POETRY PAGE

 
There was a young boffin from Norwich
Who thought he would mutate his porridge.
He turned it bright green
With a gene of gangrene.
The marvels of molecular knowledge!

  
Little Boy Blue come blow on your horn,
The people are pulling up transgenic corn
Sharp with a sickle and quick on their toes
They're  ridding the world of GMOs
from Food 'n' Health 'n' Hope

We've got the soya, we've got the lawyers,
The politicians in our pockets all the way to President!
The press and TV to guarantee the
Co-operation of your nation in our new experiment.

You did not choose it, but you'll have to use it:
We'll get our 'Roundup-Ready' fingerprint in every pie you eat,
With every patent, be a bit more blatant,
Till our corporation's domination of your globe'll be complete!

Mister Monsanto! Monster Mutanto!
We're turning Satan into Santa - Give everybody cancer!
Coming through now, we're changing you now,
The mother-nature Terminators,
Hell-on-earth creators,
Gene-manipulators,
Biotech dictators.
The future's gonna hate us....

Food 'n' Health 'n' Hope

Seize the Day
Read about the song & listen to it here: http://www.seizetheday.org/monsanto/main.htm
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from Designer Kidz

Goodbye Ancient Mystery - the Call Of The Wild is history.
We'll weed out indigenous sperm with the aid of a smart designer-germ
Select the hot shots that we need for a cleaner, leaner, meaner breed;
A gene elite in a righteuos war, to waste whatever was on Earth before

Theo Simon, Seize the Day
Read about the song and listen to it here: http://www.seizetheday.org/designer.htm
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Down on the farm

So what you saying minister?
Don't you think it's kind of sinister?
Is profit margin all that you can see?
You broke Mother Nature's golden rules
Now you're feeding kids in schools
With fruits of your ungodly company

Seize the Day
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Transgenic honey

This is not food that the people need
It's a terminator-deal for corporate greed
Power of the people gonna stop the crop
The people in power have lost the plot

Seize the Day
listen to it here: http://nt.oneworld.org/radio/store/preview199346.ram
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Silent Spring
At an international meeting of entomologists experts warned that genetically engineered (GE) Bt crops are continuously exuding 10-20 times the amount of toxins contained in conventional (non-GE) Bt sprays, and are thus harming beneficial insects (such as ladybirds and lacewings) and soil microorganisms, and could well be harming insect-eating bird populations.

Lacewings and ladybirds, mind where you roam
The plants are all poisoned that once were your home
They’ve spliced in a toxin to kill off all pests
Now friendly bug-eaters will die like the rest

Ladybird, ladybird, have your children all flown?
The food chain is poisoned - we’re left here alone

THE BOSS'S REVENGE

God moved in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.
But then Monsanto seized the day.
GM became the norm

"We've cracked the mystery!" they said,
"And now WE'LL make the rules,
"We'll engineer their daily bread."
Oh dear, the silly fools.

For what those fellows hadn't gauged
About the King of Kings
Was how He hates to be upstaged
When it comes to making things.

Now all of us will get the blame,
Not just the scientist,
And every human being's name
May well be on the list.

We'll know not method, time nor day
Of that fierce, cleansing storm.
He moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform

Marian McCain

GOD'S RETIRMENT

Scientists want God to retire...

One day a group of eminent scientists got together and decided that Man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. 

The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need You. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't You just retire?"

God listened very patiently to the man and then said, "Very well, but first, how about this, let's have a Man-making contest." 

To which the scientist replied, "OK, great!"

God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."

The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.

God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"

 
John Seymour (85 year old author and organic farmer)
on Irish GM beet protests

The GM Fairies got it right
they bashed the Beet in dead of night
Monsanto's game - just one solution
they had to stop this life pollution.
Mutant beet we do not need
Planted in Ireland just for greed.
Those twisted genes for sure would spread
to gardens, fields, and our daily bread.

 
GREEN TOMATO POEM

The green tomato gave a frown
and heaved a fretful sigh.
"I'm bored with hanging round this plant.
I want to dance ... to fly."

Her grumbling words were overheard
by a passing scientist,
and trying to be helpful, he
set out to grant her wish.

The little green tomato
thought the scientist was God.
So she let him pluck her from the plant
and wed her to a cod.

And now the green tomato
has a great life, thanks to him.
She may not dance; she may not  fly, 
but blimey, can she swim!

<C>  Cerridwen 27th September 1998
 
Ode to John Innes
"Over the years John Innes Centre science has resulted in many varied products for the consumer" - Dr Ray Mathias, JIC, 26/10/98

There is a young Prof at John Innes
Who's developed an entirely new genus
It has just one small fault,
When combining with salt,
Of exploding the organs within us

Nick Jackson

Song for John Innes

JIC scientists highlight their GM rice research in terms of the usual "GE miracle to feed the world" hype. As ever, the questions of the risks, who really benefits, and how exactly poor farmers are to afford hi-tech agricultural products are completely ignored. See: Genetic Network News 3

Let them eat rice

The folk at John Innes are nice
They'll feed the world's poor upon rice
With research galore 
Behind the lab door
While the poor try to stump up the price!

Oh, the folk at John Innes are nice
Zapping pests and disease in a trice
They may well disorder
The natural order
That's the price that you pay for a splice!

Oh, the folk at John Innes are nice
And know just how to entice
The cash that keeps stacking
From corporate backing...
Integrity's cheap at the price
Especially when you're so nice!
Spliced

Quiet under the tree a snowdrop sleeping
Virgin of drifts, not the kind to marry
An ear of wheat - old as Pharoh's granary
Inbred fruit of the plains, born to be eaten -

No Christian coupling this, church of science
Monsanto priests, dressed in white, endeavour
- neater than Adam's rib and twice as clever -
a delicate experimental splice

A mating most fecund, sowing defiled oats
Like dragons' teeth, alien corn in the guts
Every bit we eat a breaking down
Till we surrender, we are not immune

and tricky new viruses appear, weird
as a cornstalk's heart in a snowdrop's ear

Hylda Sims

Taken from:  "Spiral bound an anthology of poetry and songs of genes and their engineering", edited by Emily Johns and published by Hearing Eye, ISBN 1-870841-65-4 Contact: 99 Toriano Avenue, London, NW5 2RX (price: 4 pounds + 50p p&p)

 
"The debate that followed was led by Dr. Belinda Clarke, the scientific advisor, who... writes regular pieces for Norwich's Eastern Daily Press extolling the virtues of GM crops. The misinformation on offer included..."   for more on this

Stretching out with
Dr Belinda Spin
(with apologies to Aqua)

I'm a PR girl, in the GM world
Imagination, life is our creation!

[And the boys in the lab all sing: 
'Come on Belinda, science spinner!']

I'm a PR girl, in the fantasy world
When the truth is plastic, isn't it e-l-a-s-t-i-c!!!

[boys in the lab: 'Spinning doctor, spinner-donna!']

I'm a PR girl, in the GM world
Manipulation - truth is our creation!
Little Bo peep is pulling gene-beet
and nobody will refine them
Monsanto, go home - we don't want what you've grown
or your greedy scheme that's behind them
 
The new 'Ode to Autumn' 
(by GM Keats)

Season of mist and mutant fruitlessness

The new GM Bottomley
(by Derwent May)

The Edwardian poet Gordon Bottomley wrote:

When you destroy a blade of grass
You poison England at the root

A hundred years on, would he be tempted to write:

When you mutate a blade of grass
You poison England at the root

(from an article in The Times 13/8/98)
GENETHICS
Boffins eye fat research grants
As they release the Frankenstein plants
'Happy to oblige!' their ethical stance

for more on science and ethics click here
Women say NO!

Women say 'No' to GMOs
We just say 'No'
Women say 'No' to GMOs
We just say 'No'

We know about love
We know about care
We need to trust 
The food we share

Women say 'No' to GMOs
We just say 'No'

People say 'No' to the WTO
They just say 'No'
People say 'No' to the WTO
They just say 'No'

They know that there's
a world to feed
And it can't be done
with corporate greed

People say 'No' to the WTO
They just say 'No'

*WOMEN SAY NO TO GMOs*
Includes online petition - please sign!
Virus in Blue Genes

Our farmers are very funny
This is how they earned their money
With sheep’s brains inside cow’s tummy

Our abattoirs are also jolly
Finding ways to up their lolly
But it’s proved an offal folly

Could BSE and CJD
- not a bunch of laughs you see -
Give but a glimpse of what’s to be?

Biotech has much invested
In a planet that’s infested
With the crops that they’ve molested

Governments just won’t protect us
From the toxins that affect us
Isn’t that a trifle reckless?

The bureaucrats, it seems, don’t care
Their attitude’s  “Buyer beware!
Our corporate pals must have their share”

Supermarkets too are jolly
Glad to maximise their lolly:
With goods unlabelled in our trolley

Pesticidal foods, you’ll see,
Will mean we eat our genes for tea*
Can it all end happily?

Our farmers are very funny
This is how they’ll earn their money:
Misplaced genes inside our tummy
Seems to me that’s rather rummy

Chorus line:  Umpah! Umpah! Stuff the poor consumar...

*  Human Genes into Plants:  A mammalian 2-5A system functions as an antiviral pathway in transgenic plants.  Mitra A. et al (1996) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93: 6780-6785.
 
Genetic Interfering

Genetic Interfering 
- Don't call it engineering
Genetic Interfering, Nature Disappearing
Bigger Food, Cleaner Food
Randomly Mutating Food
Nature's Law is Genius
GMOs are Heinous
Get Frightened, Heightened
Courageously Enlightened
We don't have to eat this stuff
It's time to say "enough". Get Tough.
Genetic Interfering
Don't call it engineering!

William Treend 
A Cautionary Tale

Little Boy Blue, give a blast on your horn
and rouse your friend Little Bo Peep.
For in the genetically modified corn
are your cow and Little Bo's sheep.

And the price that you paid at the end of the day
for this ignorant act of pure folly?
Well, the cow's BSE is now three times as bad
and the sheep all answer to 'Dolly'.

<C> Cerridwen
 
rhymes from the...
genetic nursery

There was an old woman who swallowed Roundup, 
just opened her mouth and swallowed it up

She swallowed Roundup with bacterial DNA
She swallowed bacterial DNA with genes from petunia
She swallowed genes from petunia with viral genes
She swallowed viral genes that were in the soy
 in 60 percent of the food she enjoyed

She swallowed the soy cos she'd swallowed a lie:
Monsanto said their food was alright 
- perhaps she'll die?

There was an old woman who swallowed enuff
She now eats organic and kicks up a fuss!
I had a little nut tree
nothing did it bear.
But it was a pretty one,
so I didn't care.

Monsanto got a hold of it
to crossbreed with a newt.
Now nutmegs grow with fishy eyes
they're really rather cute.

<C> Cerridwen
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet
Eating some modified whey

But they'd spliced it with spider
Which played havoc inside her
Now they're taking Miss Muffet away
Don't get stuffed this Xmas!

Oh little town of Bethlehem
how still we see thee lie.
You've noshed up all the GE corn
and now you're gonna die!
Ode to GMOs
(to Home on the Range)

Back, back on the farm
Where masses of Monarchs were seen.
But now they're all dead
After having been fed
On some pollen with Bt-corn genes.

Ada 
 
Hey diddle diddle, Novartis has fiddled
around with our food and our seeds
The wildlife dies from plant-pesticides
and the genes run away on the breeze

 
The Mad Professor

There is a Professor 
Who is a big messer
Utterly MAD
And thoroughly bad.

He changed our grain
Drove the chickens insane 
And the people who ate 'em
Will never forget 'em!!

Just say 'No' to GMOs
Just say 'No!'

Sam -- aged 8

Send us your GM poems 
ngin@icsenglish.com
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