Category: Uncategorised

‘I WAS NOT THERE’

I was not there in Arras being shot at by the snipers
I wasn’t smashed half-back to Blighty by Artillery fire at ‘Wipers’
I didn’t see my closest pals get blown to Kingdom come
Then try and raise my tattered spirits with one lousy tot of rum

I wasn’t pushed into a stinking trench to fight a dirty war
I wasn’t cast into the slaughter; the mud; the blood; the gore
With my demise or my survival boiling down to luck and draw
And I’m too terrified to visualize the sights of Hell you saw!!

I didn’t leave a factory, nor a desk job at the bank
To be marched into machine gun fire traversing from the flank
I wasn’t bleeding on the razor wire, nor deafened by the noise
Whilst being led by shocked and frightened men – themselves naught more than boys

I didn’t face towards the morning sun and feel my blood turn cold
Was not churned into Britain’s history – just 17 years’ old
I didn’t stumble over Flanders Fields to meet my bloody death
I never whimpered for my mother with my desperate dying breath

I do not lie out there in Tyne Cot beneath a cold white stone
A one-line epitaph from Kipling – my identity… ‘Unknown’
I wasn’t perished by the malice of a brutal enemy
I sauntered over Passchendaele unscathed, unscarred and free

I didn’t walk towards machine guns firing Hell for Leather
I went there on a coach and I complained about the weather!
I wasn’t on the killing fields, I wasn’t in a war
I was eating fillet steak and drinking 1664

For I have been to hear your story, I’ve stood beside your grave
I’ve stared across the Somme in wonder at the sacrifice you gave
I travelled from a land of liberty – the one you died to save
You and all the other paladins – the fearful and the brave

The Battlefields are pastures now, no trace of Hell is there
The screams of death have ebbed away, there’s birdsong in the air
The landscape is a vibrant green, not dead and dark with mud
For like us, those fields have been redeemed by previous British blood

A century’s now passed – your great repute has still remained
Alongside our greatest pantheons – your legend is ingrained
Although I never knew you, I remember you in prayer
But I can’t hold a candle to you… because I was not there!!

~

Copyright©Mac McFadden 2016

I Hate Hollywood‌

I Hate Hollywood, though I’ve never been
I’ve seen it enough on my TV screen
I Hate its ego, detest its vanity
Its ideology is anti humanity

I loathe its deception, despise its pretence
Elitism should be a civil offence
‘Authentically beautiful’ Hollywood stars
Vainly concealing their surgical scars.

I hate its eating disorders, its trout pout
The way it shamelessly implants self loathing and doubt
Stay young, be skinny, don’t dare to grow old
If you stop looking pretty, prepare to be trolled!

Its skin is too tanned, it’s teeth are too White
It’s developed a cure for cellulite??!!
Where’s the cowgirl with middle aged spread?
Where’s the male lead with the balding head?

Let’s invade and spoil the show
Give Superman a camels toe
Make Laura Croft a size 18
Make James Bond look like Mr Bean

Let the sexy seductress have thin lips…
Droopy breasts and spacious hips
Make the swashbuckling swordsman four foot three
Make the handsome stranger look like… me!!!

Nothing is natural, nobody’s real
Cotton wool balls aren’t a proper meal!
Today the Chef’s Special is laxative pills…
All the Heroes are Zeroes in Beverly Hills!

Copyright (c) Mac McFadden 2018

‘YOU CAN’T BEAT AN OLD FASHIONED ENGLISH ‘CAFF'”

You can’t beat an old-fashioned English ‘caff’
The scurrying, clattering, chattering staff
Typhoo puddles on wobbly tables
The builder-banter, the wide-boy-fables
The cackles of Winifreds, Ethels and Mabels
The Radio babble, the Street talk…
The clang of a waitress dropping your fork…
Frothy coffee in a bowl-shaped cup…
With a handle so small that you can’t pick it up!
Chipped lumps of Demerara
Being plopped into Albert’s tea by his carer
Diners trying to desperately force…
A flatulent, plastic tomato to spit out the sauce
The screaming scrapes of the chair legs
The lard-arsed smell of frying eggs
Bean-smeared plates with bacon fat on
The sausage cook with a sous chef’s hat on
The ‘Full English’ that won’t quite fit on the plate
Maintaining the country’s mortality rate
Teabags mocking their use-by date
Fried bread being served as a hangover cure
By a dexterous waiter whilst mopping the floor
Frozen butter pats that can’t be spread
Without making a right pig’s ear of your bread
Bakewell Tarts and Pukka Pies
Crinkled chips with a thousand eyes
Thin white toast with burnt bits
Rock cakes that survived the Blitz!
You can’t get all this in the Savoy or the Ritz
Feeding: workers, shirkers, paupers and princes
Trend setters and blue rinses
Night shift workers, ways and strays,
The Old Bill and the latest Krays
Fulfilling every culinary need
From Lizard Point to Berwick upon Tweed
Consoling the Lonely from Margate to Bath…
You can’t beat an old-fashioned English ‘caff’

Copyright(c)MacMcFadden2017