Kitchener fingered it then instructed
his queen’s crown to be engraved/ By
his weak hand he couldn’t beat out a
sound/ Khartoum was taken [a canal
war]/ A slit drum – lootings [his spoil
& stolen – again – a theft once before]
It had been re-marked – reset by Arab
tools on its African coralwood flanks –
it’ll hold off termites – that’s all/ Hit it
hard – strike at plane of timber tunes
but it stands mute in a quiet museum
Tag: bbc
Bob Mortimer is Dead
Episode 5 Desert Island Discs [2019]
When Bob Mortimer is dead
he is off to some fantastic place
[& James Moir will fall apart]
Bob will renounce his home –
one last time – unless he gets
to be laid beside other long-
loved pets – down his garden/
Looking’ll come to be a hobby
‘cos his stare will be sooo hard
in his head [slept upon a moist
pillow]/ Fools ease [secluded]
& are left alone for a festering
until putrefied/ Haul ‘im off to
Poets’ Corner when well-soft –
just to annoy every reverential
buff of well-received wordage
& verse – clowns are required/
Fools missing Footlight’s glint
will [eventually] be recognised
as poetic-gods – we will pray –
such adjustments are needed
Attenborough and the Giant Egg
An island’s evidence [pitted – rimrose]
lies strewed between deserts & roads –
as if scattered wide by petulant thugs/
They infer hellacious avians feeding on
everything! – held in scythe-sized talons
& other such asinine stories trolled to
travellers waving tourist-green dollars/
Their eggs – hacked to shards [almost
aged vases] now a cracked paradox of
parts – too widely cast to dig up quick
answers for Sir David Attenborough or
others with questions [& audiences to
thrill]/ Madagascar remains a blast for
khaki-shorteds & battered Landrovers
whilst fady fables unsettle local heads
who will whisper elephant bird stories
on & on [Fear was man’s earliest mace
but giant eggs filled his ravenous face]
Obviated
RB: I didn’t fancy much staying alive
MP: Really.. you contemplated suicide?
RB: No.. you can drink yourself to death…
I had a go…
Parkinson – Interview with Richard Burton, 1974
Richard in his beige rollneck
tossing off impersonations –
playing at thy compleat fool
for Mr Parkinson’s audience
of pre-pub gathered viewers
[under bared studio lamps]/
Chat turns to drinks & death
& rotten innards – digging at
Burton’s slag heap of failure
sat so high – ready to slip as
any of us could – mortalized
by Michael’s polite enquiries
about public love affairs – no
stones left unturned & noted
as bottles are numbered & to
entertain & enthral he has to
talk of longings for Elizabeth
& hoves [to his worthier self]
I urge for Burton’s love affairs
Derek Jarman & My Aunt
Dear God, please
send me to hell
will be received
& then hung up
equal to Sylvia’s
phantom cattle –
Mr Jarman & my
Aunt on my wall
[beside my very
grave self-portrait
in charcoal 1984]
My [almost] queer
gallery [There’s a
BBC Radio play in
that line] I’ll heed
my wireless every
day – streamed &
free on-demand
[til they agree it’s
not by decrees of
licence abolition]
I’ll mind one God
[my other Aunty
Beeb] & pray that
our public T.V. is
kept from Azazel
Also found on Medium
To buy your own piece of hell visit Prospect Cottage
#BBCQT
I turned off the BBC’s
weekly Question Time –
it’s now a B-movie
played out by UKIP-types –
Bland egos screen-act
mincing up for clap-baits
from the baying audience –
all cheered up by hate
as a host steers the fears
from lost hope to idiots –
this is Jeremy Kyle
with professional gits –
But late-at-night viewers
under booze can’t deny
the glaring screen truth –
the Beeb also lies
College Green
College Green hadn’t seen
such a circus in such a while –
a scattering of disaster tents –
Those stop-gap structures for
turned-collar journalists
talking to random others –
Those stiff-posed parades
of MPs – grinning between ears
like scavenge-fat hyenas –
Those unyielding politicos
in love with themselves
under the gathering clouds –
Those anchormen and weather girls
passing snide remarks
on muted mics back in the studio –
and voters draped in stars and jacks
shouting at the grey-suited fools
pleading for a voice to end it all
Embargo
Normal service
has been resumed
today the Beeb
does ‘other news’,
for this short time
they cannot bitch,
no Tory scorn
on Corbyn’s pitch;
Laura is muted
for a whole day,
but Kuenssberg readies
her hateful ways.
Radio for?
Oh My God, ’tis Thought for the Day:
Radio Four pauses to pray:
Humphrys kneels on the soundproof floor,
wishing for news which he can endure.
Melvyn Bragg berates a humble guest,
mumbling mantras as he doth protest!
Archerettes praise the God of scripts
for an endless drama of juicy bits.
Friday’s Now Show, the satirical melee,
not Now The Final Judgement Day,
with Hugh (not Grant) and the other one,
casting those stones of comedy puns.
The Reverend Coles, as Saturday arrives,
says his prayer: ‘Please not Five Live’.
MIKE BELL | 10,000 Poems 