Poetry

Ballade

You gentlemen and ladies who are in this all together

Who want me to join in and have the vaccine,

Well, please to stick that vaccine up your ass!

You men of my town, I was one

Who used to fight to be the hardest boy

Because that was the most we learned at school

And most of those I grew up with are dead

Or in and out of prison in the town.

So thanks for education. And the vaccine?

Well, that can go up someone else's ass.

You ladies, I am sure you recollect

I was a rotten virgin many years;

Ah me! So many years because of your neglect

You didn’t like me, no arranged marriage

For me, and so I took to self-abuse!

Today, you want me using the syringe,

Well, you can kindly cram it up your ass.

Professionals and law makers of state,

You people who know what is right and wrong,

I married in the end a lowly woman,

But what with benefits and being mad,

She has the full protection of the law,

While I don’t see my kids from year to year,

So stick your legal vaccine up your ass!

You, ladies, if you think I’m one of you,

And want me on your side to take the vaccine,

Where were your sons when I was in the Balkans,

And in the Middle East doing my part?

There were so few of us, like the Three Hundred

At the Hot Gates, and so in this regard,

Stick patriotic vaccines up your ass.

You gentlemen who band together now

And want the country safe and all lives saved,

I do not care for that, I care for God,

Despicable though I am and depraved,

So let God in and I will let the vaccine

In me, and I will be so well behaved,

Meanwhile just stick the damned thing up your ass!

You gentlemen and ladies, NHS,

You valiant heroes who have kept us safe

White coats, bleached indoor faces,

Portentous voices ordering us about,

And pushing drugs which barely work at all,

Fretting today that it is going to pot,

Just go ahead and stick it up your ass!

Friends, see how I will be confined to England,

Not be allowed to work, and get in trouble.

And I will say the same old honest thing:

Get all the vaccinations in one pile,

And all the good intentions and instructions,

Roll them up inside a big black bin bag,

And stick the lot of it right up your ass.