alexis-lykiard-poem | Militant Thistles

Alexis Lykiard

Prime Minister’s Hospital Visit

(Israel 31 July 2015)

Gentle Leader, sleek and mild,

at bedside of this wounded child:

words won’t help, nor pictures all

ratify his photocall.

Fully-fledged compassion must

be seen to flourish, then the dust

may settle on mad settlers’ acts…

Yet none dispute the brutal “Facts

On The Ground” – removals done

by force or Wall, bulldozer, gun –

so babes and mothers, innocents

perish still while state pretence,

religious rule of righteousness,

can validate a sorry mess.

Thus fear begets a new context,

Revenge and Terror visit next…

For now, the Leader, slick and bland,

nods seriously, shakes head or hand,

proud keeper of his Promised Land.

Ballad of Avarice

(The BHS Mess)

Greed, pure greed, ‘Sir’ Fillip Greed,

how much more does one man need?

Grabbing cash, he dashed the hopes

of pensionable working folk, his long-term employees.

This disingenuous knight knows all the greasy ‘legal’ ropes

those chosen few, who climb the richest heights, may seize.

An easy life of tax-free pleasure, in straitened times like these,

remains the fit and proper job for any refined buccaneer,

whose profits are a righteous due, put toward a rainy-day pot,

while one lies in the sun, aboard one’s luxurious brand-new yacht.

Let the envious rabble howl, let the lefty fool’s heart bleed:

greed’s good, yet much-maligned. Is he himself malign? No, he’s

as blameless as his erstwhile patron, Blair. That much is clear…

Three cheers then, for Cap’n Phil Green, the hero of business –Smile Please!

Alexis Lykiard was born in Athens at the start of 1940, when Mussolini’s Italian troops were repelled by the Greeks in the North of the country. In 1957, at the age of 17, he won the first Open English Scholarship ever awarded by King's College, Cambridge, graduating with a First-class Honours degree in 1962. While at Cambridge University, he was editor of the university magazine Granta (originally called The Granta). He is author of over two dozen poetry collections, including Journey of the Alchemist (Sebastian Carter, 1963), Greek Images (Second Aeon Publications, 1972), Out of Exile — Selected Poems 1968–85 (Arc 1985), Safe Levels (Stride, 1990), Cat Kin (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), Skeleton Keys (Redbeck, 2003) and Getting On: Poems 2000-2012 (Shoestring, 2013). He is also known as translator of Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautréamont, Alfred Jarry, Antonin Artaud and many notable French literary figures. In addition, Lykiard has written two highly praised intimate memoirs of Jean Rhys: Jean Rhys Revisited (2000) and Jean Rhys Afterwords (2006). His latest poetry volume is School for Life (Shoestring Press, 2015). Website: www.alexislykiard.com.