Author: Toastingfork

Not afraid to rhyme.

Lonely Virion

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you know who

Lonely Virion

Viruses are feeble, really –
Just can’t hope to make it
In this dangerous Outside –
There they are, alone and naked,
Lucky to survive a day or two,
Before they’re on the slide –
There’s nothing they can do, and there’s nowhere they can hide.
The trouble is, they’ve got no drive,
They’re just too small.
Chances are, they’ve died
Before we even can decide
If they ever were alive at all.

A little soap will crack them open,
Ultra vi’let shakes them to their core –
Or else they get digested by a passing virivore –
(High in protein, high in fat,
What germ could ask for more ?)
And if not that,
Then while they’re out there, waiting to congeal,
They cannot reproduce and cannot heal.
So keep them on the Outside, that’s the deal –
Until they all go splat.

Disposable Income

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money pink coins pig
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Disposable Income

Of all the tax I’ve had to pay
For all my working life,
I’ve only seen a fraction of its worth –
I’ve never used a bridleway,
Or been a battered wife,
Or dug up ancient hills, or given birth.

I’ve got no kids in need of school,
I need no legal aid,
And need no shipping forecast out to sea –
Not done the Tate in Liverpool,
Nor called the fire brigade,
Nor wandered through a managed forestry.

I guess I’ve got it breezy,
Where the gremlins never struck –
But still I always shrug and pay the price.
It’s like a tax on easy –
But if that’s the price of luck,
Then ante-up – I’ll gladly pay her twice…

For teacher, binman, judge and ev’ry nurse,
I stump-up for them all from out my purse,
And whether Fate shall reimburse,
It’s just the cost of our society –
So take your bobbies and your squaddies,
They’re not mine, they’re ev’rybodies !
Help yourselves, my friends, they’re all on me !

Graven Images

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gravestones

Graven Images

This walk of the cemet’ry was opened just a decade back,
With headstones still as sharp as on the day they left the chisel,
Looking like they need to soften with a century of drizzle –
Alabaster white and granite red and marble black,
With hearts, and stars, and open books, and roses marking losses –
Many doves and cherubs, fewer angels, hardly any crosses.
A dozen diff’rent fonts are used, a hundred quoted lines –
And honestly, the sculptor’s task is difficult enough –
To craft them sombre, yes, yet touching, dignified, yet full of love.
So even here, there’s fashion – we’re so human in our shrines,
To leave behind a memory and not forgotten bones.
It’s strange to think that this may be a golden age of grieving stones.

Throats

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tile

Throats

Damascene tiles, centuries old,
Victorian acquired –
Beautif’ly painted in blue and gold
As fresh as the day they were fired
Geometric, dense and hectic,
Begging to be admired.

But most of all, of all I love,
It is the birds that shine –
Each peacock, parrot, lark, and dove,
Are delicately fine –
With vibrant tints and eyes that glint,
Each heavenly divine.

And yet I missed, for all they shone,
(Had not the tour-guide said)
That ev’ry gorgeous bird thereon
Was elegantly dead –
A single stroke had simply broke
Each neck beneath each head.

Apparently, this trick was rife
Throughout the Eastern land –
In Islam, images of life
Were well-and-truly banned.
But corpses were quite de rigueur –
And here, the stiffs were grand !

But oh !, those crass colonials,
Those patriarchs on tour,
Who bought up ceremonials
From natives by the score –
They couldn’t see the subtlety,
Or else chose to ignore…

Without the least misgiving
They’d appropriate the style,
But paint their birds as living
On each modern-ancient tile.
Their arrogance had quite by chance
Now caused them to defile.

Or maybe they knew, and rejected –
Just took what they wanted to keep.
And who are we, self-selected,
To label them shallow or deep ?
Well, I for one, see much more fun
In birds who can still go ‘cheep’ !

Damascene tiles, centuries old,
Victorian acquired –
Marvelled, then improved, all told,
As their inspiration fired.
And we in turn must gaze and learn,
Then change to what’s required.

Hieroglyphs

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egyptian symbols
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Hieroglyphs

We’ve seen them all on ev’ry wall
In Egypt – carved in profile style –
But here’s a game to try and name
The most – Let’s see, it’s been a while…
The eye of the Sun, I know that one,
The wavy lines that mean the Nile,
The ankh, the egg, the owl and leg,
The feather, sphinx, and crocodile,
The scarab of course…and was there a horse ?
The slug-like snake, that’s worth a smile…
The goose (or duck)…and then I’m stuck…
But the walls stretch on for mile on mile.

Regulation Jollity

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man person red white
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Regulation Jollity

What can this madness be ?
Say what ?  April Fools ?
Ah yes, the day of anarchy,
Though strictly by the rules.
The toying with insanity,
The jesters’ feast of ridicule,
The PG-safe profanity,
The smirking after school.
Oh, what a rictus parody,
Such clever-clogs hilarity –
Such silly lies and naughty fibs,
And pointy elbows in the ribs,
Hee-hee-ho-hum-hee.
Well, don’t I feel a tit,
And there was I expecting wit –
I guess the joke’s on me.

The Deep State of Fear

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person wearing black dress while holding skull mask with horns
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The Deep State of Fear

First it was the Devil and his minions beseiging us,
And then it was the Cath’lics and the Pope –
After them the Masons with their fingers in the pies,
And then the Jews would steal away all hope –
And don’t forget the Communists, the baby-eating Communists,
To polish up the ever-slipp’ry slope –
Today’s we blame the media, tomorrow blame the nanobots,
But do we ever blame ourselves ?  Hell, nope !

Eulogies

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Eulogies

        1.
At sorrowed times like this, I’ve heard it said
That mem’ry is the living of the dead –
So when I find I dwell too long a-while,
I force myself to call to mind your smile.

        2.
Not the chance unmet,
Not the promise broken…
This alone do I regret –
Words left unspoken.

        3.
I never thought this day would call
When I stand here and you lie there –
Of course, our time comes to us all,
It’s entropy, and only fair.
I knew it too, down deep below,
By grace of fate and rule of thumb –
I knew some day you’d have to go,
Yet never thought that day would come.