I'm Trying to Live and Let Live

 

I’m trying to live and let live

People in Boden fun print clothes

Fast-moving black spiders, ants

In my cupboards outwitting me with

Their highly organised business

Parents with loud voices in supermarkets

‘Theo do you want olive or sun-dried tomato

Tapenade?’ He wants fucking Wotsits

I’m trying to live and let live

Men of the cloth who have honed

That echoey voice of piety but care

Nothing for no-one, feigning grace then

Stuffing their faces with Battenburg

People in speeding Audis, smug-faced

Looking for all the world as if they’ve

Made it big in German metal boxes

Pathetic. I’m trying to live and let live

Women doused in enough perfume

To induce a migraine so blinding, I

Want to bury my head in the dog

And breath noxious flatulence instead

I’m trying to live and let live

Biz, biz busy people, far too busy

But time enough to tell you all about it

The condescending clap-trappers who

Listen to radio 4 and know everything

Stating the bleeding obvious like

I could never, ever know something like that

Neighbours who think Alfie Boe sounds better

Than our resident wood pigeons who

Are my only real friends, drowning

Out their coo cooing with manly tenor tones

People with two or three properties who

Only shop in Waitrose and tell us

It’s all such a shame and we should

All be thoroughly ashamed

Those who say ‘I love the heat’

Strip off and parade green veins and

Hobbit feet for all to admire while some

Of us must work. If they love the heat

So much why don’t they wear a coat?

I’m trying so hard to live and let live

Today I’ll let them stay alive

Another sunny day and maybe

You should all be murdered….