Offence at Halo

Went to the Acoustic Night last night Bristol's finest open mike poetry / music event, every fortnight, up the Gloucester road, look for Halo on the right. As ever, it was a riproaring farrago of heartrenderingness where soul is poured out in syllabic symphonies. There was a poet there from Vancouver by the name of Randy, and a few minutes spend on Google persuades me that it was none other than Randy Jacobs aka R C Weslowski. I deduced that from descriptions on the first 2 pages (who ever gets beyong the first 2 pages on Google - apart from nerdytypefolks?) featuring such words as "fearsome". So that's 2 great poets from Vancouver - last time it was Mark Berube www.myspace.com/markberubemusic and one of his tunes stuck in my brain for 7 whole days.

I did this one because it's topical again:

They say no-one's Badder
Than Moqtad al-Sadr
But when shove comes to push
He's no worse than Bush.

And I followed up with

Lines on the Death of John Paul II

"No Popery" Ian Paisley cried,

and now that John Paul II has died,

there is no Pope,

so can we hope

for Orangemen with peace inside?

Nope.

They just can't cope

without a Pope.

The Papists want a Papacy

and Paisley needs an enemy.

Without a Pope

they'd all just . . . mope.

It really makes you think:

what if it pushed them off the brink ?

what if it made them turn to drink

or even . . . turn to dope?

Might be a blessing in disguise.

Imagine if the smokes that rise

above the Convocation

(as they all grope

for a new pope)

should symbolise a wider scope

for toleration?

What if the newly chosen Pope,

red-eyed, and reading Rattigan

loped lazily around the Vatican

flashing the peace sign,

Oh wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Fine.

But that could be a slippery slope

No-one would want a hippy Pope.

We should not hope

for a doped pope;

But could we simply go for one

that has a well developed sense of fun?

(Maybe when Ratzinger’s gone?)

(c) Richard Lawson

M4

7.4.05

So I managed to offend the American Right, Islamists, Christian fundamentalists, and Catholics, all in one brief stand at the mike. Not bad for one night's work.