OUR DAY
- It’s a simmering pot
- not quite on the boil
- though still ever so hot
- once it ate high centigrades
- for nigh on thirty years
- and helped redden the soil
- while those trying to turn it down
- jeered
- before burning their fingers
- how those memories linger
- when decades ago it was all
- very cold
- and consolation came mainly
- from song and bar
- until the first taper was lit
- by the bold
- now you wonder how long can
- can it last
- before the contents evaporate
- and the pot melts
- to be recast
- slowly
- it will all wear away with time
- slowly
- don’t let impatience
- ruin your day
- our day
Wilson John Haire
GASWORKS
- Do you mind he asked if I punch
- your best friend in the mouth
- for I’ve gotta hunch
- and for this I can vouch
- it was whispered over lunch
- it’s as sad as it gets
- I have to tell a lie
- I’ll always be in your debt
- if you’ll be the fall-guy
- by standing aside
- this lie you’ll endorse
- and the standing of the jihadists
- you’ll reinforce
- but you’ll understand that punch
- wasn’t really meant
- it’s to pacify that Whitehouse
- clique
- and throw them off the scent
- otherwise my future is bleak
Wilson John Haire
BEHOLDING
- They play power-politics
- despite the terrain
- following the dogs-of-war
- though limply on the wane
- for they are the under-dog
- poisonous
- as strychnine
- practising diplomacy
- as a machine
- their word is fire
- to kerosene
- they don’t need proof
- nor investigation
- lapping up any US accusation
- their foreign minister is a pus-filled
- leaking balloon
- their UN rep
- empty as the moon
- as undertakers they know
- the death of nations
- without thought of damnation
- they moralise through their
- imperial church
- that sees all opponents besmirched.
Wilson John Haire
WHAT A SPIFFING GAME!
- Take cricket
- with its many rules
- take war without
- the wicket
- pronounce war as
- cricket-for-fools
- without
- the analysis the appeal
- the average
- the bail the ball
- the no-ball
- the bat the batsman
- batting
- the block the boundary
- bowling
- the bowled the break
- the leg-break
- the off-break the bye
- the catch
- the caught-and-bowled
- the century
- the cover-point the crease
- the bowling-crease
- the popping-crease
- the declaration
- the drive the extras the follow-on
- the full-pitch
- the googlie the half-volley
- the hit-wicket
- the innings the leg-before-wicket
- the leg-break
- the leg-glance the maiden-over
- the no-ball
- the off-break the over the run
- the stump
- the crease the wide the wicket-keeper
- the yorker
- without all that isn’t war
- a corker
- but they must know cricket
- before they make war
- or they we shall abhor
- beware the judge a spin-bowler
- the prosecution a batsman
- the enemy in the dock
- with broken molars
Wilson John Haire.
Labour Affairs Magazine 