Everything's Heating Up Nicely: Poems 2018 - 2022

By John Alexander Scott

John Alexander Scott’s third collection of poem’s runs through the early Brexit years, the Covid lockdowns and the over-arching climate crisis. Truly troubling times!
His poems suggest the Enlightenment has been forgotten as we enter a new Dark Age, an age of secular superstition, carefully managed and exploited by self-obsessed right-wing politicians, their “witchfinder” clergy media and all funded by the insatiable narcissism and greed of the corporations and the billionaire class.
By turns provocative and motivational, his poems are reflective, compassionate, self-deprecating, bemused, humorous, concerned, nostalgic, loving, surreal, perceptive, romantic, angry, hopeful, sarcastic, resilient. Something there for everyone, surely!
“A wicked satirical edge. Blisteringly funny and meaningful, his work will make you crack up… while simultaneously filling you with a mortal terror with the prospect of a bleak and alienating future.
The Kabaret at Kittchen, Hawkshead.

“Scott's writing takes an angled yet committed view on environmental issues, political ineptness, the growing power of the right-wing, personal relationships, a healthy obsession with the banal and a helping of the pure daft as well.”
Lancaster Spotlight.

“F***king brilliant! Reminds me of Ivor Cutler”
Laura Taylor, poet/compere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781471095610

Book preview

everything’s

heating up

nicely

john alexander scott

Copyright © 2022 John Alexander Scott

All rights reserved.

ISBN:  978-1-4710-9561-0

Deadication

for

The Human Race

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A big thank you to Colin Reynolds, Geoff Cox, Sulwen Roberts, Francis Prendeville, Steve Freeman.

modern angst, motivation and the resolve thing

In the face of hostility I planted wild flowers and got a dog.

In the face of hostility I bought three for the price of two crustless quiches.

In the face of hostility I ate them immediately.

In the face of hostility I prefer to be judged on my humanity not my productivity.

In the face of hostility I could become a counter-culture role model pioneering a self-subsistent organic vegetarian co-operative homestead in Vermont, or maybe just outside Staveley.

In the face of hostility I dreamt of the yellow plastic mountain of incontinence pads being fed into the furnace.

In the face of hostility I struck up the pose of a nineteen twenties’ communist agitator half way across a zebra crossing while a car full of young people raced past.

In the face of hostility that wasp. Should not. Have fucked. With me.

In the face of hostility I may take up smoking to mirror society’s self-destructive tendencies.

In the face of hostility I may start walking backwards like Western civilisation itself.

In the face of hostility should we let our employers walk all over us? Are we happiest when we are slaves?

In the face of hostility I will not be euthenased at the end of my commercially productive life.

In the face of hostility that wasp. Should not. Have fucked. With me.

In the face of hostility I will relinquish my admin duties and rediscover intuition.

In the face of hostility I will reject all coercion towards victimhood.

In the face of hostility I’m going to keep going and going and going and going and going and going and going!

And going and going and going and going and going and going.

In the face of hostility that wasp. Should not. Have fucked. With me.

But thank you wasp for the motivation.

This poem set to music by Martin Dewar, appears on our album ‘no other gods.’ Tom Robinson of BBC Radio 6 played it several times and even made it his ‘Pick of the Week.’

they are waiting

They are waiting in homes and offices.

outside classroom doors and in surgeries.

They are waiting with a story, a new joke or two.

They are waiting to speak to you.

They showered this morning, did a few stretches.

They dared themselves to feel good.

They have written a shopping list of hopes in their heart.

They have hidden the list in a place they daren’t look.

They are waiting in factories, libraries, shops.

They push up shutters, they’re open for business.

They store up intense questions that desire joyous answers.

They’ve all had enough of nonsense

They are waiting in cars, vans, buses, trains.

They are waiting to talk to someone,