There are Things I Have to Do. I went for a yomp to feed moorhens and swans (and shed lard – I go out with a weighted jacket – ten kilos of 1 and 2 pence coins and also, latterly, a backpack with a few bricks) to map out some of these TIHD, and avoid them.
On the way back from feeding moorhens I listened to an irritating podcast that had lots of good stuff and then also did a strawman/unreflective critique of Chomsky (alongside the extremely fair point that he leaned too heavily on the work of specific journalists like Robert Fisk).
I narrated something about this and somehow – perhaps because the podcast talked about “Daddies”? or perhaps because I was narrating this poem to a good friend on the self-same tow-path yesterday – it came into my head to do a spoof of “This Be The Verse” updated for our present shituation.
And that led on to a haiku and a limerick. Because of course it did.
Here they all are.
This be the verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
This be the Fafocene
They fucked the Earth, your mum and dad
They didn’t mean to, but they did
They filled the air with carbon – bad!
And of other species they got rid
But they were fooled into the burn
By PR flaks with loads of cash
Who half the time did denial-gurn
And elsewise sold the techno-flash
Man hands on apocalypse to man
It billows like a toxic cloud
There’s absolutely no b-plan
Having kids should be disavowed
Haiku
Hairless apes burn coal
Incite an endless summer
Countless ape corpses
Limerick
There is a young species called “man”
Who relentlessly kicks at the can
Then eight billion die
In the blink of an eye
An evolutionary also-ran.
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