Bonnie Prince Harry

 
They've recreated the facial features of Bonnie Prince Charlie and doesn't he look a dead ringer for Bonnie Prince Harry if you close your eyes and discount the beard. That same, distant expression. Instead of representing the House of Stuart, Harry is representing the House of Spare.

Now as an Anti-Monarchist (with a picture of Queen Elizabeth II at home on the wall because she sent it in a birthday card to my father on his 100th Birthday), you might think it strange that I am writing about Prince Harry, the true heir apparent to the English throne. Prince Harry is in exile as was Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart. Both are young pretenders to the English throne. Bonnie Prince Charlie should have become Charles III and not Prince Harry's father.

As disinterested as you probably are, the question I have for you is this.

Should Prince Harry and his wife Megan arrive by boat on the West Coast of Scotland would you show your colours for the 'not so young' Chevalier or would you be standing in the ranks of Prince William of Wales' army under Major General Jeremy Clarkson?

We know that at every General Election we are required to vote for the lesser of the two evils, Conservative or Labour. We know that as subjects of the 'British Realm' we have to put up and shut up with their royal pish at our collective expense. Well I am asking you, whether you are Monarchist or Republican, if the choice was between Prince William and Prince Harry, which one would you choose for your King?

The likelihood is that Harry would be a much more 'down with the people' kind of monarch whereas we know that William has procreated like a Prince on a promise and that promise being to carry on with the status quo of unelected monarchy for generations to come.   

As Republican as I am I just do not see the Windsors (nee Saxe-Coburg unt Gothas) handing over the keys to their many palaces without a fight. Would you lay down your life for a British Republic? Thought not. Ok! Are you as prepared to kick up as much of a stink about our unelected Monarchy as you are about the 20mph zones and ULEZ? No? thought not. You mean you would rather kick a Just Stop Oil protestor in the bollocks than you would stopping 'The Firm' creaming off more funds into the Royal coffers? Yes, I thought this is who I was dealing with.

In that case there's no hope for any of us. Not even for those in late at night transatlantic telephone calls urging 'The House of Spare' to return to claim a right to a commoner's throne, through an interracial marriage, to honour his dear old mum, Our Diana. No we will just have to give up without a fight and accept our fate and buy a copy of the Big Issue from the new seller on the block.

 

You can call me the Red under your bed!

 

You can call me the Red under your Bed

A frisson of hope coursed through my veins today

when I heard that Russia had entered our airspace.

I had a premonition in Amsterdam about the Soviet Union and Iran

I sensed that they would be the new world order

and that we would be toast

We being the West who love to drop bombs on innocents

and wage war by proxy

the proper coward’s way.

The Ruling Elite in Britain

could do with a Bolshevik Revolution

to give them a ‘braw’

which is shock in Welsh

but we await with a sense of awe.

Shock and Awe.

Will Putin march his men down to the Cenotaph?

Will he occupy Buckingham Palace and put an oligarch in charge?

Will he liberate all the migrants from that shitty old barge?

Will he send Suella to Rwanda and send Rishi off in a small boat?

Or will he continue to bomb Ukraine the silly old goat?

He needs to invade Britain and give us a kick up the arse

We’ve become bitter and hostile since Brexit

We need a Communist light exit

You can call me the Red under your bed.

Pest Poet Patrol

 

I'm in the library reading the poems of others

and what strikes me is how lonely they appear!

Children need to scream in the summer holidays in

supermarkets and in bookshops and on the buses.

And like them I believe that poems should shout 

and not lie limply upon a page like a cut flower past its sell by date.

I'm working out how best to deal with rats.

They are in my loft 🐀

I hear them scurrying up and down the wall outside.

We live in parallel universes, the rats and the poet

and even though I do not earn from this most bizarre of pasttimes

I still eat.

I don't want to poison them because I can hear their babies squeal

They are probably thinking "that human's a nuisance.

trying to write poetry that is beneath us (literally)

We should get on to pest control"

Pest Poet Control

    Pest Poet Patrol