Brolly Dolly
What is it with black umbrellas ?
Only make the weather darker !
When the skies are less than stellar,
Do not make them even starker !
Make our brollies blue and gold,
A private sunbeam to unfold –
The overcast may make us pout,
But when it rains, the sun comes out !
Dropping Aitches
To all you Saras, saying it like Sarah,
Can’t you see the puzzlement you sow ?
Now we’ve got Claras wanting to be Claira –
Just how is the reader then to know ?
There’s nothing wrong with Sara,
Tiara and mascara –
She’s sounds as posh as Tara, all plumminess and wealth.
There’s nothing wrong with Sarah,
But Sara’s rather rarer –
It seems so much unfairer by slurring her by stealth –
Sara is not Sarah –
Sahara, not sierra –
Since she must be the wearer, let’s her be herself !
Monaesthesia
The number one is many things:
The first, the last, a third of three,
But never red or cold or soft to me.
And as for feelings Monday brings
Like boredom, stress and starting new,
It’s never musk or Mendelssohn or blue.
My numbers do not stretch in strings
That always and precisely wind
In fixed meanders hanging in my mind.
And yet, for you each letters sings
As glad or cautious, salt or sweet.
To you, my view of life is incomplete.
How am I to love you back ?
My thoughts are elementalized,
My triggers compartmentalized,
And never transcendental accidentalized.
And you with yours all out-of-whack
With P’s as quartz and Q’s as jet
In ways I’ll never really get
When white is white, and only black is black.
I must admit, it kills me
When I think of how I’m blind
To the wiring of your mind,
And the way your neurons spill and slide.
But then again, it thrills me
When I think of how my touch
Can bring about so much besides,
With all your senses catching rides.
God Bless You !
With ev’ry atishoo,
Our souls are at issue –
Unless the Lord blesses it, quick !
But these days, we’re finding,
He needs the reminding
To come down and make us less sick.
So that’s why, I’m guessing,
We shout out a blessing
To keep us away from Old Nick.
But if we keep sneezing,
The Lord we ain’t pleasing –
We let in the Devil, our nose to be seizing !
Malodorous breezes
Are born on our sneezes
That mark the ill winds of demonic diseases.
We’d best stop our messing
And get to confessing,
To put our poor souls on the level –
Cos all of our sneezing
Is proof of our sleazing,
And putting-off prayer for the revel.
It’s better than evens
All sneezers are heathens –
Our allergies come from the Devil.
Our futures, by Moses,
Ain’t smelling of roses !
We can’t blow our sinning from out of your noses.
They don’t need our sneezes
Achoo-ing for Jeezis –
To stop a nose running, get down on our kneeses !
There’s some who say sneezing
Is just nature easing
The irritants stuck in our sinus –
And each unbeliever
Will call it hay fever,
And curse only willow and pinus.
Take honey for tea,
And vitamin C,
And pray for the rain, to bring dryness.
They think they’re so clever
With Science and Weather,
They think they can do without God altogether –
And when they get sneezes
And sniffles and wheezes,
They just pop a tablet, and quickly it eases.
They think they have answers
For hiccups and cancers
They think that their Science is all
But their days are dreaming,
And eyes that are streaming
Can’t see how their pride gets its fall.
So don’t be so cocky,
Their logic is rocky,
For God made the pollen so small !
But hold on a minute…
If Satan’s not in it,
Then ev’ry atishoo – it’s God who must bring it !
I guess that He teases
As much as He pleases
To bring out more “bless you”s, he brings on the sneezes !
Lazy Eight
Is anything more useless than infinity ?,
When the universe is finite and when ev’rything must cede –
There’s nothing lasts forever, there’s nothing truly limit-free –
So count on up to fine-ity (a number larger than you need.)
For endlessness is not a destination,
And nor is it a something ever-growing –
It simply is a signpost that we pass on our inflation
That always points ahead and reads keep going.
Graduation Poem
I’ve written these poems for years now and years,
Yet still lurks a lurking, a fearsome of fears,
That dreads their rejection by judgement of peers:
My learning has only begun.
And years out from now, will they gather a sigh
For the bark-of-the-dogg’rel I doggedly try ?
And a laugh at the talent that’s nowhere to spy ?
Must still my apprenticeship run ?
I reckon I’m ready to face that exam,
My verse is rehearsed and is well worth a damn,
So let me be truly the Poet I am !
Oh, say juvenilia’s done !
Vexillologically Vexed
Born in revolution was the Tricolour,
And suitably to radical design –
Oh sure, there were tripartite flags before,
Yet nothing like this latest Paris line.
And afterwards, we’ve trickies by the score,
As flagginess itself is redefined –
Back then, it showed a total break with lore,
By genius or accident of mind.
Felicity, simplicity,
Tradition would no limit be !
Their senses jarred by disregard
For all chromatic symmetry.
And so, unlike the world before,
You favoured grand to bear your brand –
Your tricolour said France for evermore !
Look on, you Russians, look and see,
The repercussions flying free –
For even in your own domain,
Napoleon has come again.
You took his classic of its type
And switched the order of each stripe –
And not content, we now discern,
You flipped his flag a quarter-turn.
I know, your old one had to go,
The flag that evry’body knew –
It still may shine in pure design,
But there was nothing pure on show.
And so, like Germany before,
You forewent grand for safe yet bland –
And tricolours are great for that, for sure !
Watching You Idle
I love the way you love to put
Your limbs to work on your behalf,
And use the top side of each foot
To gently stroke your other calf.
I love the way you interlace your toes
So absently,
But best of all, I love how no-one knows
But you and me.
I love the way you stretch and pull
Your sleeves, to burrow hands within
So all that shows beyond the wool
Are fingertips where cuffs begin.
I love the way you flex and click your thumbs,
And use the other eight for drums –
I love the way your body uses stealth
To exercise all by itself.
I love the way you use your eyes
To stare and stare and never see,
Until they catch you by surprise
By darting off quite suddenly.
I love the way they love to smoothly glide
And sometimes fly –
But best of all, I love the way they hide
When feeling shy.
I love the way you purse your lip,
And chuck your tongue, and breathe out slow –
And always lodge an apple pip
Within your teeth, and never know.
I love the way that ev’rytime you smile,
It has to build itself a while.
It’s not your body that I most approve,
But it’s the way you make it move.
De-rigging the Deck
“No more taking high tea with the higher-ups,
Your majesty,” they told the Maid of Cups.
“No more living fancy-free like landed thieves,
Your majesty,” they urged the Page of Leaves.
“It’s not enough to be a patron of the arts,
Your majesty,” they warned the Queen of Hearts.
“No more clearing crofters from their fells
For sheep as far as one can see,
Your majesty,” they scared the Dame of Bells.
“No more shall your eldest fruit-of-loins
Be favoured for ascendancy,
Your majesty,” they snarled the King of Coins.
“You cannot beat or crush us all to graves,”
They shocked the Knight of Batons and the Prince of Staves.
“You cannot bribe or threaten us, my lords.”
They spooked the Knave of Diamonds and the Jack of Swords.
“We may be only deuces, threes and fours,
But to the House of Roses we bring wars.”
“The Court of Acorns next shall we uproot,
And then the Clan of Shields can follow suit.”
“We’ll strangle with our tentacles the bonds of Wands and Pentacles,
Then flush the royal flush out with a poker –
So let our fingers ruffle to the revolution shuffle,
And show Arcana Major why it can’t contain a joker.”
“You may be fat on clover, but you’ll soon be eating grubs,
Your majesty,” they promised to the Queen of Clubs.
“You’ll feel our pique upon your neck when sharpening our blades,
Your majesty,” they goaded to the King of Spades.
“The pips are taking back our land,
So drop your bluff and fold your hand.
We’ll take the tricks and watch you fall,
For lowly aces trump you all.”
A Logbook of Wonders
What on earth does Philip write
Within his purple notebook, lined ?
What on earth does he record
When fascinated, moved or bored ?
What scribbles he both day and night ?
What wisdom gleaned ? What knowledge mined ?
What does he with his pen engage
Upon the ruled and virgin page ?
What on earth does Philip cite ?
What theories turned ? What views opined ?
Bless this ink that interweaves
The world and all between the leaves.
So happy he whose days are bright
With words to muse and thoughts to find –
Shining life, a jewellèd crown,
With endless things worth noting down.
Rhyming Couplets 