poetry

They’re Renovating Buckingham Palace

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

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.

John Travoltaire

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

“If John Travoltaire did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”

Well, you can tell by the way I break the rules,
I’m a reason man: no time for fools.
Progress checked, our freedom scorned,
We’ve been kicked around since we were born.
But it will be alright, it’s not too late
For separation of Church and State.
We can try to understand
With science to lend a helping hand.

Dictionaries and dancing, poems, plays and prancing,
I’m spreadin’ the light, spreadin’ the light.
Despots are a-quakin’ and institutions shakin’,
And I’m spreadin’ the light, spreadin’ the light.
Ah, ha, ha, ha, spreadin’ the light, spreadin’ the light.
Ah, ha, ha, ha, spreadin’ the light.

Their lies ain’t goin’ nowhere. Somebody help me.
Somebody help me, yeah.
Their lies ain’t goin’ nowhere. Somebody help me, yeah.
In spreadin’ the light.

Written to commemorate the birth of Voltaire, 21st November 1694.

Halloween, 2016

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

This Halloween, I shall dress as the year 2016
and emit a frightful, fulgent sheen
from my orange-pumpkin-Donald-Trumpkin head.

I shall adopt the gait of Theresa May’s Living Dead,
and howl like a slithy Gove under a waxy moon.
My chest will be scarred with Brexit wounds.

I shall visit all doorsteps across this haunted land
with a leer on my face and a beer in my hand,
like a phantasmal, sharp-fanged Nigel Farage.

A dagger will be sticking out of my back
(the Severed Hand of Boris will still be attached).
And there, trailing behind me, poor fools,

will be the ghosts of the heroes you’d pinned to your walls,
all those pop stars and comics and actors
who filled up your lives with music and laughter.

Alongside them will be the bombed and the drowned,
the beheaded, the starved, the blown-up, the gunned-down,
from American nightclubs to Syrian towns.

So Trick or Treat! Happy Halloween!
If you’re not in when I knock, no fear;
I’ll be here all year.

Brexit in Pursuit of a Bear

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Please look out for this bear. Thank you.
He’s been getting ideas above his station.
If found, hand him in to the Home Office,
Section: UK Visas and Immigration.

He is wearing a blue duffle coat,
red wellies and a wide-brimmed hat
in an attempt to look like one of us.
But do not be fooled by that.

He’s one of those funny foreign types
who try to come here nowadays,
to take our homes and steal our jobs
and eat Our Great Nation’s Marmalade.

It is thought he has terrorist connections
and may be planning to do us harm.
So please beware of his hard stare,
not to mention his right to bear arms.

Also reported in this area:
illegal economic migrant,
Great Uncle Bulgaria.

Artist’s Impression

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Channel-flicking on the television,
a sudden flicker of recognition,

and there you are, lighting up the screen.
You’ve not changed much, it seems.

The selfsame eyes of grey flint,
those touchpaper lips,

that shocking blaze
of hair. It’s as if the days

lit by time’s slow-burnt passage
are reduced to ashes.

An old flame, charcoaled
back to life by the controlled

hand of a police sketch artist.
I see you’re still up to your old tricks,

wanted, as you are, for questioning
in connection with

a spate of arson attacks
in the vicinity of Matlock Bath.

Brian Bilston’s Poems – all gathered up into some kind of book thing

Assorted Poems, News

I’m pleased to say that my poetry collection You Took the Last Bus Home has now published and is available through bookshops and online stores in both print and ebook formats.

If you’re interested in buying a copy, do seek out your local bookshop – or Hive is an excellent online alternative, as it allows independent bookshops to benefit, thus enabling the book industry as a whole to continue to thrive.

http://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Brian-Bilston/You-Took-the-Last-Bus-Home–The-Poems-of-Brian-Bilston/19417281

It will publish in the US in January.

If you’d like to read more about how I went from posting poems in tweets and blog postings to publishing a book, you can read about it here in a piece I’ve recently written for The Irish Times.

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/brian-bilston-twitter-s-poet-laureate-on-his-print-debut-1.2819450

Brian Bilston

On Spending National Poetry Day Waiting for the Dishwasher to be Fixed

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

It is on days like these
that I wonder if other poets
are just better at covering up
the daily drudgery of life,

domesticity’s endless tugging
upon unironed shirt-sleeves,
as the unwashed mugs
gather sadly in the sink.

Yes, I can imagine Larkin
in some grim launderette,
his specs reflecting back
in a washing machine door

but the others? Hard to think
of Auden elbow-deep in soap suds
or Betjeman wrestling
with bin bags. But I could be wrong.

Maybe the person from Porlock
disturbed poor Coleridge
as he was going hard at it
with a sink plunger.

Perhaps Plath was a dab hand
with a Black and Decker.
Likewise, Heaney with his hoover.
Eliot and his mop.

More likely they just swept
it all under the carpet.
Took up their squat pens
to escape from the squalid,

not drag themselves
further down. But enough
of such melancholic reveries,
I must go now

for the dishwasher repair man is here.