The poem I’m publishing here foresees the end of the world. The false god Me n’ Mine has too many worshippers to be withstood. Besides Greed, the angel which serves Me n’ Mine most faithfully is the Lie and it is the Lie by which the false god rules and will destroy us all.
In the beginning was the Word.
Conceived by light
and the power of human brain
it traced the flight of breath
and through the soft and wondrous delicacy
of throat and tongue and lip
became sound and meaning.
And the Word was with God
and the Word was God
and the same was in the beginning
with God.
But an instant after the Beginning,
unseen by God,
the Lie
stole into the garden
like a shadow
the shadow of the Word
and slid between the fact and the fear,
between the wonder of I and all that’s outside of Me,
and its tongue was forked and all a-flicker
and its eyes were cold and alert.
Nah then, the Lie whispered,
What gives ‘ere ?
And there were gods in the garden, many gods –
the true, the One, the one true God –
and the many that were false.
Nah then, said the Lie.
I need some living space.
To whose temple shall I offer my support
in return for my breakfast
my “daily bread” ?
And God the One, the only true,
Creation itself, Alpha, Omega,
the Creator of Matter, the Fact of Matter
the Matter of Fact and Reality,
made no answer to the Lie’s deliberations
and merely wept.
And all along the Lie knew
its way to go and where to rest
and slid by devious means
to the gold-clad tower of a deadly
god of human sacrifice
called Me ‘n Mine.
I shall place myself
at your service, O mighty
Me ‘n Mine and help you claim
the garden for your purposes,
your jealousies and terrors
your hatreds and your pride.
I shall help you in this great work
of poison and pollution, ruin and degradation,
in return for a daily spot of breakfast –
and let me add that more than a spot –
a “full English” you might say –
would encourage my loyalty still further
to the point
of not infrequent overtime.
They sealed their pact, recognizing
the blood-tie. And the Lie became an angel
in the service of Me ‘n Mine, a foul demi-god
with gold-lacquered wings and that familiar forked tongue,
an angelised recruiting agent
an evangelist , a soul-stealer, a maker of creatures,
creatures in thrall to Me ‘n Mine
creatures of the Lie.
And following the customs of Middle Earth
where Good meets Evil, light meets dark,
they gave these captive creatures
the name “orc”
which, when registered
and beamed onto a screen
is always twinned with a virtual dot.
Thus : Joe Bloggs.orc
means we got ‘im
we stole the soul of that Joe Bloggs
and another one bites the dust.
And our garden once so fruitful
turns to wasteland ever more swiftly
as another one bites the dust
to the glory of Me ‘n Mine
to the glory of the Lie
and another one bites the dust…
and another one bites the dust…
So let us review
a few of these dot orcs
in their robot squadrons,
these creatures of Me ‘n Mine.
Let them engage in a short march-past
eyes right and glassily alert,
clutching to themselves
at an angle of sameness that spans the world
their dread weaponry of the Lie.
And of course there’s Trump.orc
Or Drumpf, or Tromb, or Dromb,
or drum or tomb or bomb.orc
dealer in dust, in money, in lies,
who favours towers which flag his name
and feudal walls of delusion and fear,
walls that divide and also confuse
fact with fantasy and truth with lie.
Where there are tired, poor and huddled masses
there we find Trump.orc,
strutting and twittering, making hay
and puerile scenes of fire and smoke.
Not America great again.
Each breath he breathes
America falls further from esteem
and becomes a fearsome joke.
But let us look eastward now to find
a lesser though similar joke.
Please regard the Maybot.orc
parading down the street
weak and utterly unstable
on a pretend chariot of painted gold
drawn by three dementing daleks.
And Brexit means Brexit
and nothing has changed
and red white and blue
and stuff you, you and you.
But in fact and truth, that chariot
is a vast and noisome bubble of fart
produced last year
by half the UK population
who felt let down and counted out
following years of belittlement,
“austerity,” unworthy leadership
and then a foul feast of lies
dished up by orcish fanatics trained in deceit
and a venomous chorus of dot orc billionaires.
It was a fart
swiftly trapped by liars
and forced into a cart-shape
and then wrapped in a flag
to make it look like a decision.
And the EU was not what it meant.
It was not the EU at all.
The EU was not it at all.
But Maybot.orc, seized that moment
of national distress and manifest need
and made it hers:
“The People have spoken ” she lied
in a hushed and reverential tone.
But it wasn’t the People she revered.
Maybot.orc is a pious devotee
of dust and Me n’ Mine.
“Listen to me,” she cried.
“It is I, the Maybot, who speak.
Here on this fart disguised as a chariot
I have come into my own.
And I shall bring global glory
to my fraught, distraught and tiny island
and I shall have control.
And I shall spray that dark tower
at the heart of Kensington
in a golden dust of denial. And I
shall bring back foxhunting,
grammar schools, aircraft carriers,
bows, arrows and the battle of Agincourt.
I shall bring back everything
and everything I restore
I shall cover in a golden dust cloud
of lie and denial. So let us now praise
the Lie and reward all liars
with tax relief and an OBE.
For principle, competence and honour are dead.
Me ‘n Mine is all that matters in the world.
Play that again, Sam. Mine and me.”
And in Maybot’s noisome train, we must pay
a moment’s attention to BoJo.orc
as he stumbles and fumbles along,
our Bullington Braveheart of the lie.
BoJo.orc makes jolly funny jokes
in Latin and loves it when we look at him
but if in some Etonian classroom
he once was taught to tell the truth
he forgot that lesson ages back.
Bully bully bully, mutters Bojo.orc
let Maybot just try to give me the sack.
And look, there’s Gove.orc
skipping about on the Maybot fart
waging war on the “Blob”, our teachers,
wielding his long knives, that clever man
wearing the livery of the Lord of Murdor
and those other billionaire barons
who’ve fought these many years
to make this country mean again,
in thrall to Me n’Mine.
Oh those billionaire barons, those global brothers in arms.
They devote their lives to helping each other
keep their fortress walls intact
and a clean and peaceful community at bay.
With their long knives out
the barons range the public highway
scattering gold dust, meat and wine
on any procession around the world
that marches for Me n’ Mine.
In the beginning was the Word
and the word was the silence of God
and an outcast child
asleep in a stable.
And the end when it comes
will be the triumph of the Lie
that pours like dust
from the jaws of Me’ n Mine.
We shall end in flames
in darkness and in disgrace
not with a bang
but a dust-filled whimper.
Rogan Wolf, November 12th 2017