Jon Elkon

Category: Poetry

  • CoP28 – Conference or Con?

    CoP28 – Conference or Con?

    Will #COP28 be a JaberWock?

    There can be no doubt about man’s effect on the climate of our Earth. Brilliant scientists with access to mountains of data have confirmed this. Our emissions of Carbon Dioxide and Methane, amongst other gases are facing us with the biggest challenge ever faced by Humanity as a whole: a crisis we seem unwilling to face. CoP – the Conference of the Parties – was set up to analyse the causes and effects of Climate Change, and to investigate ways to limit, control and prevent the worst outcomes.

    The production and use of Fossil Fuels is by far the largest cause of the emissions which threaten the existence of life on Earth..

    The latest CoP starts today. The 28th Conference is in Dubai.

    The CoP28 website shows a cheery commitment to save the world for life. https://www.cop28.com

    Yet the President of CoP28 which takes place in the UAE is to be Dr Sultan Al-Jaber. The Dr (Dr Who???) is CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Today it was revealed (no surprise) that the Conference will be used to conduct private meetings with delegates to negotiate oil contracts. Surely, the fox has been put in charge of the henhouse! 

    Sadly, the most cynical amongst us seem to have had our worst nightmare confirmed: The ‘good Doctor’ appears to regard the Conference as an opportunity to negotiate deals with participant countries – not to reduce oil consumption, but to increase it. For profit.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67508331

    Here’s part of my response. When fury is not enough, poetry helps.

    Jaber wacky

    Twas brillig and the oily cove

    Did lie and gamble on the wave

    And merrily make deals and steal

    Our hope our frabjous world to save

    And from the slime our world to heal

    When this fox has made a meal

    Of us chickens! Truly it is said

    That once we all of us are dead

    A pile of gold upon our head

    On our tombs a heavenly hand will write

    ‘Herein lies the world in shit

    Buried in oil

    For sheer profit’

    Meanwhile: What about the Saudis?

    https://youtu.be/AzSq9jhhrq4?si=rXXCfN8hPYLB_5ca

    Just like Big Tobacco – when restrictions were placed on the sale of their lethal product, the Saudis plan to shift their marketing to Africa. They have set up a network of organisations to do just that, under the direction of their climate-change denying Energy Minister who reports to the infamous MBS, Mohammed Bin Salman, the possible instigator of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. If this evil plan goes ahead, he will be an accessory to the murder of much of the life on this Planet.

    Fury is not enough. Poetry will have to do.

    We will not have the oil pulled over our eyes.

    We see your hypocrisy, and your lies!

    And when our children are choked by your fumes

    And burnt by your fires or drowned by your floods

    Or blown by the winds off the surface of Earth

    Do you feel justified in giving them birth?

    Can you from the Hell that you have made

    Watch as the children you so vilely betrayed

    Cry out with horror,

    Here lies my father, buried in shit

    Who sold out the World, for sheer

    PROFIT

    Fortunately for the world we have our free media, free to investigate and report on those who put life on this Planet in peril. For profit.

    We see you. We see Greenwashing. We see hypocrisy. And much as you may hate Democracy and a free press, you will not get away with trashing our planet.

    REMEMBER: You live here too.

  • NEW POEMS

    NEW POEMS

    Funny, funny ha ha, funny peculiar, deadly serious, ultimate introspection, infection, selection and defecation. And yes, some detestable doggerel too.

    Since the publication of my collection Some Day Soon, my pen made these. Another collection is evolving, as am I

    The Med is blue

    This poem was written on my journey to Greece, where the yacht Flying awaited me in the harbour of Astypaleia. A plague ship! P had just informed me that a member of crew had Covid, and the other two were self-isolating. It starts, as so many epic journeys do, on the Tube….

    Sunday. On the tube.

    And here the invisible dust 

    Blows through our bodies

    Ground metals pulverised glass

    Interspersed with viruses

    Alive and dead

    Being and becoming

    The Karmic parade passes, passes

    Eroding

    (The Med is blue)

    This Piccadilly line takes me from 

    Present to present along these 

    Karmic tracks

    Eroding steel

    Train to Gatwick :

    Southward from Victoria 

    Trains and planes and boats

    These boots are made for walking

    (How to heal

    A broken heart)

    (What are we searching Google for?

    Basic Greek Phrases)

    NASA about to launch

    Going to the moon

    Pointed up

    I’m pointed south 

    Wizzair 

    To my shame I took a ‘plane. I know! I can make excuses, I can give explanations, I can lie to myself and to you. Shame! I took a ‘plane!

    The cloud-bothered Achaean sky

    Between Olympus and heaven

    And below

    Giant feet have scored the Earth 

    Crinkled like insults mountains sulk

    Folding secrets

    A long wide river dried

    Deterred from its function

    The Med is blue, I’m told

    But now whiteness hides Greece from me

    We descend

    This wine-dark sea 

    On a ferry from Piraeus

    Only at night.

    Here the dawn makes the sea rippled black

    The fresh foam chases us

    Skipping islands

    About which all that can be said

    Has been said

    Thousands of years been said.

    Except:

    They’ve never had me before

    In a plastic chair on a deck

    Skimming my words lightly around them

    The apogee of my karma this far.

    They’ve never had beloved friends 

    Peter, Zelda, Maggie and Anna

    waiting for me

    At Astypaleia

    Confined in their plague ship

    Locked up with positive.

    Never before. Ever.

    The ferry Naxos grinds out and thrashes 

    Sea beneath my stern

    (Mine and the ship’s)

    Like years.

    (My mother’s picture features on my iPad.

    I didn’t select it.

    An algorithm devised by others’ eyes

    Put her there to protect me.

    Hello Valerie! We were on a ferry – when?

    Perhaps in Seattle, I remember!

    To Whidby island, that’s right!

    I took pictures then too.

    I looked through the pictures.

    Perhaps you weren’t there.

    Except in an image

    On my iPad)

    THERE WILL BE MORE in my second volume of poems, THE WINE DARK SEA to be published in December 2023.

    MEANWHILE a miscellany of ephemera…..

    I reflect you

    A shade as empty as a sliver

    An echo of a silent sigh

    A whisper of a breeze unblown

    A disorder of spirit

    let me see the ravaged face

    You quietly hide

    The shreds of your eyes

    Lips bared back from teeth

    Ground into sharp posts

    Blood-flecked

    We squeeze into this space so hard

    Condensed into mere memory

    Viced into tiny

     Simulacra by

    The delusion of a journey.

    I murder myself words sharp as swords

    Seppuku

    If I could but

    Swallow myself whole

    I would

    My mind to me a kingdom is

    Edited in Prisma app with Daryl Feril

    Betwixt the Earth and sky

    Wherein the subtle difference lives

    Between the you and I

    And all I own, and all I give

    And all that seeks me out

    Makes of me a mystery

    I cannot learn about.

    Where light and dark are blended quite

    Night made of lightness, dark made of light

    Look closely into my eyes, beloved,

    ….

    British politics continue to bug me. How on earth could Boris Johnson and his coterie of Bullingdon bullies and Eton messses stay so long in power? Since I wrote the poem below, he has resigned. Hurray. To be replaced by a billionaire bureaucrat.

    Bugger off Boris

    You cad!

    Crawl back in your hole

    We rumbled your artifice

    Seen the emptiness in your soul

    We watched as you shamed us

    On the international stage

    But when you shut your door and partied

    RAGE!

    Your bum hit the buffers

    You were kicked out of Ten

    And believe me Boris 

    WE NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN

    More Tube Poems. Well, what else is there to do on the London Underground than depict, in words….

    I don’t know what I’m doing

    Or why

    This train tunnels eastward under London. It knows where and why, or rather, the speck of human who faces the silver disappearing lines of track ahead knows. His name is Mohsin and he is picking his nose.

    Why am I on this journey with you Mo? 

    Oh Mo I have nowhere to go

    Or why

    Beneath me earth, obove more earth

    And above that, sky

    I never tell you anything. you say

    Or rather you don’t. We never speak anyway 

    We never tunnel underground

    So

    It’s with Mo I got to go 

    She wears the agony

    Of oysters on her wrist and around her neck

    Her sharpened nails blood red

    And mouth painted sanguine 

    Smile full of tombstones

    Creature of blood and death

    Captive here in #ink

    Some feast on life

    And sleek and fat they take their fill

    And then take more, and more until

    We starve.

    As for me, I prefer to #munch my due

    And proceed down the path,

    Singing

    Here’s some for me and some for you

    (Or Rather, I should!

    But I ain’t made of……. You finish the rhyme!)

    (If only I could!)

    LONDON 2022

    Cranes stalk the sky

    Each glow of a baleful eye

    Defying the night.

    Wells had it right

    The Martians invaded

    With concrete and steal

    In fiction defeated

    By an #innocent virus

    Cry! Shout out! Refuse!Stand! Protest! Revolt! Sit down! Stand up!

    We who suffer

    The burden of compassion 

    The disability of intelligence

    The catastrophe of conscience

    We who struggle

    Tears in our eyes

    To explain

    Cannot be silent!

    Must not 

    Refrain

    As those

    Unburdened by conscience

    Lacking compassion 

    Who use their intelligence

    For their own perceived need

    Irrespective of consequences 

    Rule – 

    Cry! Shout out! Refuse! Stand! Protest! Revolt! Sit down! Stand up! 

    Write! Give! 

    Our children have a RIGHT to LIVE

    The death of Elizabeth Part 2 surprised me. My eyes leaked.

    Lizzie

    How to feel?

    Granny is dead.

    Mother has gone.

    The massed legions of the dead

    Will welcome with warm

    Cheers

    Marm.

    Bereft of her smile

    Of the wave of her gloved hand

    We line for mile after mile.

    A coffin, bereft of her smile.

  • I thank you for your flesh

    I thank you for your flesh

    Succulent and sweet as you

    Sank to my level

    Incorporated

    I mourn you

    Enmeshed I become you

    Now I can trash

    Your seeds

    Delete your core

  • Green Dreams – in Verse!

    Green Dreams – in Verse!

    Hounslow Green Party is bursting with talented poets!!

    Here is a brief selection of poetry (and doggerel) that has delighted me this week. Please attempt not to be offended. Blame the original writers whose works have influenced our Poet Laureates

    On reading Betjeman’s ‘Views of the Town Clerk’  by JOHN BAKER

    Let’s turn our thoughts to Brentford first

    Of tedious towns among the worst

    The clearing work is nearly done

    Historic buildings have all gone….

    We should have trees, the Greens will cry

    So plant with Ash! it soon will die…

    Help Putin fund his squalid war

    Approve gas guzzling  Ballymore…..

    A statue is needed in the square

    Steven Curran surely should be there….

    Entice the stinking cads from Slough

    Brentford suits them better now…

    The Grime of the Ancient Mariner by TONY FIRKINS

    Edited in Prisma app with Leya

    Water, water, every where,

    And all the boards did shrink;

    Water, water, every where,

    Nor any drop to drink.

    The very deep did rot: O Christ!

    That ever this should be!

    Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

    Upon the slimy water quality.

    About, about, in reel and rout

    The death-fires danced at night;

    The water, like a witch’s oils,

    Burnt green, and blue and white.

    And some in dreams assurèd were

    Of the Spirit that plagued us so;

    The River Brent followed us

    From the land of mist and snow.

    ….and here’s one from me!

    SUV by Jon Elkon

    Edited in Prisma app with Leya

    What a joy is is to see

    A silly prick in an SUV!

    With a flick of mastery 

    He’s looking down at you and me

    Such pretentious rickery!

    What a joy it is to see

    A dummy mummy in an SUV

    Soooo much room for baby Gee

    Looking down at you and me

    It’s a world-defying mystery!

    Oh men and women who greenly strive

    To keep our precious specie alive

    While dummy mummies and pricks agree 

    That looking down from their SUV

    And lording it so definitively

    Makes them better than you and me!

    Do YOU have a Green Poem you’d like to share? Send it by email or as a comment here!

  • The Queen Died

    The Queen Died

    About Time?

    How to feel?

    Granny is dead.

    Mother has gone.

    The massed legions of the dead

    Will welcome with warm

    Cheers

    Marm.

    Bereft of her smile

    Of the wave of her gloved hand

    We line for mile after mile.

    But the coffin is empty.

    Our hearts are full.

    I was surprised to feel no more than a twinge when I heard Lizzie was dead. She was a pocketful of privilege after all. A tiny recipient of vast formal and informal adulation, always beaming, wouldn’t you. The tradition of deferring to those who by accident of birth have inherited titles and land is deeply engrained – not just in the Brits, but worldwide. I am infuriated by the expectation that I should address some titled twit as ‘my lord.’ Nobody is my lord, nobody but myself.

    And ‘sir’. When I became a teacher I was uncomfortable whenever addressed as sir. And as a karate instructor, the word ‘Sensei’ is a responsibility I have to bear. Often an onerous one. But listen here, chaps. I earned those titles. I wasn’t born to them.

    A friend Iaian was recently awarded a Lordship- this chap had trained up to black belt in Karate with me, became General Secretary of the Labour Party, so I guess he earned some kind of recognition. But he can eff off if he thinks I will ever address him as my lord.

    But I guess the twinge I experienced had nothing to do with Lillibeth as queen. But having lost my mother recently, in her nineties, I realise that Mrs Queen was also a widow, a mother, a grandmother. And I discovered those words ‘had a good life’ etc are empty. The loss remains a loss, whatever age someone dies at. So while I am somewhat amused, somewhat sickened, somewhat bored and somewhat impressed by the panoply of adoring ritual and pomp accompanying this corpse to its grave, I wish all those bereft a long life and some comfort.

    Rest in peace 

  • With Love to Forugh Farrokhzad

    Forugh Farrokhzad was a magnificent, awesomely talented Iranian poet who died at the age of 32 in 1967. She deserves to be remembered, celebrated and above all, read worldwide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forugh_Farrokhzad In her style, this is my tribute to her,

    As if you lived in the dawn beyond my days

    Blowing kisses at lies

    Taking your short beloved life as a draft of wine

    Kept in the bottom of

    The cold sea.

    Your limits were kept in the soul of infinity which

    Is as naked as the love you broadcast, the erupting love, the unbroken love.

    Salaam. You flowed above us, your words embracing,

    Weaving,

    Hanging us.

    If only I’d looked.

    How beautiful your pure bright reflection

    Shattered in the windscreen of your broken car

    In which the clock

    And your lavish dreams 

    Stopped.

    Undanced in the shards of wine glasses.

    Your obituary is the perfection

    of your words each made of glass.

    You swerved to avoid children

    How kind you were

    How you made love with words

    And nailed us to the cross of your beautiful

    silence which, victim of stolen time

    Leaves us only with the legacy 

    Of the space between 

    The intersection between 

    Extremities.

    I believe.

    Salaam.

  • The WESTMINSTERTREE

    The WESTMINSTERTREE

    The CABINET hath been RESHUFFLE!

    In their crystal maze of glass and brass

    The ruling class sit on our ass

    And giggling make their silly rules

    For proles and other silly fools

    To carp and caw in rank dismay

    As all their ownings are taken away

    ‘Oh bliss!’ they cry, ‘How joy it be

    To water the Westminstertree!’

    And joy-consumed the one percent

    (Charging us a silly rent)

    And farting methane and carbon and stuff

    (well too much, dears, is NEVER enough!)

    And unzipped they plash  the tree with pee

    The spreading roots of the Westminstertree!

    Above on his nest the BORIS sits

    Upon his eggs and picks his nits

    While at his feet the sloven GOVE

    Doth pose and flurry in jacket mauve

    With hip-hop hussle he sways his hips

    And blows him kisses through painted lips

    His dagger hid inside his cloak

    The Govester giggles at his jokes

    And snidely pouts, quite off his head

    On DDT and Cannabis bread

    ‘Oh Boris! Dear’ he ecstatic cries

    ‘You’re the cleverest one! – do up your lies –

    Tis time your true blue flag unfurled –

    BORIS is King of the whole fucking world!’

    Below him on branches all insecure

    The Tory Bluds are counting the score

    The Williamson and his Black Widow spider

    The Jenrick with his Planning Insider

    The Raab, whose bleats defy

    The sea and its waves, the glowering sky

    The Priti who, ugly as sin

    Leaves all her gees in the grammatical bin

    And plowing her way though Channel’s squalls

    Builds out of ocean, Britain’s walls

    And there sits the Richi, Rishi Rich

    Who singing softly ‘Well life is a bitch

    When you ain’t got no money. Tee tee!

    At last Great Britain ain’t as wealthy as me!

    Now BORIS looking down decries

    His useless team, that so defies

    The cause of truth and justice grim

    As all the Cab defers to him

    ‘Alack!’ quoth he, My ministery

    Doth weigh me down the Westminstertree

    And those that hath upclimbed and clawed

    Hath reached too high – God I’m bored!’

    And taking up his wooden saw

    Our Boris doth the branches gnaw

    And one by one they tumble down

    Crying, ‘You shit you berk you malicious clown!

    ‘Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh you wait until I get my trews

    And  rumble thee on GB News!’

    And soon the newbies are installed

    In serried ranks some very bald

    The GOVESTER farts in upper glee

    As climbing up the Westminstertree

    ‘Oh Boris dear!’ He doth proclaim

    “You Level me Up! Thou mighty brain!’

    (His dagger held inside his cloak

    He’ll keep for now. What a bloke!)

    All Trussed up, good queen Liz

    Wonders where ‘Abroad’ is

    And can she send the Snowflakes there?

    And get the Wokes – out of her hair?

    Sajid at least a clean pair of hands

    Quite mask-free he quite glibly stands

    And by the past’s indication

    Will put the backbench ahead of the nation!

    Alok, alas, is still in post

    To Cop 26 while the world doth roast

    Quoth ‘We’ll wave a wand, you will see

    How magically and sound

    We still get coal from the ground

    And oil from the sea

    Thanks to me

    And Boris the King!

    Trust us to save

    The whole fucking thing!’

    The rest is such an awful shower

    A nest of vipers with too much power

    I can’t be bothered to write some more. Enough to say

    If ONLY they would go away!

    As clucking with delight as dim

    As Boris’ might, they worship him

    ‘Oh King behold the world defies

    The Westminstertree reaches up!

    To the skies!

    And never mind the Proles sad moans 

    As Covid seeps into their bones

    And there’s nothing left in Sainsbury

    Under the spreading Westminstertree!

  • Will My Getting More Green Save my World?

    Will My Getting More Green Save my World?

    GREENIFICATION PART 3

    IPCC and me

    Today they told me, rather believably, that we’re (probably) doomed. The oceans will rise, the forests will burn, the heavens will dump the contents of a large lake on our heads....Darn! It’s happening already

    Today I learned

    That whatever I do

    It’s too late to defer

    The end of the world

    Probably

    Or at least the end 

    Of things that breathe

    And some things

    That don’t.

    So don’t pretend

    You can make me believe

    That a walk to the shops 

    Where I buy no things

    Or a cycle instead 

    (Last time I cycled

    I fell on my head)

    Will stop all the floods and the fire and the

    Food riots

    And the water wars

    And the land grabs

    And the miles of refugees

    Hungry desperate armed

    And the dystopian fulfilment

    And raucous laughter

    Of ghosts

    And even save the tortoise

    From eating a plastic bag

    And dying!

    So I’ve decided

    Not to live to a hundred.

    While I’d like to aim my finger

    Right at you

    And pull the trigger from which a flag would fly

    With the words ‘Told You So’

    Inscribed

    I’d rather die

    With a silly smug smile

    Before you get to tell me

    What a bore

    It all is.

    (Cassandra and me

    Perfectly)

  • A Stupidocracy Three

    A Stupidocracy Three

    (As Esther would say)

    (Imagine a world without QAnon, Antivax, Climate Change deniers!)

    Part 1

    QAnonsense

    It’s ASTOUNDING how

    Humans now

    Seem BOUND to bow

    to the NONSENSE gods

    Who define

    Opinions which

    Scut like clouds

    Of fart and flame

    Finding NONSENSE which to blame

    For the ROT that stuffs their brain.

    You can’t get more wrong than – see above!

    A porridge fist in a paper glove!

    Part 2

    AUNTY VAXX

    In her leather slax

    Defends

    Her arm from the phantom harm

    While she pretends

    Alarm at the thought that she

    With her poisonous breath

    Could slightly infect

    Or kill

    My Auntie Jack or my Uncle Jill!

    While she, the poisonous elf

    Gets poisoned herself!

    Part 3

    Cavalier Mike

    GET on your BIKE!

    You bore

    The Civil War ain’t working no more

    You insist it’s strange

    You make Climate Change!

    And refuse to admit

    That when cows shit

    Or fart, (you twit)

    They rearrange

    It.

    So when the last trump sounds

    You’d better retreat

    Take to your feet!

    Your troops have fired their rounds.

    Time to surrender

    You crusty defender

    Zounds!

    You ASTOUND me.

  • Dancing in a Dark

    Dancing in a Dark

    Pack up my shadow

    Let me go

    Darkness becomes me.

    Fate slept, dreaming.

    The Castle

    Ruined, gapes open.

    I will leave myself behind me when I go. 

    (Not just you)

    The interior I wear on the outside

    A jumper between me and the cliff

    The magical alchemy of catalyst

    Me and world

    Made golden by our collective 

    Duplicity

    (I visit Happiness sometimes

    As an alien, passport smudged

    Visa expired.

    I won’t hang about.

    I don’t want to outstay

    My welcome.)

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