London Poetry: Fleet Street By Monkey Poet

Rachel Holdsworth
By Rachel Holdsworth Last edited 109 months ago
London Poetry: Fleet Street By Monkey Poet

monkeypoet2If comedy plus performance poetry, with added social commentary and a dash of the film 300 thrown in, sounds like your kind of thing, allow us to lead you to COG ARTspace and Monkey Poet, aka Matt Panesh. He's doing a two and a half week run of his Edinburgh show 300 to One, in which the Spartan bloodfest meets World War One, plus a set of stand up poetry. To give you a taste of the latter (without the stand up part), here's a poem about London's honourable tradition of the press:

Welcome to historic Fleet Street,
the heart of the free press.
The place where the journalists first met
to discuss the stories of the day
but now peddle a different kind of meat.

Read all about it?
Not no more.
Now it’s celebrity exposes by the score.

Britney exposes her labial flaps
as she indiscreetly disembarks from a taxi cab.
Kate Moss’s moss is on page three
(personally, I don’t think that’s a waste of trees).
Princess Eugenie nearly shows her Royal Charms.
(In the making of this poem not a single Royal was harmed.)

Welcome to historic Fleet Street, the heart of the free press.
The place where the journalists first met
to discuss the stories of the day
but now simply masturbate,
over the paparazzi’s latest shoot,
over the paparazzi’s latest score.

“Thank God Paris Hilton is a spoilt rich whore —
She’s always good for a double-page spread.”
Say lazy Editors whilst scratching their heads,
“What the Public wants, the Public gets,
It’s not my fault it’s mainly breasts.”

Monkey Poet is on at COG ARTspace, 113 Southgate Road N1, 11-29 March. Tickets £10.

Last Updated 26 February 2015