Fly Fishing

Modern-day spies
are breeding like flies,
droning and groaning
they blacken the skies.

A flotilla in flight,
they spy day and night,
a thoroughly shocking
and awesome sight.

We’ve got our spies,
if you fasten your flies
beware of reprisals
if anyone ties

mosquitoes or gnats
or any such twats,
they are all going to feel
the weight of our swats.

We’re not on our own
we’ll spray any drone
that’s thinking of entering
our no-fly zone.

© John Goss

US military surveillance future: Drones now come in swarms?

John Goss is decoding the poetry of George Ivanov, a Russian émigré poet of the Silver Age. His great prose-poem, Распад атома (1938), was allegorical and gave clues to how the Australian language works.

First among equals

Thank you so much Charles Taylor,

somebody had to be first,

first among the world leaders,

but not the worst of the worst.

You’ve paved the way for the others

who condone maiming and rape.

at last there’s something like justice,

no tyrant can ever escape.

Yet something seems to be missing,

something is not really fair,

the prisons are too overcrowded

to contain tyrants like Blair;

and who is going to arrest him,

him and his henchman, Jack Straw?

A very extraordinary rendition

of some kind of flaw in the law.

© John Goss

Charles Taylor found guilty of abetting Sierra Leone war crimes

John Goss blogs at http://johngossip.blogspot.co.uk/ where some of his opinions may not meet with
everyone’s approval.

The Devil’s own

Incubus and succubus, Satan, Uncle Sam,
innocents, and murder, babies in a pram,
gremlin, homunculus, and impish leprechaun,
Herod of Judea, slaughter of newborn.

Medusa, a serpent, dragoness of dread,
hissing, dismissing, pissing on the dead,
smoke from its nose, flames at its tongue
forked with duplicity, sing the old song.

Beelzebub, Prince of Lies, some things don’t wash,
Hell for Iraqis, Hieronymus Bosch,
heaven for soldiers, the patriot’s game,
washed clean, renewed, absolved of all blame.

©  John Goss

U.S. Marine at Haditha massacre court martial will serve ZERO jail time

Eyewitness report which inspired the poem
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John Goss has a BSocSc degree in International Studies, and an MLitt in English, both from the
University of Birmingham. His first volume of poems, Borborygmi of the brain (1991) is out of
print.

Above the law

What happened to the Magna Carta?
What happened to the rule of law?
While David Kelly is a martyr,
habeas corpus is no more.
Attorney Generals are the culprits
they flout United Nations’ law,
and from their House of Commons’ pulpits
take our country into war.

About the death of David Kelly,
What should anyone believe?
Not the “Commons” on the tele’
the Right Dishonourable Grieve,
who smugly told compliant Members
no inquest ever for our ears;
trusts that nobody remembers
in seventy unforgiving years.

Goldsmith shunned the resolution
turned to war, and, Holy Cow,
Grieve maintained the evolution,
the two are holier than Thou!
Attorney Generals are mighty,
and don’t you think the matter odd
pretending they are God Almighty,
when Gus O’Donnell’s known as God.

© John Goss

Decision not to hold David Kelly inquest was 'unlawful'
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John Goss has a degree in International Studies from the University of Birmingham. He is a lyricist and playwright.

Blow for Bradley Manning

Praise to whistle-blowers,
we need good referees,
penalising dirty play,
more disclosures please.

Blow for Bradley Manning, blow your whistles blow.
That's the only way that we ever get to know.

Praise the whistle-blowers,
eyes as sharp as owls,
whistles at the ready
blowing up on fouls.

Blow for Bradley Manning, blow your whistles blow.
That's the only way that we ever get to know.

Blow for Julian Assange,
and Cathy Massiter
blow for Mr Murray
a true ambassador

Blow for Bradley Manning, blow your whistles blow.
That's the only way that we ever get to know.

Blow for Sarah Tisdall
and Doctor Kelly too
for all the whistle-blowers
who risk themselves for you.

Blow for Bradley Manning, blow your whistles blow.
That's the only way that we ever get to know.

© John Goss

Bradley Manning: MEPs' open letter to the US government

WikiLeaks accused Bradley Manning 'should never have been sent to Iraq'

Author's Note: Today (13 Dec) there will be a small vigil outside the US embassy in London at 2 p.m. On Friday a pre-trial hearing starts at Ford Meade in Maryland which is expected to last 5 days. After 18 months in prison his mental state is said to be 'fragile'.
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John Goss has a degree in International Studies from the University of Birmingham. He is a lyricist and playwright.

Ghost of a hungry Hobbit

The ghost of Bilbo Baggins prowls Hall Green,
Wake Green Road and even Moseley Bog,
local rumours claim his spirit has been seen
elsewhere; not unlikely since he was a dog.
All his life he answered to his Baggins name
and took it with him to his doggy grave.
Today his life would not have been the same,
since now there is a battle on to save
The Hungry Hobbit, a little sandwich-bar,
the cafe-sign of which proudly displays
our local heritage; since it’s not that far
from where Tolkien spent his boyhood days.
Any name-change is down to corporate greed
(if lawyers get their way from SZC)
but quietly ask the question who will feed
the hungry Hobbit, Baggins’ ghost, and me?

© John Goss

Hungry Hobbit cafe told to change name
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John Goss has a degree in International Studies from the University of Birmingham. He is a lyricist and playwright. Here's the Facebook page to save the Hungry Hobbit .

The Kuala Lumpa Games

Water-boarding champion, George W. Bush,
chooses not to defend his record in Kabul, Bagh-
dad, or even US-sponsored exhibitions, hush!
to an unknown Uzbekistani gulag.
His world record of extraordinary renditions, hush!
remains unsurpassed; and his survival
is resting on a torturous regime, hush!
that eliminates the chances of a rival.
And one such rival, enigmatic Tony Blair,
has run him close; nobody can begrudge
Blair’s charismatic efforts to compare himself
to Bush. As he says himself: “History will judge”.

© John Goss

Symbolic war crimes tribunal tries Bush, Blair
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John Goss has a degree in International Studies from the University of Birmingham. He is a lyricist and playwright.

Do they really?

Do they really want to try Saif,
son of Muammar, at the ICC
on a list of charges
of crimes against humanity?
They say they do but when you think
a proper trial would not bode well
for NATO or the NTC
whose rebel forces caused a Hell
that saw Saif’s father, nearly seventy,
fatally buggered with a blade.
Do they really want to expose
crimes against humanity they made?
No doubt the English-educated
Saif, with a price upon his head,
will in unknown circumstances
like his father, end up dead!

© John Goss

International criminal court confirms that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has made contact

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John Goss has a degree in International Studies from the University of Birmingham. He is a lyricist and playwright.

To Michael Lyons

People like yourself, who cannot kill,
because their conscience tells them it is wrong
are much braver than those so-called heroes
immortalised in verse and song,
who follow orders, whatever they may be.
They are the sons of Horace, and as Owen said
adhere to that old lie: “Pro patria mori”
“and close the wall up with our English dead!”
And other dead who never read the bard
or even Tennyson, but battled onward,
“into the valley of death” all learn the lie
their governments pass on, as they lay to die.
It’s different now, with countless miles of no-fly zones
and remote bombing from our unmanned drones.
You didn’t need to make the stance you did
but I’m glad you did, I’m glad you did, so glad you did.
You’re  in good company, Lawrence Binyon,
was a medic too, and apparently the son
of a Quaker family opposed to war as a salvation
who gave us thoughts on war for every nation:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

© John Goss

Navy Afghan war objector Michael Lyons detained 
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You can explore John's talents at SOUNDCLOUD