The People's Poet, Benjamin Zephyr Zodiac, has regained consciousness long enough to deliver a rousing election message...

It has worked. Finally. The world's 21-month long agony is over. Late last night, I and an assortment of West London's most progressive thinkers were clustered (as we are most nights) around the hospital bed in which our great friend and teacher, the world-renowned Dub Poet, Benjamin Zephyr Zodiac (known as BZZ, Benjie or The Master to his friends and admirers, as Wutless,  Mengkeh, or Duncy bat to his countless ex-wives and "baby maddas" - and as Reginald Augustus Wellington Pules to the tax authorities). We were listening to the monotonous beeps of the various monitors attached to BZZ's wasted body and the occasional gurgles of his weapons-grade medical marijuana and Red Stripe Premium Lager drip-feeds...

The Vicky Pryce verdict: the people's poet Benjamin Zephyr Zodiac comforts a shocked nation

The A 11 to Tragedy
De camera flashed on de A 11,
Fe to capture da image of a speedin' BMW 7,
And bruddas, when de evidence came to light
De photo not gwan show who was drivin' dat night.

Hot off the press! Benjamin Zephyr Zodiac demands justice for Chris Huhne!

Just Leave Us Alone! is enormously proud to be given the opportunity to print this anguished cry for justice from the poet laureate of the oppressed peoples of the earth. I should  point out that the attitude to members of the gay community - not to mention towards women who look like men - prevalent in the vibrant culture which spawned Ben isn't necessarily one with which liberal urbanites such as ourselves might feel entirely comfortable. But I think we can safely assume that Ben is really critiquing white, conservative, middle-class bigotry here rather than "dissing" homosexuals or, indeed, ugly women.

At last - the liberal world's poet laureate Benjamin Zephyr Zodiac breaks his silence!

Me poems ryhme, mostly.
Me speak for a generashun,
In a celebrashun, of de miscegenashun,
That has bring we unto de mighty multicultural vibrashun,
Dat ghetto by ghetto, street over street,
Gwan redefine wot we mean by "Nashun"

Carol Ann Duffy's Olympic poem: oh do shut up, you silly, talentless cow!

This is what our poet laureate came up with to celebrate the past fortnight. I was going to go off on one, but Peter Mullen has done done such a great hatchet-job for the Telegraph there's no point. As the splendidly splenetic ex-vicar puts it: "This rubbish is only possible in an age which doesn’t know what a poem is but imagines that it can be any lines in which the words don’t quite extend to the margins of the page." You can read the rest of his taekwondo-style assault here. Gird your loins and read on...

"Bruddas! Rise up for Julian Assange" by Benjamin Zephyr Zodiac

Yesterday evening I attended the Bedford Park Festival's annual poetry-reading event at St Michael and All Angels Church. This climaxed with the former Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, reading some of his latest, unpublished work. I remember thinking how blessed we, the crème de la crème of West London's cultural elite (at least, those of us willing to stump up the £7.50 entrance fee) were to be pesent at such a significant cultural event.

A perfect poetical vignette of modern liberal Britain

Carol Ann Duffy

One of the readers at the poetry event I attended last night – she has something to do with publicly-funded art workshops - chose “Stephen Lawrence” by noted lesbian, mother and  Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. The reader said she had been moved to do so by hearing the dead boy's mother, Doreen, on a recent edition of Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. “She’s still fighting for justice over police corruption,” the reciter explained. Here's the poem we were treated to:

We hail Benjamin Zephyr Zodiac, a vibrant new multicultural left-wing poet for these troubled times

As my readership includes most of the frightfully busy people who run this country, I imagine that many of you miss out the comments section - you tend to speed-read my posts and extract the most sparkling gems of wit and wisdom for unattributed recycling during, say, cabinet meetings, weekends at Balmoral, or while being interviewed by that frightful Welsh tit on the Today Programme. Consequently, I have to draw the attention of the many movers and shakers amongst you to an exciting new literary talent who evidently speaks for modern Britain.

Anti-Americanism has even infected our local poetry-reading group!

At a local poetry reading group last night I read a work by a well-known gay English fascist sympathiser, written in 1935. Titled “ Let England Be England Again”, it poo-poos the idea that England was ever a truly free or democratic country.

Why is it still okay to call yourself a Marxist?

The Christ’s College Debating Society held exactly one debate and three or four heroically alcoholic formal dinners during its approximately two years of existence.  It contained some thrusting young Labourite tyros, quite a few natural Conservatives – and one erstwhile Fascist. (And, before you ask – no, it wasn’t me.)

Benjamin Zephaniah and the toxic cult of black victimhood

I was doing the ironing and listening to BBC Radio 7 yesterday morning when, for some reason I couldn’t quite fathom, Benjamin Zephaniah came on and read some of his own doggerel. When I couldn’t take it any more – after about 30 seconds - I switched off. It was the second time I’d been forced to silence him in just under two hours.

Does our choice of poetry mean patriotism is making a comeback?

Sir Henry Newbolt

I stomped off to our local poetry reading group this evening to contribute “He Fell Among Thieves” by Sir Henry Newbolt. To recap, the poem – his best by a mile, I think – features a young British officer remembering comforting scenes from home as his treacherous Afghan captors prepare to behead him:

A solid job + conservative views = artistic genius

Charles Ives

I won’t read any novels or poems or listen to any classical music, unless a professional critic somewhere, at some time, has thoroughly approved of them. Isn’t that shameful?

I’m not sure I have ever bought a novel that didn’t have an approving quote on it, or read a poem that didn’t appear in an anthology from a reputable publisher or editor, or listened to a piece of classical music unless some authority has pronounced it worth hearing.

Ezra Pound and the Jungian "shadow" of racism

Ezra Pound wrote some of the last century’s most interesting, challenging and beautiful poetry. To his great credit, he was also a tireless champion of the work of other notable contemporaries, including T. S. Eliot and Wyndham Lewis.  On the debit side, he was one of the most repellently vicious anti-Semites that you’d never want to meet.