to walk
The soft, easy road
then the rocks, then the fork