Author: Toastingfork

Not afraid to rhyme.

Hipster Moi

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man with body tattoo
Photo by Kevin Bidwell on Pexels.com

Hipster Moi

Sure, I’ll be a hipster –
If it’s something you sneer at, I’m in.
If jeering at hipsters is unwritten code,
If trending on trendies is mode à la mode,
Then dump on me, bro, let it all unload –
Hate me, cos you ain’t gonna win.
I might grow a beard cos I reckon you won’t like it,
And even if you like it, I’ll do it anyway.
I’ll sport my hair in dreadlocks, or maybe rock a pixie,
I’ll shop at House of Oxfam, and ride there on my fixie,
And call her Toots or Trixie,
Or sipping on my latte while I’m writing my screenplay.

You think it’s just a pose ?
Well, maybe, bro, it is.  Who knows ?
And then, so what ?
No more a pose than all your hating –
Yours demeans while mine’s creating.
Am I just so smug and grating,
That this sniding’s all you got ?
Well, go ahead and take your shot
Belittle and demote this.
I guess I’m not that hard to spot –
In jelly crocs for all to see,
And vintage woollen socks, I’ll be –
So come on, bro, and hate on me…
I doubt I’ll even notice.

Dramatic Tension

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audience auditorium bleachers chairs
Photo by Tuur Tisseghem on Pexels.com

Dramatic Tension

Ah, Theatre !  I think I’m gonna miss you,
But maybe not the agony you always put me through –
You may raise gasps and titters from the proper-postured sitters,
But you leave me bent like Richard, joints askew.
Your drama may be modern, but your seating is Victorian,
Which quickly sees my comfort heading south.
Your balconies and rakes are long my source of joys and aches,
Where ev’ry twist brings heart-and-knees-in-mouth.

A point is all that you can score

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titans
Clash of the Titans by Lukas Panzarin

A point is all that you can score

These days, too many folks I know
At odds with the government,
Are praying for a time of woe
To piss into their tent.

Alas, folks like you, my friend,
So smug and all a-twitter –
Tribal to the bitter end,
And boy, are both sides bitter.

You long for power grids to fail,
For supermarket shelves to clear –
How joyfully you scoff and wail
That Armageddon’s here.

You cheer on the elderly to die
To make the balance tip,
And never stop to question why
You need such brinkmanship.

When did you become such arseholes ?
When did you become such bores ?
If we’re descending into farce,
Then the fault is equally yours.

Look, I don’t like the Government either,
But there they are, by public vote.
And someone has to break this fever,
While the others point and gloat.

If times get hard, as you prophesise,
Will you come down to help us through ?
Can you still be a friend who tries
To douse the flames and build anew ?

And I’m sorry I called you an arsehole –
We neither side is right or wrong.
So can we keep our self control,
And compromise to get along ?

The Boston Stomp

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stump
Boston Stump by Boston Photos

The Boston Stomp

“Boston in Lincolnshire is noted for having a high percentage of EU immigrants.”

– Evening Daily

Now clear the floor and start the band,
And take your partners by the hand –
So step on up and get on down,
Just like us folks in Boston Town.
Now dance ’em round and dance ’em square,
There’s dancers here from ev’rywhere !
From Norse and Hansa, French and Yanks –
Come join the dance and swell the ranks.

And one-two-three-four,
Best start again – here come some more.

For centuries we’ve put to sea
And brought the world into our quay:
Willem, Hodel, Rémi, Morta –
Boston sons and Boston daughters.
See the out-of-towners clump
Upon the Wash, beneath the Stump,
Enough to fill the Gliderdrome –
So welcome, strangers, welcome home !

And four-three-two-one,
But don’t stop now, the dance ain’t done !

There’s no need to be lonely ones,
For we are all Bostonians !
Szymon, Crina, Miloš, Maja,
Suppers ready by the fire.
Come on in and catch the rhythm,
Up the Haven, down the Witham.
Latvia to Greece to Spain,
From Liquorponds to Dolphin Lane.

And one-two-three-four,
We’ve danced a thousand years or more.

Now take your partners by the hand,
And welcome to the Promised Land –
Petru, Zosia, Wojciech, Rūta:
Bear the Pilgrims of the future.
Stepping strange, but no concern,
It’s nothing that we can’t soon learn –
The dance is long and folks must flow,
As dancers come and dancers go.

And four-three-two-one,
A thousand more this dance will run.

Chief Mousers to the Cabinet Office

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larry
Larry, the incumbent.  I wonder what his collar tag says ?

Chief Mousers to the Cabinet Office

Since days of Wolsey, there we’ve been,
Lurking beneath the throne –
The éminence grise, or tabby, or brown,
The whiskered presence behind the crown.
Each light-footed tom and dagger-clawed queen
Has worked their paws to the bone,
Keeping our ministers free from vermin,
Keeping the rodents from nesting in ermine.

For we are civil servants too,
Patrolling halls of power –
Wherever the traitors skulk and plot,
We’re here to pounce upon the lot.
For mouse or magpie, rat or shrew,
We’ll make those riff-raff cower !
While members jeer and speakers spout,
We’ll keep the rebel squeakers out.

Unparalleled Revival

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tribute
Tribute to Harnett by Donald Clapper

Unparalleled Revival

        1.
Reckfull in my actions, I shall pinge you well alone –
My manners may be peccable, but ruthfully they’ve grown.
I’ve mantled them from bootsome parts of like and parate form –
Deceitless in intention, with an ert and toothful gorm.

        2.
I bunk your valid theory, which has gusted my good taste,
The nocent may be nocuous, but we are praved and based.
My spirit may be delable, my courage may be trepid,
But let my mind combobulate, and once more I am crepit.

        3.
Feeling good and gruntled, I was ruly in my care,
And was looking couth and gainly with my kempt and shevelled hair –
“Be mayed by hapfull fortune, and chelant with passion’s thrill –
Be feckfull, wieldy and toward, with ept and bashless skill.”

Pointless Deaths

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candle

Pointless Deaths

On ev’ryday, there’s somebody,
Who dies in quiet tragedy,
Who dies because biology
Cannot continue hence –
From choking on an apple pip,
Or falling from a clumsy trip,
To organs one day losing grip,
And none of it makes sense.

A fatal fallen power line,
Drowning in the Serpentine,
Little lumps we thought benign,
We never even met.
Neckties wrenched to stranglehold,
Coming over sweating cold,
Salmon eaten just too old,
And that is all we get.

Little cuts which never heal,
Brakes that have a perished seal,
Kidney stones as hard as steel,
Gone in a moment’s flick.
Poisoned by a buttercup,
Bitten by a friendly pup,
Simply never waking up,
We die too young, too quick.

Paralysed by peanut shock,
Shaking loose a hornet flock,
Falling golf-balls hard as rock,
So frail is life of man.
Infants dead before their birth,
Here today then gone to earth,
And all our deaths are ever worth,
Is showing there’s no plan.

1% Inspiration

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close up photography of crumpled paper
Photo by Steve Johnson on Pexels.com

1% Inspiration

I wonder, does it start with hoofbeats,
Or the rush of flapping wings ?
The hiss of gas ?  A perfect fifth ?
Or pistons, switches, cogs and springs ?
That moment when the muse comes calling
Bringing insight in her wake –
She gifts her targets sparks and notions,
Just to see what they will make.

And some folks are raptured, and some folks are seizured,
And some folks will cherish and others will fear it –
And I can but look on and ponder their wonder
And try not to envy their genius spirit.
And if I can’t join in their synching,
Can’t speak in their tongues, or can’t waltz in their dance,
At least I can urge them to write down their thinking,
And not to leave mem’ry to chance –

So scurry and scramble to get the sprites pinned,
That jingle or joke or invention or gen –
For how many mousetraps are lost to the wind,
When somebody spoke or for the want of a pen ?

I’ve long since stopped expecting the tap,
Or the draught from angels’ wings
I’ll never be a chosen one
Who gets to feel such precious things
For I am nothing transcendental –
Too much static on the line.
I’m not complaining – so it goes,
I guess we can’t all be divine.

So I have to prod it, and I have I to wring it,
And I have to plead with my brain for a vision –
For I can but whittle upon some idea,
And patiently bring it, I hope, to fruition.
But keep chasing down on that inkling,
And tinker about in the back of the mind –
And most of all, keep turning up at the thinking –
Ah well – back to the grind.

Your whispers and trances may get your thoughts firing,
But mine just meander and dawdle and wend.
My only damn flashes are sparks in my wiring –
But maybe my work is as good in the end ?

The Romantic Imperative

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heart

The Romantic Imperative

It’s never the way that they claim it, this love,
In their stories and movies and songs –
It’s never so epic or urgent or raw,
It’s never so moving or brimming with awe.
It’s never the way that it should be, this love,
And we’re all of us doing it wrong –
They sold us the brand and we snapped up the dream,
We’re dazzled by hope when there’s barely a gleam.
And if we ain’t got it,
It’s too late to spot it,
Cos surely we should’ve exulted by now.
Whatever the weather,
To not be together
Is more than a lover could ever allow.
So still we keep wishing,
And still we keep sighing,
And still we keep fishing,
And swooning, and crying
And even the faithful still feel the desire –
We’re all of us waiting for Cupid to fire.

It’s never the way that we planned it, this love,
In our minds and our hearts and our schemes –
It’s never so civil or timely or neat,
It’s never so gentle or syrupy sweet.
It’s never the way that we practised, this love,
With our patter and perfumes and creams –
It comes on in shivers and rashes and bursts,
It comes on in hungers and gorges and thirsts.
And if we don’t get it,
They’ll make us regret it –
We’ve failed to be human and living our fill.
We’re solo and only –
The crime of the lonely,
That’s punished by keeping us lonelier still.
But on we keep hoping,
And on we keep dreaming,
And on we keep moping,
And recklessly teeming –
And even the loveless are likewise alike,
We’re all of us sure that the lightning will strike.

Purple Haze

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blue and pink wallpaper
Photo by Tuesday Temptation on Pexels.com

Purple Haze

Purple and mauve
And claret and plum,
Lavender, lilac and carpenter’s thumb,
Indigo, violet, ultramarine,
Fuchsia, magenta and burgundy-bean.
Aubergine, sprouting and blueberry juice –
Much redder than cyan and bluer than puce.

The red and the blue,
And the blue and the red,
And the mix of the two
On the wall or the thread.
Emperors, sportsmen and hippies have shown
That neither these primes is enough on its own.
It’s cool and it’s passionate, hip and genteel –
Much bluer than scarlet and redder than steel.