Marxist. Trade Unionist. Socialist-feminist. Author. Poet. Speaker. Tutor. RMT ex-Exec. Workers' Liberty. Autie. Bi. PUFC fan.
Having written and performed as The Big J in the 1980s, Janine started again in 2014, after a brief interlude of around a quarter of a century.
Froms sonnets to villanelles, limericks to ballads, the occasional rap and plenty of straightforward rants, serious and humorous and sometimes both, here is Janine's verse.
Janine's poems have been published in numerous poetry and other journals and websites, including Algebra of Owls, South Bank Poetry, the Daily Mirror, PUSH, Hour of Writes, Proletarian Poetry, Confluence Medway, Screaming Violets, Poetry24, Solidarity, Stand Up and Spit, Hastings Independent, Freedom, Women’s Fightback, the Morning Star, Rising and TenFootCity; and in anthologies Spies4Life, Poems for Jeremy Corbyn, Justice: Poems for Grenfell Tower.and Ashes to Activists
Who knew
that new need not actually mean new?
It might mean refurbished or extended,
repurposed or pretended?
Who knew?
Who'd have thought it,
that forty need not actually mean forty?
That's rather naughty
It ought to, surely?
I'd have thought
counterchec, rubbernec
strikebrea, pissta,
heartbrea, troublema
multitas, unmas
bluestoc, foreloc
motherfuc, bloodsuc
wisecrac, backtrac
benchmar, disembar
pawnbro, keystro
stockbro, anti-smo,
undercoo, overloo
hyperlin, freethin
hallmar, reembar
hitchhi, motorbi
bootlic, politic
rollic, nitpic
lovema, muckra
I pledge allegiance to my sons
to witty jokes and dreadful puns
I pledge allegiance to Aussie soaps
to chasing all my dreams and hopes
I pledge my allegiance to the Borough boys
to Lewes FC, to making noise
I pledge allegiance to classic scooters
I pledge to battle persecutors
to fight injustice till it's gone
I pledge to keep on keeping on
I'd rather do a highland fling
Or tie my nipples up with string
Impale my buttock on a spring
I'd rather do most anything
Than pledge allegiance to a king
I'd risk the wrath of Merciless Ming
Or face what fierce tornados bring
I'd rather drape myself in bling
Or swallow insects on the wing
Than pledge allegiance to a king
Football fans
from Northern towns
hit the capital city
Sharp-dressed, pretty
sure to take the opportunity
to take in a record shop
and rifle through vinyl
score a winner
reach the final
Make their way to Covent Garden
Soul City stocks lots
of what they're after
Not the latest but the dateless
Richard Sharp
Likes to whinge and to carp
That report was bad luck
Now off he can fuck
Opposing imaginary ribaldry
Detestable protests at a library
Serious, stern of jaw and dour
Objecting to Drag Queen Story Hour
Reckoning kids are groomed and primed -
But why don't they protest at pantomimes?
You can't say that on the 333
Believe you me
The inspector will check
and kick you off the upper deck
I heard some dude once said it and he
had his card well marked for all to see
He had to flee
So you can't say that on the 333
You'd get away with it on the 159
That'd be fine
That's a much more tolerant line
Tonight I went to Heaven
after months of pain
My friends held my hands,
the man at the not-exactly-pearly gate checked my bag
and the siren on the stage brought her dead pals
to Heaven with her
Tonight I went back to Heaven
I’d been on Earth, not in Hell,
maybe in Purgatory
I booked my ticket by
doing good, going without
and working hard