When your bestie hits fifty, it’s hard to put into sensible words what you feel – so I thought I’d just accept the fact that utter nonsense is what I am good at writing. So here it is – utter nonsense! It acknowledges Justin’s key passion (Prince) and his politics but the thing about this lovely guy is that he is liked by people from the harder left and by those nearer some sort of centre and even by people who just hate what the Tories are doing to our nation and its people – especially those most vulnerable to them. I adore him for this. So this poem is inside your card from me and my husband, Geoff, who loves you to bits too. But of course, you won’t get your card till Friday.

SCHOLARLY NOTES:

A short line version follows the big print one.

Prince Rogers Nelson is the birthname of Prince (pictured below)

Prince was born June 7, 1958 and died April 21, 2016

Justin is a man who cares for others – nay loves them with a kind of devotion.

Just in April, the twenty-second day,

Upon its cusp in fact, ninteen-hundred and

Seventy-two,  a child was born, we say.

Though an artist of sorts, he has no band

In whose name this Prince makes Revolution –

Not like Prince Rogers Nelson, just thirteen

***********

In April that year. Justin’s one to shun

Simple solutions – it is not his scene

************

Facilitating muddy, tangled

Intense drama out of  lack of justice –

Fermented when fairness becomes strangled

To death by Tories. “No-one but just us

Young truth can bring to pass”: from womb, he cries …

*************

To tomb, if need be. There’s something special

Opens up out of this man’s caring eyes

Dedicated to Good: no slack-fac’d devil

Awaits this hero. Whether the form of Mammon

Your conception is of evil, or of self …

Alone,  speak loud from the mouth of cannon:

 “JUSTIN IS FIFTY TODAY.” Feeling’s wealth! 

********************************

Short-line version:

Just in April, on its twenty-first day,

Upon its cusp in fact, ninteen-hundred and

Seventy-two,  a child was born, we say.

Though an artist of sorts, he has no band

In whose name this Prince makes Revolution –

Not like Prince Rogers Nelson, just thirteen

In April that year. Justin’s one to shun

Simple solutions – it is not his scene

Facilitating muddy, tangled

Intense drama out of  lack of justice –

Fermented when fairness becomes strangled

To death by Tories. “No-one but just us

Young truth can bring to pass”: from womb, he cries …

To tomb, if need be. There’s something special

Opens up out of this man’s caring eyes

Dedicated to Good: no slack-fac’d devil

Awaits this hero. Whether the form of Mammon

Your conception is of evil, or of self

Alone,  speak loud from the mouth of cannon:

 “JUSTIN IS FIFTY TODAY.” Feeling’s wealth! 

_____________________________________________

Of course our dog Daisy had to get into the act and insisted on sending her own card, with her own taste in versification.

_______________________________________________

How to write a poem! I only say

‘Woof!’.  Justin! Now throw me a trusty stick

And then, to greet your  fiftieth birthday

As a favour, I’ll deign give you a lick