London

They’re Renovating Buckingham Palace

They’re renovating Buckingham Palace —
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
Went past cash-strapped hospitals and schools,
“The Sevres Porcelain sounds really cool,”
Says Alice.

They’re renovating Buckingham Palace —
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
The queues they found were as long as food banks,
“They have Vermeers and Van Dycks and Rembrandts,”
Says Alice.

They’re renovating Buckingham Palace —
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
Outside, the homeless were all moved along.
“The Grand Staircase, I’ve heard, is cast from bronze,”
Says Alice.

They’re renovating Buckingham Palace —
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
“You know so much ’bout the palace and grounds.”
“I got a book before the library closed down,”
Says Alice.

Tube Strike

The day the tubes went on strike
there was mess everywhere,
in cupboards and cabinets and forgotten-about drawers,
on shelves, in boxes, and across bathroom floors.

Toothpaste hastened across wash basins
whilst ointments oozed without appointments
into places they shouldn’t have been,
mixing with overzealous gels, unguents and lubes,
and creams to assist in the removal of pubes,
as all lotions became one for lack of their tubes.

Kitchen floors became beaches strewn with shingle,
crunching underfoot sour cream and chive Pringles,
mixed in with a smattering of scattered smarties,
like the confectionary confetti of children’s parties.

EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL CONTAINERS
was the mantra of the tube campaigners.
Parity with tin cans and bottles, they believed,
would end their fear of being constantly squeezed.

Whether they were successful, no-one quite knew.
The next day, there was a lot of clearing up to do.