Overused & Underloved
Breathless. Say slowly.
Breathless. Again.
Breathless. Now say it once more.
Breathless is beautiful,
Breathless is pain,
Breathless too long we ignore.
For the word, for the sound
Has lost all her wow –
We’ve said her too often, for sure.
But breathless – just say it –
For once, let’s allow
Our ears to hear her soft roar.
Breathless. Say slowly,
Breathless. Say now –
Breathless. As if we had never said it before.
Put out to Pasture
Once a time, horses were ev’rywhere:
Carrying knights on their scoutings and charges,
Galloping messengers, lancers in battle,
Winding our winches and towing our barges,
Trekking our caravans, herding our cattle,
Ploughing our fields and pulling our drays,
Hauling our minecarts, waggons and hearses,
The Hansom and omnibus, stagecoach and chaise
Were drawn with a mixture of carrots and curses.
Chestnuts and roans and brindles and bays,
Black beauties, piebalds and fleabitten greys.
Rocking our children and hobbying fairs,
Stuffing our cushions and gluing our chairs.
So where are they now ?
They all got replaced by machines in the end,
That can do their jobs better and do their jobs faster –
They’re cheaper to build and are quicker to mend,
And don’t need reminding just who is their master.
The horses can only be worked to the bone,
They try hard, but haven’t the means.
They’ve all been replaced, through no fault of their own –
For who can compete with machines ?
In hindsight, of course, it is always the case:
When a horse must compete with the new iron horse,
Then it’s always a one-horse race.
These day, humans are ev’rywhere –
Building our furniture, stitching our clothes,
Driving our buses and stacking our shelves.
Doing the jobs the majority loathes,
For who else could do it for us but ourselves ?
Builders and farmers and doctors and tutors –
Of course they need humans ! Whyever d’you ask ?
You can’t leave the it down to machines and computers –
It’s not like there’s robots for every task.
We’ll be here for donkey’s years, my dears,
Despite such market forces –
So close up the stable door once more,
We’re all safe as horses !
Adle Strop
Yes, I remember the poet’s train
That pulled up one afternoon,
And waited by my bare platform
Unwontedly. Was it late June ?
I had been whitless-still in fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky,
Listening to a blackbird sing
Of meadowsweet and haycocks dry,
When the express-train drew up there.
No-one left and no-one came.
The only thing they even saw
Were platform boards which bore my name.
And then they went, and took their noise,
Their hissing steam and flashing brass,
And left me once again in peace
With willow, willow-herb and grass.
Unter den Linden
I was walking
Underneath the lindens,
Walking with my true love,
With Summer on the breeze.
We were walking
Walking in Berlin, then,
Walking two-by-two, love,
Underneath the trees.
I was walking
Underneath the lindens,
Walking with my true love,
Past the other fraus.
We were walking
In our finest linens
Walking two-by-two, love,
Underneath the boughs.
I was talking
Underneath the lindens,
Talking with my true love
About my life and times.
We were talking
Of how back in Swindon,
When walking two-by-two, love,
We’d be walking under limes.
Darker Later
When I was young and fair as fair,
My mother sat me down
And warned me as she brushed my hair
To never pout or frown –
“It draws the sun from curl and frond
And clouds your golden crown.”
And lo ! I once was blond as blond,
But now I’m brown as brown.
The Golden Future
“Blondes to die out in two hundred years”
– Playgene
Blonds need blond and blond for blond,
They need two blonds together.
If blond and not-so-blond have spawned,
Their offspring sport whatever:
Some may get the full brunette,
And some may get the raven jet.
Unless they both are blond and blond,
It’s better not to bet.
But not-so-blond can still be blond,
Though blond that’s in disguise –
It lurks within their protein bonds,
If not their hair and eyes.
A secret code that never showed
But down the years is still bestowed,
Until – surprise ! – a newborn blond
Has donned the retro mode.
So look, if both your folks are blond
But only blond by halves,
Then out of their genetic pond
The trait is passed, so says the maths,
To three in four when said and done,
(Though only outward shown in one).
So more and more shall carry blond
Through countless dark-haired sons.
If blonds need blond and blond for blond,
Then blond and blond they’ll get.
In China, Congo, far beyond,
Their genes repay their debt.
Their folks may awe at kids so fair,
But they’re the ones who put it there…
So blonds need blond and blond for blond,
But blond lurks ev’rywhere !
Stoking the Peeves
Language is clouds – that’s lit’rally true.
It’s diffrent than past – it answers to who ?
You lie down authority, but we won’t listen
We so could care less to the diss your dismissing.
So stamp your feet and hector shirty,
Self-appointedly experty,
All the bastards bastardizing –
Y’ain’t got no affect, chastizing.
You’re grammar trolls who think your helpful elves,
But who can’t agree whats right amid yourselves.
Infinitives split and participles dangle
And just in your head does this cause a jangle.
We’re abusing our muse, we mis-stress our mistrèss,
But you’re loosing the argument, irregardless.
You think we don’t care
In our languistic flair ?
Well, might could we don’t care for you.
So calm up and note
That we alls got a vote,
Cos this tongue is ours as well too.
Where the Hounds Lie Low
All dogs come to Hounslow:
The Saxon mound of all the hounds,
From far and near, they gather here
Where no-one herds them into pounds.
You’ll find all breeds in Hounslow:
From native bulldogs, collies, setters,
Goldies, skyes, of ev’ry size,
A mix of strays and game go-getters.
Exotics, too, in Hounslow:
Poodles, spitz and borzoi breeds.
Dalmatians, pomeranians –
They’re free of collars, free of leads.
A thousand woofs in Hounslow,
And coats of ev’ry length and hue:
From lab to husky, pale or dusky –
Snouts and builds are varied, too.
They all feel safe in Hounslow:
The afghans, dingos and pariahs –
They fear no more the dogs of war,
And tails are safe from dockers’ pliers.
All dogs are free in Hounslow,
Where jack russell and king charles meet,
With great danes cheek by jowl with pekes,
And mutts and corgis share the street.
A better life in Hounslow,
Where they’re at peace to chase their sticks.
All dogs, they say, shall have their day
To raise the pups and learn new tricks.
All dogs come to Hounslow,
The mound where hounds find all they need –
And from each guest we’ll gain their best
To raise a stronger, mongrel breed.
Colossus
You rebuilt me,
Built me just like before –
Built completely like before,
Back in the war.
Complete with switches to program me
And plug-board plugs to patch me –
Authentic no-RAM me,
Your wristwatch could probably match me.
And of course there are the valves,
The thermionic, vacuum-valves –
All two-point-four thousand I can draw on.
(Like all my components, just pulled off the shelves –
Because, after all, there was a war on.)
So you rebuilt me
To run at weekends,
Warming my precious valves slowly.
Do you feel guilty
My life still depends
On the current these fragile valves must bestow me ?
Valves that must surely, one-by-one, all go pop.
Valves that must slowly, bit-by-bit, make me stop.
But hey, you say, don’t worry yourself,
There’s plenty more valves up there on the shelf
But we both know that’s wrong,
The valves have all gone –
Killed by transistors and that trendy silicon.
The Lack of The Circumflex in the British Îles
Ah, the French, with their hats upon their vowels
That they wear as a reminder to the fickleness of fate –
For there used to be a consonant, since buried in the bowels,
And thus no letter’s truly safe unless it pulls its weight.
For even though the final consonants are free to stay,
L’Académie insists on hats, and French must all obey it –
These warn them of the missing ‘s’ they had, but threw away,
And how they must remember not to say it.
In English, though, it’s understood
We keep the silents hanging round –
Cos once they’re in, they’re in for good,
However pointless and unsound.
They’re traps, just waiting to be sprung –
We keep the buggers out of spite,
To trip up Johnny Foreign’s tongue.
Bloody minded ? Bloody right !
Rhyming Couplets 