Not the Poetry Bus

Read an article in the paper recently about protest songs in America. Then the Watercats comes up with the Protest Poetry Bus.

So I just want your revolution baby, as Transvision Vamp used to say. This morning was my monthly platelets appointment, so what better way to spend the time lying on a bed hooked up to a spin drier than to write left-handed the ultimate protest song.

This is my protest song

Ignore the police that watch on from the flanks
and pass me the petrol to burn down the banks.
They won’t lend us money to buy Chieftain tanks –
blame it on the Hang Seng in Hong Kong.
We’ve kept them afloat and we’ve gotten no thanks,
This is my protest song.

Cometh the day and soon cometh the hour
when the people will take to the streets to gain power.
Politicians crawl back in your holes now and cower
as we march to the beat of a gong.
The seeds of revolt are now starting to flower –
This is my protest song.

All of you boy bands may run for your lives.
We’ll hunt you all down with machetes and knives
and slash you to ribbons while giving high fives.
Louis Walsh, you have ruled for too long.
We have to ensure that real music survives –
This is my protest song.

Come brothers and sisters and have no more qualms
about the moral dimension of men bearing arms.
How else can we force shops to stock Lucky Charms?
Store shelves is the place they belong.
For what other reason do we tolerate farms?
This is my protest song.

Solidarity brothers! We have to address
the need for the hard-working man to work less.
Whoever he is, we will need to express
our contempt unequivocal and strong.
He’s ruining our vision of true slothfulness.
This is my protest song.

And while we’re about it, let’s ban mobile phones
and smash them to pieces with boulders and stones
and hang, draw and quarter anybody that owns
a Nokia – people it’s wrong
to pollute our clean air with those damn tinny tones.
This is my protest song.

So let’s have a witch hunt throughout this fair land
and decapitate poets we can’t understand.
Let all unintelligible waffle be banned
and clarity prevail among
purveyors of verse with indecipherable hand.
This is my protest song.

Let’s march on the Daíl ‘gainst the new Eurovision
which belittles our entries with tuneless incision.
We once ruled supreme, now they pour on derision –
let’s get back to the Ding-Dang-a-Dong.
Was opting for Jedward an inspired decision?
This is my protest song.

Masochists of Ireland! How apathy reigns!
It’s time that you got more reward for your pains.
Our new manifesto in detail explains
how to cast off the whip and the prong.
It’s time to rise up now and throw off your chains.
This is my protest song.

The traffic’s not moving, the roads are like starch
but motorists’ eyebrows have long ceased to arch
as they move at the pace of the cedar and larch.
So let’s march through the town in a throng.
Hang on! How are we going to get to the march?
This is my protest song.