The Satires by Duncan McGibbon (beach read TXT) 📖

/> (which Benedict used to call her 'gynaeciums')
The urgency of the ecological threat
impressed them both during that long, but
summer, near Portleix where they swam, naked
in his Lordships pool out of the Derry earshot
In the knowledge of both drift and reward.
She was fascinated by the domestic apples,
which had become naturalised in the hedgerows.
She brought grafts back to Highgate.
(Since then they had holidayed in better climates)
The stereo clicked. She sacrificed the Sonata's fourth movement
She picked up her mother's pair of leather gloves
and the large basket she used for 'garden days'
from the broken shed and lifted the latch back
on the rusted, knotty door by the goble-wall
and knelt gauchly by the bed she had dug
for the geraniums which she had brought from the greenhouse
She concentrated on the task, kneading the watered
surround of each plant and remembered
that smell of mulch which whetted her memory
of the little daffodil patch which mother
had given to her and Graham, her little brother,
Her mother had written about Gertrude Jekill
and of the wild, untutored gardens
of Sissinghurst which she left unvisited
in a bleaker world, after she had
given painful birth to her family of eight
One day, her parents had argued and her
mother, turning from the bathroom, a wild,
tear-lined, despairing face had looked at her
in jealous rage. She, her daughter had run
out to press her fists in the damp earth
and wishing away that reproachful glance.
Only after her mothers' funeral and her
own rage that she could not see her again:
her savage desire to prize up the coffin lid
so smugly pegged down did she recall a wizened,
ungiving invalid they had put into the ground
of whose intellect, humour and style eight
children had washed away all recognisable features
She had made a breathless, afflicted vow
that those wraps would not enfold her.
Since Keele,now, the garden told her months,
apart from sporadic bleeding her doctor
had told her to ignore once she took on
the twenty-one day regime of oestrogen.
Now she thought of her next children's book
and how the illustrations would match the text
She snapped her clippers at the odd dead-heads.
Behind her short, coiffure of charcoal hair,
a great bunch of rose-bay from Sonning
studded the corner with vivid purple and rose
Behind it grew the apple tree, older than the house,
on which she had grafted cuttings from Portleish,
yet they had not taken. She left them, black and crisp,
as if daring their brittle hands and fingers of decay


1986

Deadly Londoners

1.Neil Sproxby-Stokes at Funghi's


Hello old man, never seen you here before.
Its been months since I fell out with that bore
in Chelsea.You see I left at once.
He made me out to be a proper ponce.
Couldn't take that sorry sort of pressure.
Fancy asking for a cheque! Had I'd the leisure
I'd have told you it was down to him to pay.
Not that I wouldn't help in any way,
but you know I have this inheritance
bound up in trusts.They lead me a merry dance.
It's just so hard to get one's hands on cash.
Have you heard about the U.F.O. Protect crash?
Awful to say I set him up, dear Clive.
Shame they took his Roller. Lucky he's alive.
Should have worked out just the way we wanted
Our payment plan to offset being haunted
was a real success, until they used the lever
that Martians can't be disproved either.
I've been away in Cannes. They want my script.
I thought I'd call it By Fever Gripped?
Now all I have to do is write it down
a tough thing to do up here in town.
It won't be like the last thing I put on.
They took me to Court. Accused me of a con
I told them when I hired the studios
it was just a test to see whose videos
would fit the casting people's books.
Those beastly girls never had the looks.
As for the naked-vampires-on-the-slab-scene
that's how the screenplay should have been.
Those cows threw off the sheets for all to see
with such bad taste, it didn't suit a mortuary.
D'you know what they said then, those wicked tarts
that I had demanded sex for giving parts ?
I did say If they couldn't simulate it
I'd give them a cue to stimulate it.
Yet like so much I've said and done,
they never understand my sense of fun.
Odd seeing you again in all this whirl
last time we met I'd picked up this girl
who helped me out with a jam I was in
I had a little neice in Wisconsin
killed in a plane crash over Delamere.
I needed funds to have her buried here
and she stumped up, the lovely creature.
Her name's Camilla. She'd love to meet you
What's that? You know her too. She's sent you here?
I don't think much of this is very clear.
I know my neice was never on the list.
They held back her name..You get my gist?
Of course she existed! Don't be so uppity
My family tree's not common property!
What d'you mean she wants the money back ?
I told her I would try a different tack
with the trustees than I had before,
without recourse to a court of law.
The money's not come through yet
but it'll come through soon I'll bet.

She's thrown out all my things onto the street!
She never even tried to be discreet.
Sorry have to go. I'm due in a meeting
If you see her, give her my fond greeting!

2.Sergio Lickpenny at the Palladium Exit


London’s the place I make for
the trader’s game to ache for.
To Westminster I once went
for bonuses long since spent,
where I careered with bosses
to misprice heavy losses
which I’d win back tomorrow
with mortgage cash to borrow.
Sucking on a single grape,
I speculate on my escape.
I’m a rogue trader
who knows he’s done wrong.

(Enter chorus of dismissed misses,
who do splits with Baring kisses)

He knows he's done a wrong.
and won't be staying long
and for want of money sings this song.

As I elbow through the throng
To the High Courts I have come
to be bailed and not to pay
It's s.f.a. the F. S.A .
Future insecurity
provides my annuity,
in the hands of the Ordainer
whose lottery 's my retainer.
I'm just a young trader
who don't know he's done wrong.

(Enter chorus of suspended top executives
and high kicking suspender Armani wives.)

He doesn't know he's done a wrong!
his is a case we need to prolong
and for ready money sing his song.

As I stumble through the throng
to Threadneedle St., I come.
where grey options panthers prowl
sniffing for risk, cheek and jowl
with the boys in the open pit,
outcrying the swaption market.
No room now for big, black holes
with ninety million sterling souls,
Only an I.M.F snide
with ambition in his stride.
would guess that I'm a rogue trader
who knows I've done wrong.

(Enter chorus of lurking, bank recruits
in second-hand Top Shop evening suits)

He knows he's done a wrong!
Soon we'll be taking him along
For want of bail money, he sings this song.

As I shouldered through the throng
where the sleaze was thick and strong,
to Parliament I did me take
my MP's conscience for to shake.
He said, “There isn't any law no more
just a new Porsche 944
and a case of fresh-chilled Krug,
if the booze becomes your drug.
The star dealer's calling
is not so appalling.
If the bet comes to dust
it's the firm that 's gone bust
but those s.o.bs at the S.I B
won't you and me forgive.
You're a rogue trader
who don't know you've done wrong.”

( Enter chorus of pinstripe control toughs
and Horlicks girls in golden handcuffs)

He doesn't know he's done a wrong.
He was always a bit headstrong,
and for envelopes of money sings this song.

As I jostle in the throng
a busker I've become,
to sing the High St pitch,
deep as any City ditch.
Humbly here I tried to pray;
consumers alone should pay.
Have pity on a younger man
who faces a five-year ban.
The man with the F.T.view
cried from the public loo?
“Lickpenny ! Lickpenny ! Here!
get your futures into gear.
We haven't the expenses
to prove your offences.”
Sleepless, lone, I live on air,
for Mr Blair still isn't there.
The mother of all positions
collected my commissions.
Now I spend my money
on Kingsley's pot of honey.
I'm a rogue trader.
who knows I've done no wrong.

(Enter night chorus of pit traders in ties
with big red numbers and little black lies )

He knows he's done no wrong!
For he that has no money
will for ever sing this song.

( Exit the choruses with no returns
wearing top hats over Bear Stearns)
Both Published in London Life Online 1995

3. Lord and Lady Black in the Hollinger Chronicles.

Give us, press lords, daily fiction,
should our dreams desert us.
Shore up all received opinion
lest our conscience fuss.
Happy liars press injunction
on our truth-beguiled construction.

Ever let the truth be held back;
atrocities observe unsung.
Slip injustice to your back rack,
honey from your tongue.
Happy liars press injunction
on our honest heart’s seduction.

Hotel spongers, travel freely.
We will never query print.
Your style so easy, mouth so mealy
to ensure you’re never skint.
Happy liars, press in junction.
Let the trumpet strain your function.

Blessed celebs, loyal deceivers
take our praise in megabites.
Let us knight these stern achievers
blog their websites to the heights.
Happy liars press injunction
down our mouths, such ready luncheon.

Looted pension be our safeguard
as we honour life-style debts.
Out of widows’ heirlooms marred
kleptocracy has fed its pets;
happy liars’ press injunction,
spread with wrathful, right-wing unction.

Free the market, close trade unions,
corrupt toil deregulate.
Bethlehem Arab feel the truncheons,
you’ve Just War to celebrate.
Happy liars press injunction
dry of all absurd compunction.

Forty thousand dollars charge
for happy Babs’ birthday bash!
Ninety thousand’s not too large
if you’re not designer trash.
Happy liars, press, in junction
with dissemblance up for auction.

Enter the courts with happy steps.
Shareholder’s give way.
The marketplace, we know, accepts
that egotists must bray.
Happy liars’ press injunction
bless their labour’s sweet dysfunction.

Locks and bars won’t spoil the fun.
We’ll pay the bills again.
While endless lawyer’s pages run
and maggots sue for gain.
Happy that liar’s press injunction
on a future felon’s term reduction.


2004
 


Second Book of Satires


Canticle for A Peacemaker:
 
Blood-soaked Graf Bismarck
drew steel from the Rhur
Lister, old Lamarck,
Dunant and Pasteur
marched out of the ark
to campaign for cure.

Dukes in the Kinsky
weighed out each bet,
while Lobatchevsky
prevented upset.
Chance had its ruler
in Leonid Euler.

Chomsky and Weaver,
for the State Department,
worked like the beaver
on their argument
that Skinner's receiver
was a lousy deceiver.

Brute power has begot
a self-dealing hand.
Now peacetime forgot,
how to be underhand.
Human progress has a plot:
demand supplies our lot.

1990