The Farmer's Donkey

Ding Dong Dell, into the well
Fell the farmer’s donkey
It brayed like hell so he could tell
Where was that wonky donkey

To get it out he then did shout
To all his friends and neighbours
“Come give a hand here on my land
I’ll pay you for your labours!”

The well was deep with sides so steep
They had no clear suggestions
“How can we pull without a bull?”
“You’re always asking questions!”

The farmer said “The donkey’s dead
So let’s just fill the well in”
And so they started broken hearted
But donkey got the hell in

As all the sand did fall and land
Upon the donkey’s back
It shook aside and then it tried
To stand on it and pack

The sand below it seemed to grow
And rose as sand did plummet
When out it jumped ‘cause all the dumped
Sand had reached the summit

It’s rather sad that donkey mad
Now bit the farmer’s butt
The farmer cried and later died
From septicaemiac cut

The moral song when thing’s go wrong
And fate has come to pass
You’ll surely die if fail when try
To cover up your Ass

Chris Higginson
2nd Provocative Verse

Mugabe's Mausoleum

As millions starve, Mugabe builds a £2m shrine
(from the Daily Telegraph)

“Work has already begun on a museum, dedicated to the life and dubious achievements of the 83-year-old president, in his home district of Zvimba, 65 miles west of the capital, Harare.
Once complete, the museum will house Mugabe's prison letters, photographs from the war in the Sixties and Seventies against the minority white government of Ian Smith, his old clothes and copies of his famously fiery, and often intemperate, speeches.
The museum will also display some of the many gifts the president has received during his 27 years in office from those who have enjoyed his patronage - most of them members of his ruling Zanu PF party.
Pride of place is expected to be taken by a 16 ft-long stuffed Nile crocodile - a recent birthday gift from Mugabe's loyal ministers and officials.”


Mugabe’s Mausoleum

Mugabe, Blair both long in power
Approach at last their final hour
Both of them have stayed too long
They both ignored the final gong
That rang out loud across the land
Of both their countries, hand in hand
At last they near the final fence
They both desire prolonged pretence
That we will all recall they ruled
So well, but we will not be fooled
But now the difference ‘tween these two
Is coming clear to me and you
Blair will now be harshly judged
With legacy now somewhat smudged
But Muggers knows just how to twist
The Truth and thus confound the list
Of crimes he did against the nation
So now he lays the first foundation
Of a shrine that will him praise
With tokens, gifts put in displays
But pride of place a crocodile
Migrator from the far off Nile
Will this dictator represent
With all his lies and false intent
What better choice to memorise
This fiend who came to terrorise
The people that he said he’d lead
But turned their corpses into feed
For his greedy appetite
That swallows all both black and white


I’m pleased that he has turned out thus
To prove to all, that those of us
Who cast our doubts that he could rule
Have been proved right, although it’s cruel
The world needs some satanic curses
To show results when Good reverses
So in Mugabe’s burial crypt
Will lie the lowest Man has dipped

Chris Higginson
2nd Provocative Verse

Are We Blind?

Are We Blind?

Nature punished man one day,
She took a species right away
Never more we’d see it play
And did we care? No chance! No way!

So then another was deleted
To make the punishment repeated
We said “It isn’t we who cheated!”
Why’s it that we’re so conceited?

So then a swathe of types were lost
To see if we would count the cost
As we away our future tossed
As more from off the list we crossed

And did we care? No not a chance!
To make a stand or take a stance?
Not we, without a backward glance
Just trundled on as if in trance

As long as it’s not humankind
That with extinction is entwined
We’ll carry on, not peek behind
Because we know we have been blind

So let’s own more and squander wealth
Of lives not ours. It’s not our health
That’s in demise, although by stealth
It will be us
It will be us
It will be us

Chris Higginson
2nd Provocative Verse

Age Concern

My little dog, he’s old like me,
He’s grey around the muzzle
And yet he sits and stares like he
Can understand life’s puzzle

He knows his life will stop quite soon
But doesn’t seem to fret
Maybe he is quite in tune
To greet the end we get

I sometimes wonder how he knows
He seems so much at peace
Does he sense just where he goes
When he gets 'life release'

His years are shorter, far, than mine
Yet seems he is not jealous
And so I wonder why for sign
Of long life we are zealous

In modern life, we wave the wand
Like many countless folk
Who’ve gathered means so far beyond
What seems to be a joke

And so we fight off penury
We fear to lose our wealth
To rob us of a century
Of greed and sex by stealth

But how, in truth, was it we chose
This woe-begotten state
Where all we do is consult those
Who stop us from being ‘late’

Have we got so little trust
There is no life awaiting
And thus, to go on living must
Be what we’re reinstating

Next, if I’m a lucky one
Will be there when I share
All delight under the sun
Without a manmade care

To be a mayfly for a day,
An eagle on the morrow
A bat, to play the night away
And then a Swift or Swallow

Why do we think that owning all
Is what makes life worthwhile?
When joyful minutes can enthral
Like inches in a mile.

Chris Higginson
1st Provocative Verse

Accountability

He stands there doing shopping, his mother strokes his hair
“Not that one James, it’s got a dent, take that one over there! ”
“Now did you clean your room today, and change your underwear?”
“If I don’t chase you all the time, you’d lose your head, I swear! ”

But James is now just forty two, his hair is going grey
He’s never had a chance to live, he’s never had a say
And yet he has the right to vote, make choices on his own
He won’t, he can’t, he’s lost you see, without a mother’s moan.

In Africa I know a child; he’s ten if he’s a day
He’s witnessed death and famine; he’s never learned to play
His parents dead from plague of AIDS, so he’s the eldest now
Of seven little sisters, and too small to push the plough.

So what now is an adult? It’s not one’s age that’s plain!
Is it our experience, or how we cope with pain?
Or when we learn to understand another’s argument
Instead of throwing tantrums, with attitudes all bent.

We send our men to go and fight for ‘freedom’ and a cause
To force our ways on other men, to adhere to our laws
This lack of co-existence may define our toleration
The rules of childish games perchance just lack this integration.

A child that kills another child, should he now go to trial?
What defines his adulthood? To face the last green mile.
Or should an old man, with an age, of seven in his mind
Be forced to live the rules we make when he’s so far behind.

All of us perhaps revert, when challenged by life’s forces
Back to childhood attitudes, to follow ancient courses
Of inherited behaviour, perhaps that is the test:
Improve how it was done before, and do our level best.

Chris Higginson
1st Provocative Verse

A Husband

I’m looking for a husband, you know the sort of chap
The kind of guy who copes with things and never has a flap
The one who fixes cars and bikes and often mows the lawn
Takes the kids on Sunday hikes while I with hammock yawn

I’m looking for a husband, you know the sort of bloke
Who listens to the things I say and laughs out when I joke
He’ll do the Sunday B B Q and carves the Sunday roast
Then gives me a foot massage, that’s the thing I like the most

I’m looking for a husband dependable and true
Who likes to have discussions but never will argue
Can sit in friendly silence, and never has to babble
Will make and pour the tea for me and lets me win at scrabble

I’m looking for a husband; I know they’re pretty rare
The kind who opens doors for me and lets me have his chair
And earns enough at his travail so we’re debt and mortgage free
But doesn’t put his work ahead of caring about me

The husband I am looking for might seem quite rare to you
And friends have tried to tell me that in number they are few
But I have hope of finding one I hope he will be free
‘Cause I’ve been one for forty years, I want one just like me!

Chris Higginson,
1st Provocative Verse

A Dog's Lament

A Dog's Lament

I begged you not to use the gun,
When you thought that all was done.
Your hopes and dreams had gone awry
You told me all, I saw you cry.

You looked at me through distant eyes
I knew your truth, saw through his lies.
Your dread of life before you lay:
A path so twisted, forked and stray.

I loved you so that I would die
If it would help you, make you try
To see this world in different hue
Or let me die and come with you.

You saw not, my pain would kill
Me, when you left body still.
So now I’m left to grieve alone
To starve and fret to skin and bone.

And so must I, to suicide
No gun have I to last confide
So I must run away from home
To seek my death, a dog alone.

A truck’s great wheel may strike me down
Perhaps the river: help me drown
Only so, to be with you
Away from him, who hurt me too.

(A friend committed suicide: Two days later, we found her dog dead at the side of the road.)

The Loo Book

The Loo Book
(the original name for 1st Provocative Verse)

Introduction


I sit upon my throne and think, what am I doing here
Confronted by a porcelain sink, upon a holy chair.
A friend has given me this book, to read upon the Loo
Now isn’t that a silly thing for me to want to do!

He said that I could rip a page, and use it on my rear
All I have to do to it, is read it and then tear
Along the dotted line that I, cannot even see
Without my reading glasses. What has he done to me?

He thinks it’s kind of funny, to torment me this way
A sort of flat pack toilet roll! What is he trying to say?
But on the other hand maybe, I’ve got some time to spare
To sit here reading rubbish, as though I haven’t got a care.

Chris Higginson.

The Court Jester

Introduction to 2nd Provocative Verse:

In days of yore the one before the King could criticise
She rang her bell then she could tell what paupers said with cries
And so the Courts would hear reports as chanted by the Jester
The only one under the sun with quest that was to test her

And so the joke she sang and spoke was hidden in the verses
The King with wine might be benign enough to hear the curses
Of common folk who bear the yolk of laws and wars and cages
May find a line that has a sign of protest in these pages.

Chris Higginson