Author: Toastingfork

Not afraid to rhyme.

Hashtag You’re It

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apples
Apples on a Red Slate by Sandra Robinson

Hashtag You’re It

Scrolling through clouds, looking for stray wit,
But all I find are random ramblings –
Nothing to say and urgent to say it,
Clickbatey rants and cancelley gamblings.
They’re over before they’ve even started,
Afraid they’ll overload our brains.
So much hot air, mentally farted
From airhead blowhards and weathervanes.
Puffed-up vol-au-vents of text,
Finger-food with little flavour,
We swallow them whole and move on to the next
With nothing to chew and nothing to savour.
And yet, what is my bitesize verse
But an unasked opinion, a shouted letter ?
And surely these poems are even worse,
Cos they always think they’re somehow better…

The painting has nothing to do with the poem, I just like it.

Strange Bedfellows

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white and black mattress fronting the mountain
Photo by wayX on Pexels.com

Strange Bedfellows

I know the temptation – any stick to diss them,
Any ally welcome, any grudge a friend –
Any note of caution is abject criticism,
Any mediation is weakness to the trend.
But surely we are judged by the company we keep,
Regardless why we keep such clientele –
The rival of my enemy might sometimes be a creep
Who should really be my enemy as well.
Real politic with an opportune autocracy
Is just another way to say hypocrisy.

Threefold Commandments

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brother jonathan
Jonathan Edwards by Joseph Badger

Threefold Commandments

Hear me now, for this is wisdom,
Handed down the generations:
This is where the rule is from
That founds all laws and inspirations.
Thrice they spake a noble precept,
Thus salvation’s road is three-stepped.

Firsly: be a better neighbour
Loving all the world as brothers.
Second: we must welcome labour –
Work is virtue like no others.
Thirdly comes a code most shapely
(Though just what, I own, escapes me.)

Therefore, speak unto all fellows
Honest words – no slanders mutter.
Never shirk to work the bellows,
Turn the earth, or churn the butter.
And that other thing: pursue it –
(What it says to do . . . well, do it.)

So behold: three schemes for living –
Three the ways to languor foil.
First there’s love, respect, forgiving –
Next there’s graft, provision, toil.
Third comes…what ?  Oh, saints preserve me !
(But I’m sure it’s mighty worthy.)

The Daphne Shanty

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parrot
Jewel of the Amazon by Stephen Jesic

The Daphne Shanty

One man drifts upon a door –
Too far from home, too far from shore,
Without supplies, without an oar.
Or so I’ve heard it told.
Both he and raft, three days ago,
Were languishing upon the deck –
Now all the rest are ten below,
Yet he by chance has fled the wreck.
Instead, he gets to starve and stare
At water, water ev’rywhere !
Beneath the fierce, unflinching skies,
He waits his death and hungry flies –
When shadows cross his salt-caked eyes…
A figurehead in gold !

So weigh the anchor, hitch the stay,
We’ll blow you back to yesterday –
We’re all adrift and outwards bound,
An island’s waiting to be found.
So dance with the carambola,
By the fair isola of the giorno prima,
Ev’ry newborn gleamer.

One man drifts below a prow
Too far from home – but safer now,
If he can only climb somehow…
And so our yarn sets sail.
Up top, he finds no sign of life,
Yet down below are cages crammed
With birds, and beasts, and flowers rife:
 As live as he, and just as damned.
A hold here to behold !  All brought
From out the land he sees to port.
But where are they who stocked this store ?
If only he could swim ashore,
To the island of the day before…
Ah, therein hangs a tale…

So drop the anchor, be becalmed,
We’re porpoised, parroted and palmed
In paradise, in distant climes
A long long way from Greenwich times.
So dance with the mola mola,
By the lost isola of the giorno prima,
Ev’ry shipworn dreamer.

This is based on the opening of Umberto Eco’s novel.

So Many Locks, So Few Keys

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door handle key keyhole
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

So Many Locks, So Few Keys

Locksmithing looks like a lonely profession –
You get out to meet with the public, for sure,
But only the once, on your knees at their door.
You wrestle my barrel with little progression –
I’d naively pictured a surgeon-like skill:
Lockpicks and skeletons – rather than chisel and drill.

You work with me watching you over your shoulder,
Incase your tools gives my lockplate a nick –
What else can I do as we wait for the click ?
The drizzle picks up and your fingers grow colder,
Still trying to jiggle and jostle and jolt –
My whole life is trapped by a quarter-inch tamper-proof bolt.

And as for my neighbours – despite all your racket
While drilling-out, hammering, jemmying, screwing,
There’s none of them come by to check what you’re doing.
I s’pose I’ll take solace in how you must whack it !
I guess my old lock kept me truly secure –
A pity you must rip this hero from off of my door.

Finally !
You swing the door open to grant re-admittance,
My castle is taken – besieged, though benign –
And all my possessions are once again mine !
Though looking around, it feels like a housebreaker’s pittance –
My lack of ’lectronics and marble and chrome
Was probably all this time keeping me safe in my home.

You offer me three diff’rent grades of replacement,
With some anti-bump, anti-snap – and you grin:
“With this one, not even a locksmith could win !”
Though all this is pointless if I haven’t locks on each casement –
No-one will sweat on the strongest-held link
If the toplight’s ajar once again by the sink.

At last, I’m shaking your hand and writing your cheque.
Despite the assault on my fraught liquidity,
I have been saved from my own stupidity.
I show you at last to the door, which you brought back to spec.
“We shan’t meet again, I pray !”  Your expression
Makes me think locksmithing looks like a lonely profession.

The Rover

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spring east
Spring East by Tony Lombardo

The Rover

If you find England is too small, my dear,
Then jump on my boat and I’ll sail you from here !
I’ll sail you to Russia, I’ll sail you to Spain,
I’ll sail you away from her beer and her rain.
But if in a day or a month or a year
You find that you’re missing her rain and her beer,
Well, I won’t be there, dear, to sail you back home –
For I’ll be in Oslo or Cairo or Rome.

Don’t be a Steve

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boys
Young Boys Playing Dice by Bartolomé Murillo

Don’t be a Steve

Some are Mikes and some are Harrys,
Some are Davids, some are Barrys,
Some are even Lens and Larrys,
So I do believe.
Some are Gavins, Grants and Garys
Some are Dustins, some are Carys,
As they live and breathe.

Not all children must be Steven,
Some are Karl or Keith or Keven,
Some of them are daughters, even !,
Nora, Nell and Neve.
V or PH ?  Stop deceiving !
Pick a name for high achieving !
Not all kids are Steve.

Incidentally, Bartolomé Murillo’s middle name was Esteban.

The Providence Plot

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password
Password (detail) by Cesar Santos

The Providence Plot

Do not hunt out conspiracies, my friends –
There’s no-one out to get us,
For we do not greatly matter.
There’s no-one’s jailed for heresies, my friends –
Though they sometimes read our letters,
They will find there only chatter.
Yes, corruption still exists,
We can be sure,
And lord, its presence in our midst
Is not a thing we should ignore –
But none of it is organised
By an elite beneath a gorgan
(Or a lizard), plotting dooms
In panelled dark and smoky rooms.

My friends, I know !  It feels so wrong
To only shrug and move along –
What answer is coincidence ?
It makes no sense
To pattern-seeking minds.
If there is any agency (of either kind)
Within the noise of daily life,
We’d barely know amidst the strife
Of multiple false-positives.
I urge, there’s nothing causative
In most of what we’d swear is true –
I know, because I’d swear it too.

But do not hunt conspiracies, my friends –
When cock-ups happen all the time,
And secrets are so rarely kept.
The thing about most tyrannies, my friends,
Is just how public is their crime –
To rule by fear, your subjects must be prepped.
Their heavy-handed propaganda
Never gets mistook for candour,
And their unofficial action is their very public policy.
See, evolution gifted us
An urge to talk and share, and thus
The covert are the daily news, and secrets know no modesty.
For ev’ry extra spy who lurks behind the scenes
Is just another pair of lips to spill the beans.

My friends – beware conspiracies.
Beware their never-sated thirst –
For surely it is better yet to hope the best than fear the worst.
And if sometimes we’re taken in,
At least we don’t let fear win !
And be prepared to be surprised
By happenstance in pattered guise –
The tin-foil cannot block it,
Nor computers plot its dance –
So keep your Occam in your pocket
For the vagaries of chance.

The Waters of the Flood were upon the Earth

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noah's ark
Noah’s Ark in the Storm by myjavier007

The Waters of the Flood were upon the Earth

Noah, lonely and bereft,
Cast adrift with wives and sons.
Of other folk, no more are left –
These are the only ones.

But lo !,  across the waves and foam
Comes sailing forth on breezes fresh
A vessel very like his own –
The Ark of Gilgamesh !

This is an early poem of mine that features my patented exclamation comma (!,) which one day shall be combined into a single glyph to rule them all…Incidentally, my older self cringes at my rookie mistake of placing Gilgamesh himself in the other Arc when of course it was piloted by Utnapishtim.  However, despite this, it remains the only poem of mine to ever earn me an income (£10), as recounted in the footnote to this poem.