MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

by Jerome Betts

Theresa May has announced that she will resign on June 7, 2019.

The Brexit poisoned chalice
Releases bile and malice
While people, pub to Palace,
   Ask what on earth it means.

But now, to add confusion,
With her plan proved mere illusion
May's reign has reached conclusion
   So they plot behind the scenes.

Her power in transition
Sees the country facing fission
And has triggered mad ambition
   In buffoons and drama queens.

Referendum or election
To stop Britain's vivisection
And its chronic misdirection
   As it plays out on our screens?


Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, and edits the verse quarterly Lighten Up Online. His work has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web venues such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily,  Light, The Asses of Parnassus,  TheNewVerse.News, Better Than Starbucks, Parody, Per Contra, and Snakeskin.

TUNE ARR. FOR TONGUE IN CHEEK

by Jerome Betts

Image by The Telegraph (UK) on Twitter

The UK passport is an expression of our independence and sovereignty—symbolising our citizenship of a proud, great nation. That's why we have announced that the iconic #bluepassport will return after we leave the European Union in 2019. 

—Tweet by Theresa May, December 22, 2017

I’m dreaming of a blue passport
Just like the one I used to know
When border crossing with Britain bossing
A good deal more of the show.

I’m dreaming of a blue passport
With every foreign trip I do.
May, your words are strong and true,
And, May, all your promises are too.

Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, but comes from Herefordshire, and edits the quarterly Lighten Up Online. His verse has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web publications such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Angle, Better Than Starbucks, Light, The Asses of Parnassus, TheNewVerse.News, Parody, Per Contra, The Rotary Dial, and Snakeskin.

POT AND KETTLE

by Jerome Betts

Safety first: the many hats of George Osborne. Composite: Rex/Getty via The Guardian, June 5, 2016.

“Welfare for Osborne was just a bottomless pit of savings, and it didn’t really matter what the human consequences were, because focus groups had shown that the voters they wanted to appeal to were very anti-welfare . . . “ —Nick Clegg in a Guardian interview 2 Sept 2016.

“Like the Living Dead in a second-rate horror film, the premiership of Theresa May staggers on oblivious.” —Editorial in London Evening Standard edited by George Osborne, 31 August 2017.


Hard hat on head, photographers on hand,
He knew to whom this image most appeals.
Disabled? Jobless? A negligible band,
Their money useful, though, to grease his wheels.

Cold-bloodedly, the snake, now scotched, not killed,
Still slithers towards its overarching goal,
A prospect leaving half a nation chilled,
The pitiless George Osborne in control.

Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, where he edits the quarterly Lighten Up Online. His verse has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web venues such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Angle, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Light, Parody, Per Contra, TheNewVerse.News, The Rotary Dial and Snakeskin.

QUESTION TIME

by Jerome Betts

Theresa May Caricature by Masakonen

T. M. still PM? Why is this?
The leader Fortune gave a miss
A faded star that’s on the blink,
A stock which now can only sink,
A Premier who’s lost the plot,
Majority and trust, the lot,
But carries on, a headless hen,
Behind the door of Number Ten?

Not hard, perhaps, to read the runes.
The five-watt bulbs and weird buffoons
The Tories muster to compete
To win her hot and thorn-strewn seat
Prefer to leave the Brexit folly
To blow up on some other wally,
And so until that dismal day
We’re stuck with hopeless hapless May.

Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, where he edits the quarterly Lighten Up On Line. His verse has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web venues such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Angle, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Light,  Per Contra, TheNewVerse.News, The Rotary Dial and Snakeskin.

THIS GRIEF IS PARTISAN

by S.O.Fasrus

The burnt-out ruin of Grenfell Tower. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA via The Guardian, June 18, 2017.

even the air sighs for us
this grief is one breathe
this grief is the hum of nine poets
this grief has peeled skin
it is not shielded
from

lies, evasions
dissuasions

this grief
is a procession
this grief is an army of tears
the sun will not scorch it
the rain cannot drown it

this empty room
this charred field
this quiet road in the kernel of night
this aching of many hearts
this gallery of loss

our grief weaves a ribbon for flowers
oh small flower
oh white petal
even the birds cry for us
even the moon keeps silent


S.O.Fasrus has verses at LUPO and is currently writing a YA novel.