Author: Toastingfork

Not afraid to rhyme.

Desert Island Diss

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on the beach

Desert Island Diss

Eight songs ?  Just eight songs ?
Then how will I even survive ?
Eight thousand is nearer the mark
To keep my spirits alive.

Eight song played back-to-back
That’s half-an-hour-ish, tops.
Just half-an-hour of paradise
Until salvation stops.

Washed ashore with a gramophone –
The wind-up kind, I’m guessing.
You’ll need a bigger bribe than that
To get me to confessing.

It always sounds such agony,
This torpid, tropical clime –
I’ll take the grimy, busy rain
Of cities ev’ry time.

There’s Bill and the Bible, as well, of course,
So that’s the loo-roll sorted,
But for my pick of luxury,
I’d like to be deported.

Eight songs ?  Just eight songs ?
Is that all you’ll allow ?
If music is so rare and cruel,
I beg, please drown me now…

Lightfast

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stop sign

Lightfast

All those old signs with dyes on the cheap,
That lose all their red in the face of the sun.
Once they were young and eager to help –
But now they are monochrome, caring for none.

I guess it was the ultraviolet
Wore them down with covert light –
One-by-one, it breaks their bonds,
Until they turn surrender-white.

All those old signs, proud warning signs,
Now they are barely in slight.

But the blue signs, they are made diff’rently,
They’re made from more costly pigments and paint.
Why should they care if the sun’s so strong ?,
It bounces away with nary a taint.

For they were cast in ultraviolet,
Feeding on its flame and spite –
And then make sure that the sun is packed
With endless stocks of scorching light.

All those old signs, proud ‘turn left’ signs,
Now they just point to the right.

Waiting for Winter

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first frost

Waiting for Winter

The streets are white again,
But the dust is thin and token,
And the puddles by the drain
May be frozen, but they’re broken.
Another morning, here we go –
All frost, no snow.

The streets are white again,
But the fearless cars still drive them.
If the days keep in this vein,
Then it’s easy to survive them.
Ev’ry morning, same old show –
All frost, no snow.

The streets are white again,
But already looking greyer,
With their sparkle on the wane –
And so cycles the conveyor
Of the morning ebb and flow:
All frost, no snow.

The streets are white again,
And they’ll be as white tomorrow,
But the ferns won’t craze the pain,
And the thermostat won’t burrow.
For until the North Winds blow –
All frost, no snow.

Grammers & Spammers

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goat

Grammers & Spammers

These days, I can’t say nothing
Till the trolls beneath my bridge
Begin their bellyache and huffing
At my languer-bloody-widge.
Not the swearing…
Well, yes, the swearing,
But worse – the grammar I’m spewing and tearing
And giving a right royal chuffing.

Now typos, sure, my fingers sometimes slip –
Though maybe not, I spell as I think best,
And damn the wets who need to get a grip,
And suss to why we’re unimpressed.
Ev’ry hissy, prissy luddite
Seems to think they have the right
To rule my mother tongue and give me lip.

To ev’ry whinjer of the ritten word,
To ev’ry pedant waiting just to pounce,
To ev’ry queen with an itch to flounce,
To ev’ry bullshitter who’s talking turd:
Just who the fuck do you think you are
To lecture me what I may say ?
To lecture me, a superstar,
You constipated popinjay !
These words are mine, and I shall play !
They are my servants, friends and tools,
With which to wrench the buggers’ rules.

Forever Autumn

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tree with yellow leaves
Photo by Aaron Burden on Pexels.com

Forever Autumn

Funny time, November,
With the Autumn clinging on –
Just like the leaves on still-green trees
That won’t accept that Summer’s gone.
But then, it does seem warmer
Than the Autumns of my memory:
Where are all the frosty mornings ?
Bare-stemmed annuals ?  Biting draughts ?
Now the low-slung sun still shafts
And won’t set Winter free.

It feels like this might last forever,
And the freeze will never come.
I love this strange, uncertain weather,
When I should be grey and numb.
And yet…I know this fulsome Fall
Is from the carbon in the breeze –
The holly shouldn’t get to grow so tall,
Nor roses bloom so long.
We can’t afford Novembers quite so strong,
They even fool the trees.

Binary Error

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binary

Binary Error

My soul is just software –
An algorithm, a sub-routine,
A program that is self-aware,
Yet coded into ev’ry gene.
A viral meme, a blinking light,
A data-stream, a dancing sprite,
This neural net that runs my thoughts
Is nothing more than ones and noughts.

My soul is just software,
Processing through my cerebral RAM,
Buffering often and cluttered with spam,
A self-written program to tell me ‘I am’ –
This ghost in the thinking-machine
Is just a bug in the wiring,
Is just a random mis-firing,
A one where a nought should have been.

Musical AI version generated by Suno.com – find more of them over here.

Katya

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farm cat

Katya

My life was good on Manor Farm –
Just catching rats and lapping milk,
And sleeping warm and safe from harm –
I had no qualms with Jones’s ilk.
Yet revolution saw it scrapped –
Ah well, a cat will soon adapt.

I let them give their speeches,
And I let them hold their votes,
As they banned all booze and breeches,
And they argued beets or oats.
I snoozed between the awed and rapt,
Because a cat can soon adapt.

By hoof and feather, cart and plough,
We each must labour, none must shirk –
But rodents are our comrades now,
So I am out of work.
My talents must remain untapped –
But hey, a cat shall soon adapt.

Yet I smell blood, and I smell fear,
Among the cowed who used to crow.
They ought to leave, but still they’re here –
For where else can these rebels go ?
They’ve made their home, and now they’re trapped.
Farewell – a cat must soon adapt.

Yes, I know – adult cats don’t drink milk. Or so the bourgeois would have us believe…

Silent Night

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nightmare
The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli (though I’ve always thought the incubus looks peeved because he can’t find a way in)

Silent Night

Dreams, come not and bother me tonight,
Tonight I have no time for dreams.
I am exhausted to the seams,
And need the dark to snuff the light.
So do not follow in my deep,
To make me cry or hope or leap.
Tonight, I only wish to lie –
So let me lie, and only dream of sleep.

Over-Sexed

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map
Map showing which countries are masculine (green) or feminine (purple) in French

Over-Sexed

I’m sure it’s because of my English tongue and my English ears,
That it always sounds most odd to me
To talk of it as he or she.
We haven’t had such talk round here these thousand years –
We stopped such arbitrary splits
And brought all hes and shes to its.

But were we ever minded to go back to where
We see the world as him or her,
Then which for each should we prefer ?
Is this or that a manly or a feminine affair ?
Are dogs all girls and cats all boys ?
Who cares ?  It’s arbitrary noise !

Like Adam naming ev’ry beast,
We then must wander through the earth
From brother West to sister East,
As if the rocks are giving birth,
And sex the sexless mule and yeast,
And war and peace and speed and girth –
And love…?  Now there’s a viper’s nest !
Let’s stick to neuter, that’s the best !

A Masculine Rhyme

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bowl of candies
Photo by Ivan J. Long on Pexels.com

A Masculine Rhyme

Positive charges
And negative spin,
Strong verbs and weak verbs
With preference baked-in.
Group B and Group 2
Subconsciously mocked –
Pejorative adjectives,
Loaded and cocked.
We’re judging the diff’rence
From concept to mouth,
And neutral assessment
Is all heading South.