Author: Toastingfork

Not afraid to rhyme.

Weedfingers

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weeds

Weedfingers

Is your backyard unkempt and scarred ?
Then call us to the scene !
Is your bare patch not up to scratch ?
We’ll turn your brown dirt green.
We’ve got the roots and seeds and shoots
And foliage to go.
We’ve got the blooms and shrubs and ’shrooms
To make your garden grow.
No need to dig to get ’em big,
No need to rake or delve.
With zero care, they’re ev’rywhere:
These plants just grow themselves !
We’ve dodder vines and thistle spines
And stickybuds galore –
To justify the docks nearby,
We’ve nettles by the score !
What’s cuddlier than buddleia,
And dandelion heads,
Or hairy sheathes of borage leaves
To feather-nest your beds ?
Our ivy cloaks, our bindweed chokes,
Our narcissus is black.
Forget-me-nots won’t be forgot,
They’ll keep on coming back.
So if your lawn is neat and shorn,
Too manicured and styled,
Then call the chums with seasick thumbs –
We’ll get it running wild !
If all that toil in clay-packed soil
Has left you lacking zest,
Then let us sow our vibrant show
Of nature at her best !

Ravencross

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strike a pose
photo by jacey666. Yes, I know it’s actually a jackdaw…

Ravencross

I saw a raven at a crossroads, perched
Atop a rustic fingerpost.
Now there, I thought, as she crowed and lurched,
Is a raven being raven-most.
With pretty hamlets beneath her claws
And shepherd’s skies behind her jet,
She guarded the lanes with portent caws
Where the paths of chance and folklore met.

How to Make Love with an Alien

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octopus
Octopus by Hajime Sorayama

How to Make Love with an Alien

A siren may serenade – softly she sings,
A banshee may let-out a climactic wail,
An angel may hug with her feathery wings,
A mermaid may wrap with her muscular tail,
A harpy may shriek with her passionate lungs,
A centaur may whinny her amorous cry,
A gorgon may kiss with her two-dozen tongues,
A faun-maid may stroke with her flocculent thigh.

But humans, ah, humans, the uppermost rungs,
The strangest of lovers of all you could try.

…But Then Again, Too Few To Mention

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embarkation
Embarkation of St Ursula by Claude Gellée

…But Then Again, Too Few To Mention

I wonder how we might have met,
If I were not so shy and wet –
We may indeed have had a blast !
Ah well, the moment passed.
I was so young, I was so green,
I didn’t dwell on might-have-been –
The moment came, but then was gone,
And I was moving on.

I wonder what we might have thought,
If I had not adventure sought –
But on came life, so bright and fast,
And so the moment passed.
I was so young, so seventeen,
I had no time for might-have-been –
The cygnet must become the swan,
And soon be flying on.

I wonder if we might have laughed,
If I were not so brash and daft –
I set my lot before the mast,
And thus the moment passed.
I was so young, I was so lean,
I longed for now, not might-have-been –
My time had come to take the conn,
And I was sailing on.

I wonder if we might have sighed,
If only I were not a-stride –
But all the world was deep and vast,
And so the moment passed.
I was so young, I was so keen,
With time enough for might-have-been –
I searched for Zeus and Prester John,
Forever moving on.

I wonder what we might have found,
If I were not so onward-bound –
But dice were thrown and dye was cast,
And so the moment passed.
I was so young and so serene,
And put off thought of might-have-been –
So many sights to gaze upon
Meant I was moving on.

I wonder what we might have said,
If only I had stayed instead ?
We may have loved as beau and lass,
Or let the moment pass.
We were so young, my almost-queen,
So nearly and so might-have-been –
The chances danced, the summer shone,
But life was moving on.

Con Occhi Aperti

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crimson king
In the Court of the Crimson King by Barry Godber – the subject of which is clearly just having a singalong.

Con Occhi Aperti

If I don’t close my eyes when I sing,
Don’t think that it means that I don’t mean a thing,
When all that it means is I don’t close my eyes.

It don’t mean I don’t know the words,
Or when comes the moment to harmonize thirds,
It don’t mean I’m frightened of botching the song,
By notching too low for the highs.
I’m just like the whole throng of songbirds,
Whose eyelid ain’t tightened and eyeballs are watching,
Whenever they sweet vocalize.
If I don’t close my eyes up to sing
It just means I don’t close my eyes.

If I don’t move my lips when I pray,
Then don’t get to saying I still must be praying –
I could just be thinking away.
If I don’t snap my fingers in time with the beat,
If I don’t nod my head and I don’t tap my feet,
Don’t think I don’t got it,
Or done gone and shot it,
If I keep my feelings discreet.

I don’t need to wring out no tears to sing out,
Cos weeping – that just ain’t my thing.
It just means, besides, that I don’t close my eyes,
When I don’t close my eyes when I sing.

The Verse That Goes Like This

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cascade
Cascade by Jane Jones

The Verse That Goes Like This

This is the rhythm and this is the line
This is the poem that starts like this
This is the stanza and this is the metre
This is the terminal-tonal repeater

This is the engine and this is the spine
This is the beat and it drives like this
This is the tempo and this is the timing
This the feminine method of rhyming

These are the syllables – see them combine
These are the feet and they march like this
These are the dactylic dactyls all chasing
This is the pittering-pattering pacing

This is the rhythm and this is the line
This is the poem that stops like this
This is the build-up and this is the pending
This is the climax and this is the ending

Hello Aeronautic

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flying vee

Hello Aeronautic

Astride your Flying Vee,
You beckon me
To step right up and climb aboard –
The bass is thrubbing low,
It’s time to go,
Ignition with your power-chord.
At once we lose the crowds
To walk on clouds,
As smoke comes billowing beside –
You swoop me low and high,
We are the sky,
We buckle-up and take the ride.

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

Necessary Narcissism

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omnia
Omnia Morte Cadunt by Barthel Bruyn

Necessary Narcissism

Yeats ?  I’m better than him, any day !
Shakespeare ?  Kipling ?  Take them away !
Wordsworth ain’t worth a word, nor a letter –
Betjeman, ha !  Bet you meant to be better.

Sure, they have moments – as do I, if you only knew –
But it’s only their moments forever retold and adored.
I could write beauty, should it suit me – and it does !, and I do !
But it’s always their words get remembered, and my words ignored.

To tell the truth, I’d always hoped I could have loved them all instead,
But then they never wrote the lines I wished and needed to be said,
And so it fell to me to please myself with what I couldn’t find,
And that is why it’s only I who sparks my picky, prickly mind.

Oh, they all have moments, and I cling to these for dear love –
That just for once they get me – when they get me right and get me good !
I need these, only ten times more so – scattered crumbs are not enough –
Why must I hack my own damn verses just to feel I’m understood ?

Perhaps I over-dramatise a little, make too much a fuss,
But surely we’ve all felt at times abandoned, like we’ve missed the bus –
They make such lofty claims of how they speak for us, these sacred arts,
Yet often fail so mis’rably to touch us in our hungry hearts.

Sure they have their moments – as do I !  Ah, but you’ll never know.
I wouldn’t care, if only you could steal my thoughts and set them free.
I know I have some beauty, somewhere – Ah, forget it, let it go…
If only I could love them as you love them – but it ain’t to be.

Yeats ?  I’m better, when we’re both said and done !
At least, to my audience of one.