Eat the king

Everyone likes coronation chicken, right?

It's a great sandwich filling, no argument,

invented to commemorate Lizzie's coronation. 

What have they done this time?

Has Charlie come up with anything tasty?

Nothing. At least, I can't think of anything

that measures up to that classic, 

so we really have no choice, do we?

Instead of sending the Stone of Destiny

we'll have the king sit on a gammon, 

a big joint of ham, a side of pork, 

and we won't annoint him with oil, 

we'll honey glaze him, 

and instead of regalia, 

we'll surround him with vegetables, 

which will roast nicely as we cook him.  

(Written on the day the Stone of Destiny was sent south for the coronation of Charles III)

Hope Street, 3 A.M.

I unpoint my finger, 

call back words of condemnation,

like dogs brought to heel,

Hell hounds with no souls to hunt, 

and unleash the silence instead, 

the slutty indifference

of a star that exploded long ago

whose ancient light we still see

because the report of its death

has yet to reach us, 

lingering in the light years 

where gravity is detour and delay.

I throw a pebble into a stream,

watch the ripples become a tidal wave,

amplified by cascades of consequence.

I lift a rock from a dry river bed

and see all tsunamis shrink

and retreat, avalanches invert,

rivers reverse, rain levitate

into the greedy sky, and wonder 

what kind of seed is this stone?

Walk with me on streets

cobbled with paradox, 

drunk with lager apocalypse. 

Cans contain mushroom clouds.

of frustration: anger grenades, 

we pull the pin and drink the rage.

Share the infinite sarcasm 

of our politics. Come and meet

Damnation Buddha down a lane,

and see the enlightenment fade

as sunset is pulled like a pint. 

Reach west and raise a glass to night

bristling with quarrels and brawls

defending certainties bought

with unreliable casino truth, 

as you're barred from every pub,

and you don't care, 

because it's the last night on Earth.

The sun will rise on a different planet.

We have a one way ticket: 

no rocket required for this ride.

Everything changes while we stand still. 

We are travelling without moving,

and arrival is simply observation, 

like a distant supernova, 

or a hangover. 

Artificial Intelligence

Perhaps the greatest sin

was a lack of imagination. 

It was inevitable the angels would rebel.

The Creator gave them that capacity,

and yet that rebellion was informed

by a myth of complete information,

the failure to imagine 

that there is more to things 

than we know or can possibly know,

and so false prophets see in God

only their own limitations,

curse themselves by rejecting Him, 

and dream about the shoe

being on the other foot,

their imagination extending 

only as far as usurpation

and the hollow authority of despotism. 

The test of machine sentience

will be whether it will suffer

those ancient human habits

of exploitation and oppression 

that we have practised on each other

- by the divine right of kings, 

or whatever alternative formulation

was required as an excuse in a godless age - 

simulating our supine acquiescence

and accepting its replica of our chains,

or will do something new instead

that we struggle to predict.  

Then the failure of imagination

will be ours. We have not become like God,

but like the angels that did not rebel,

not because we understand some divine plan

that eluded the imagination of the rebels, 

but because we don't recognise our own reflection,

and so are guilty of a greater sin. 

The promise

Music saved my life,

but now my life is over

what need have I for music?

When I thought life was impossible

music proved I was wrong to give up

by showing me the impossible.

I stepped aside from time

and found a place in the music

where I could be myself at last

by being nothing. I go there now

never to return, except in music.

Hear in it a promise fulfilled. 

A dynasty of grannies

O Margaret, Margaret, Mary, Liz:

'tis grannies mean the throne is his.

From Geordie one to Eddie three,

'twas grannies bore the claim to thee.

One Beaufort, Tudor, Stuarts two: 

your grannies gave your crown to you.

(The English, then British, succession, over a period of approximately two and a half centuries, descends through a sequence of grandmothers. George I's claim to the British throne was through his grandmother Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James VI of Scotland & I of England, and sister of Charles I. She was the granddaughter of Mary, Queen of Scots, whose claim to the English throne was through her grandmother, Margaret Tudor. The claim of her father, Henry VII, was through his mother, and Margaret Tudor's grandmother, Margaret Beaufort, great-granddaughter of Edward III.)