Geegaws
A dingus is an oddity,
A thingamy commodity,
A doodad is a doohickey
With gubbins from a Buick, see ?
Now, whats-ma-jigs and thing-ma-bobs
Are diff’rent tools for diff’rent jobs,
While gadgets are a gizmo-gimmick
That the widget-jiggers mimic.
All are just appliances
To gussy-up contrivances,
And driving users to distractions –
Putting traps into contraptions.
Day 17 – Contraption – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
Basketball Bandits
Beware the hoodlums of the hoops,
The hard-men of the hardwood court –
The nasty north-of-six-foot troops,
The skinny, spindly, spivs of sport.
Beware the squad of Mr Big,
Their suits are pints, their arms are quarts –
But best not call these tallboys ‘twigs’,
Cos brass-nux make it hard to snort.
Beware the squeaky-footed joints,
Where shooters and their crews cavort –
They’ll use your head to score three-points,
And dunk your carcass in the port.
Beware the grizzly Gangly Gang,
Whose reach is long, whose limbs distort –
The Longshanks Lads they couldn’t hang
(Because the gallows are too short).
Day 16 – Gangly – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
Hooray
When did ev’rything become political ?
When did ev’rything become so us-and-them ?
Become so hyper-critical,
Become so giddy to condemn ?
We used to have debates, I swear,
We used to have civility,
Where other views we do not share
Don’t threaten our fragility.
But now the choice of car-or-bike,
The music that we listen to,
The architecture we may like –
Are shibboleths to tell who’s who.
So do we love our hate our nation ?
Any criticism found
Must be as blind as admiration –
Never mind the middle-ground.
Until all subtly is gone,
And we are left with shame and pride –
There is so much bad faith going-on,
And cheering-on ‘our side’.
Ah, maybe it was always crap,
Just jockeying for rule at court –
But life should not become a trap
With core-beliefs reduced to sport.
Day 15 – Hooray – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
Troll Farm
Billie is a bad guy,
And Billie’s not our friend,
She’s a mean girl, dead-eye,
As she’s gloating to pretend.
She doesn’t need approval,
And she doesn’t need to care,
And she wants our swift removal
If we for-a-second stare.
An independence fable ?
Or a power trip ? It’s just a hunch.
But we can’t join her table,
As she eats us for her lunch.
But can I really shake her ?
And is it all an act ?
I’d best back off, bellyacher,
Cos I don’t know her like that…
Day 14 – Lady – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
Patience
The trick to a house of cards
Is to plan-out ev’ry row –
The kings and tens have far more ink,
So keep those high-ones low.
And rise on up to aces,
As we keep our breathing slow –
And pray the god of sudden draughts
Has somewhere else to go…
To think, we could have cut and dealt,
To share a hand of gin –
Instead, we’re busy propping-up
On edges far too thin.
If we can place this joker
Then we’re surely gonna win –
Just pray the god of friction
Has some stubble on his chin…
Day 13 – Flimsy – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
Who Gives a Toss ?
Capita aut Navia ?
Cross or Pile ?
Just when did the coin-toss come into style ?
The Greek ? The Romans ?
Rise and fall,
I guess it’s a toss-up who made that call…
For those early coins were thin and light,
And hard to get them sitting right –
So when did balance – flip – spin – and snatch
Become decisive ? There’s the catch…
Who made it float instead of fling,
And made it sing with its metal ping ?
Who first flicked their thumb at a thruppenny bit ?
I can’t make heads nor tails of it…
Day 12 – Toss – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
The Law of the Anthill
Ant in trouble ?
Call for the cavalry !
Call for their nest-mates to come running rapidly.
Ant entangled ?
Here come the rescue-squad –
No-one on their watch is left to the will of God.
They’re digging and slicing and pulling and rolling,
With ten-parts encouraging, ten-parts consoling,
Unbounden, unthreatened, untrapped and unsmothered
It’s all ants for one till the one is recovered.
So ant in danger ?
Send out the safety-crew !
The tiniest heroes who do what they gotta do !
Day 11 – Rescue – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
Mist-ical
Mist still holds a mystery,
There’s more to fog than we can see,
The very vapour seems alive,
A smoke-machine in overdrive.
We’re swimming through a pool of clouds,
In black-and-white and muted louds,
It turns the mundane to unknown –
And wraps me up, and me alone…
Day 10 – Mystical – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
Counting Rams
Sheep with horns are no solution
For insomniacs –
They come on twos or fives or eights,
And not in endless packs.
These bands of boys can cause confusion,
Wandered from the flock,
They’re hard to herd, and jump no gates,
And only bleat to mock.
So rams won’t, in conclusion,
Help you give your dreams a shake –
And if they’re rutting with their mates,
They’ll keep you wide awake !
Day 9 – Ram – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
A Noseful of Notice
Mammals sweat – it’s our superpower,
But boy, does it make us pong !
Our glow is wafting, musk is humming
Ev’rything can smell us coming…
Mammals sweat – we’re a perfumed flower,
That likes to come-on strong –
We love to run our engines hot,
Yet keep our cool (an awful lot…)
Mammals sweat, but lizards cower,
Basking all day long –
They warm so slow, they barely blink,
But thinking quick will raise a stink.
Mammals sweat – unless we shower,
Then our whiff goes wrong –
But rest assured our nat’ral scent
Cannot be silenced, as we vent.
Day 8 – Stinky – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
