Steve Taylor
WES,
​
or Doctor Streeting, the man in charge
believes there is too much mental health
and prescribes less for everyone. Not just
the anxious and the clinically depressed, but
the suicidal and those inclined to violence,
self-harm in particular. It’s too easy to find
yourself in poverty, damp and cold, isolated
clogging up the system
without secure accommodation. People need
to get out there and just work harder. If you
can’t afford the heating, wear another jumper.
A cardigan is useful. Cardigans have pockets
for your tissues if you can’t stop weeping.
Tears are a drain on the economy, provide
succour to our enemies. Screaming is forbidden
it makes Israel feel threatened. Assisted dying
is complicated but Labour is here to help you.
Wes says
he’s doing things the Tories only dreamt about.
...
​
​
A History of the Labour Party
Prozac first, in ever increasing doses
and then Citalopram
in the same low dose, plus other things
I discovered for myself
by trial and error
I’ve been depressed since
I started taking drugs for depression
It could have been the other way round
It’s so long ago I forget
But it’s about time they
sorted themselves out
Steven was born and raised in Hyde, near Manchester. He lives in Kilburn, London. He has had over 500 poems published in various magazines and periodicals.
Not Mary
My favourite is where
one of my aunts, not Mary
always told the Tories
she was voting for them
but needed a lift
to the polling station
getting herself a Bentley
with cow leather seats
to deliver her
most comfortably
to democracy
then made her mark
for Labour
She’ll be for Jeremy
walking if necessary
The Quality of Dope
If you ignore the warnings
and put your head
inside the plastic bag
that’s carried skunk
all the way from Penrith
to Kilburn you end up writing
an endorsement like this. I’m
supporting Jeremy Corbyn
because he wouldn’t
put out the eyes of children
to further his ambition
and the others would
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
Militant Thistles