Militant Thistles
polemical poetry to prickle the politics of "permanent austerity"
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
Neill Fawcett
McDonald’s Scene
A man with a free meal
bought by a fucking liberal.
‘I ain’t hurtin’ no one.’
Limp fries crammed in,
whole face a weak
‘Why?’
‘I ain’t hurtin’ no one.’
The Law led him out
by a filthy elbow.
Led him and his ragged burger
out to the snow.
‘I ain’t hurtin’ no one’,
he said, to the deaf gleaming glass.
Adult eyes went blind.
Kids saw.
He crunched across the parking lot.
A truck fired up.
Fumes bloomed the air,
cloaking curious eyes.
Neil Fawcett was born in Stockport in 1962. His poetry moves freely between the political to the personal. Fawcett spent many years as a teacher and now spends his time writing in a damp shed, looking after his family or wandering aimlessly around Greece. His recent work is influenced by the great Greek Communist poet Yiannis Ritsos, and he's working on a collection that reflects this influence. Fawcett has been widely published in magazines, online and in poetry anthologies. He has also been well placed and won a number of poetry competitions. www.neilfawcettpoet.com.
Cafe lunch
Halloumi with drizzled leaves
and artisan bread.
We drone bomb abroad
blast Pakistani peasants
and are aghast at the nerve
of foreign agents here.
My dog sleeps in oblivious bliss.
How can we be happy?
Look up.
it’s raining.
Fine the Fuckers
What are you doing in this city
on the floor
in a door
in the way
with your dog?
There are better places
to sit on your arse.
Go south,
to the suburbs.
They’ve got cricket pavilions
and fuckin’ millions.
Today
Radio 4 prattles on
about British bombers abroad
and their sterling work above
shaking homes in Syria
and their amen bombs
from Saudi to Yemen.
Prattles on about anti-Semite socialists
and the draining of swamps.
What's gone wrong?
Auntie's knickers are in a terrible twist
tangling views
strangling truths.