Some walk the streets

Some walk the streets for recognition

Like our man here, the whole town knows him

Puts rubbish in the rubbish bins

Eats a bit and then he grins

No teeth you see, it stops them staring

Have you heard of Marilyn Waring?

Got Rob Muldoon to die of swearing

Not before the piss got to him

Such is the death of a politician

There’s another one that fits the bill

The master of the bitter sweet pill

He ate what he served up

Think Big was his little pup

He acts the part, and very well too

And now and again sits on a pew

They say we get what we deserve

The boys, they gave me a dry patch on the reserve

Not because I’ve earned it, like

That’s where I do the benevolent old bike

She brings a pot or two of sherry

We water it down and all get merry

We pool the dole and invest in Lotto

The winnings help to keep us blotto

If we strike it lucky early

We’re all off to the Kentucky Derby

This painting is by Marten Jansen. Here is an outtake from his autobiography…

“I was born on September 12th, 1964, in Naarden, The Netherlands and grew up in Bussum, a suburb of Amsterdam. I moved to Amsterdam in 1983, to study economics at the University of Amsterdam.In 1998 I made a series of semi-abstract female portraits (inspired by Picasso and Corot), then in 2003 I began to paint in a social realism style, which only now I’m beginning to feel comfortable with. The social realism is inspired by photo-journalism, the painter Daumier and also by Munch, to an extent, and by Rembrandt and Rubens (for the way they brought “drama” to painting). In a general artistic sense Mahler and Bach (the composers) have also been of influence.”