Foot Mittens
Sensible shoes are black or beige only,
Trainers are black, white or red.
Sensible shoes are rigid and clompy,
Trainers are soft as a bed.
Sensible shoes need polish and brushes,
Trainers need puddles instead.
Sensible shoes have nematode laces,
Trainers have tapeworms to thread.
Sensible shoes are smooth underneath,
Trainers are deep in their tread.
Sensible shoes squeeze feet into points,
While trainers will let the toes spread.
The Peasants are Revolting
So yes, alright, we held a vote,
That didn’t go our way –
But now we have to honour it ?
I never thought I’d hear the day
When self-proclaiming liberals
Have lost the great paternal arts !
Call ourselves the lefties ?
We’re just a bunch of bleeding hearts !
Just spin some condescending line
That this must be ignored.
After all, the citizens
As just some bolshy horde
Who never should have had the chance
To have a say at all, I say –
This braying and ungrateful mass
Are far too thick and grey.
And not forgetting racist !
They see us as a threat –
Let’s tell them how we hate them
At ev’ry chance we get.
But they pay no attention,
They’re trapped within their bubble –
They’ve listened to the wrong propaganda,
That’s the trouble.
But then again, it’s not their fault,
They have been swayed by clever lies –
They should have done what they were told
By those of us more calm and wise.
They’ve fallen for the passionate and positive
With not a sneer,
They swallowed ev’ry promise made,
Ignored our ev’ry scoff and smear.
Well yes, they have it hard – it can’t be helped,
There always must be fools
To stack the shelves and clean the loos,
And fill the special-measures schools –
But really, it’s their own fault, anyway,
That they’re so poor –
If only they would learn their place
And never ask for more !
Don’t they know we’re lefties ?
We’re the ones who really care –
We agonise about them over coffee,
Then we like and share.
But they are mindless zombies
Which the tabloids hold in thrall.
(Not us, of course, we see through that –
For we are special, after all.)
They’re flattered when a candidate had deemed to ask them
What they thought,
And dazzled when an orator had spoken up
For what they sought –
But most of all, confused at how
They finally possessed a voice –
And these are who we let loose with a vote ?
It’s anarchy by choice !
My Almost-Deadbeat Dad
When I was only one year old,
My father really should have disappeared –
Just sloped off to the bookies on an everlasting Tuesday afternoon.
And all my life I would have told
Of how my sainted mother persevered,
And how, for all I know or care, he’s god-knows-where
And won’t be coming back home soon.
But somehow dad could never get it right –
He’d bet a pound or two, and down a half,
But always make it home at night,
And spend his winning on another toy giraffe for me.
He hung around when I was two, he hadn’t quit when I was three,
At four he was still keeping near –
At six, and ten, and seventeen – still here !
Forgetting birthdays till the day before,
And even then he wasn’t sure which one it was that year.
He should have been an alcoholic,
But he never got the hang of drinking.
He always loved to flirt and frolic,
Gave the eye to ev’ry barmaid while he nursed his half.
But I doubt he ever got beyond the winking,
I doubt he wanted sex at all – he did it for a laugh.
He’d walk a straight line home, far short of tight,
And always home in time to kiss goodnight,
His breath with just a hint of hops, but hardly stinking.
My mum would sigh and often chide him,
He’d just smile and promise to be good.
He rarely did the cooking, but he sometimes did the washing up.
I’d wonder how she could abide him,
But she did – I never understood.
He’d make this face I’d only seen before on Andrex puppies,
Whenever he had accident’ly smashed her fav’rite cup.
He spent a lot of time laid off, and mum would have to work
He’d sometimes pick me up from school, but like as not I’d have to walk,
But most of all, he always had to think what he should do –
His had no instant instinct for it,
Kinda wished he could ignore it,
Though he still got on and bore it, kinda saw it through.
He never planned to be a father – found himself a dad at twenty-two.
But you know, it seems to me
In a thousand thousand universes,
This one here is probably the only one in which he stayed.
All those other hims are chasing nurses or some three-legg’d jade.
I don’t know why he’s diff’rent, but some tiny little diff’rence
Has made him just too soft and weak to quit his wife and kid.
In all this multiverse immense,
His stopping hardly makes much sense,
But all in all, I guess I’m glad he did.
This poem is in no way autobiographical.
Cold Acquaintance
So, we meet once more, Mr Block,
You shrivelled, empty peapod of a man –
It seems that once again you’ve come my way,
And once you come, you always come to stay.
Why do you do it, Mr Block ?
Why must you stymie those who can ?
Why suck me, shrinking, sinking to your level ?,
You stinking and procrastinating devil !
Depressives talk of black, black pits
That swallow whole their lights and wits.
For me, it’s you who comes to mock –
The dull and silent Mr Block !
It seems you are my houseguest, Mr Block,
And now my clues won’t click, my thoughts won’t scan.
You turn my sense to suet, ken to curds –
I’d scream, if I could only find the words !
You’re all that I can think of, Mr Block,
You’ve stolen ev’ry thought and better plan.
I’ve nothing left to tell of, ’cept of you –
And that I’ve said before, and better too !
Whenever you are back in town,
My words dry up, my thoughts shut down.
How much I dread to your deathly knock,
The dry and dusty Mr Block !
Jesus on a Davidson
Riding down Redemption Freeway,
Hair and beard flying free,
I swear I saw the Magic Man
Astride a Liberty.
A Saviour on a V-Twin,
In the Chapter of the Gods –
Where demons are the rockers,
And the angels are the mods.
Like Icarus’s Goldwing,
Or the Banshee’s throaty roar,
Or that bat right out of Ragnarok:
The Thunderbolt of Thor.
I swear I saw the Sunday Rider
Revving past the weekday suits
While tearing up Salvation Street
In goggles, gloves and boots.
Honeymoon at Niagara Falls
We shared a kiss at Cautley Spout,
Amid the rush and spray –
The waters leapt and splashed about
And we were swept away.
We fell in love at Hardraw Force,
The falls upon the fells,
And watched the beck descend its course
With tinkling wedding bells.
We were engaged at Corra Linn,
Beside the change of grade.
We took the plunge and dived right in,
And let our hearts cascade.
There’s something in the water
That attracts us to each weir.
We’ll face a fair few cataracts,
But never shed a tear !
Metres by the Foot
Ev’ry morning, half past nine,
And Pixie Prentiss writes a sonnet –
Seven minutes, and it’s done,
With notebook, coffee and a bun.
Thirty seconds for a line
Is all she’ll ever spend on it –
Surely nothing good can come
From scribbled scans of tum-de-tum ?
Yet I, who labours hard and long
To craft my wrought and weighty song
Must always envy Pixie’s fleeting fun.
She takes her pen and daily mines
Her fourteen brisk and punctual lines,
While my new verse has scarcely yet begun.
No Man’s Pie is Freed from his Ambitious Finger
The Tudors – always the bloody Tudors !
I’m sick of the Tudors, sick of their tricks –
Bloody Marys and bloody Henrys,
And bloody Bess and her politics,
And wimpy Eddy, and snow-white Jane –
Tudors bloody Tudors – since I was six.
Papists in priestholes, Proddies in the Tower
And the heroes end up dead and the villains stay in power.
Ev’ryone’s a bastard,
Anyone who’s Tudor –
Henry’s shagging ev’ryone,
But Bess, no-one has screwed her.
Both have shafted England,
Made the whole place prude-er.
The Tudors: bloody Tyndale and Shakespeare,
The bloody Armada and Raleigh and Drake,
The bloody plots and the bloody spies,
And witches burned at the bloody stake,
And Irish, Jews and Gypsies shunned –
Nasty bloody Tudors – more than I can take !
Monks changing habits and monarchs swapping spouses –
A-ring-a-ring of roses and a plague on all their houses !
Ev’ryone’s a bastard,
Ev’ryone’s a bluff:
Ev’ryone in sackcloth,
Or codpiece, hose and ruff.
Who will spare our England,
Who will cry “Enough !” ?
Evolution Chant
I am an ape-man,
You are an ape-man,
Just like my great-great-granddaddy ape-man.
I am a monkey,
You are a monkey,
And so is the queen, her ministers and flunkies.
We lost our tails, we lost our fur,
We grew up bigger than we were,
We kept our hands and eyes and hips,
So we’re still monkeys to our pips.
One mill’yon, two mill’yon, three mill’yon, four –
Back in time, back in time, back to before.
I am a mammal,
You are a mammal,
We’re just like my great-great-grand-uncle Samuel.
I’m a reptilian,
You’re a reptilian,
Just like my great-great-third-cousin William.
We lost our scales, we lost our eggs,
We grew up with less-bandy legs,
We warmed our blood and changed our ears,
But we’re still reptiles to our gears.
One era, two eras, three ears, four –
Mill’yons and mill’yons of years by the score.
I’m an amphibian,
You’re an amphibian,
Just like a German, a Chinese, or a Libyan.
I am a swim-fish,
You are a swim-fish,
Just like our sisters, the curvy and the slim-ish.
We lost our gills, we lost our fins,
We grew up with our necks and chins,
We gained our lungs and lost some cones,
But we’re still fishes to our bones.
One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four –
Hundreds of mill’yons of years to explore.
I am a wiggle-worm,
You are a wiggle-worm,
Just like our brothers, who squiggle when they squirm.
I am a wet-sponge,
You are a wet-sponge,
Just like our neighbours, the blond and brunette ones.
We lost our universal cells,
We grew up bony, without shells,
We gained our teeth and gained our butts,
But we’re still sponges to our guts.
One eon, two eons, three eons, four –
Ages and cycles and epochs galore.
I am a germ bug,
You are a germ bug,
Just like the scorpion, the skylark and sea-slug.
I am a virus,
You are a virus,
Far enough back, and ev’rything’s a virus.
We lost our tiny little size,
We grew up big and strong and wise,
We may not think so anymore,
But we’re still microbes to our core.
One bill’yon, two bill’yon, three bill’yon, four –
Back in the days of the yoriest yore.
Feel free to change the opening lines to ‘ape-girl’ if you wish.
Ammonites & Moabites
Ammonites are ceph’lopods
With spiralling shells,
A bit like the nautilus
With gas-chambered cells –
But larger and groovier,
These kings of the ocean,
These chosen of Ammon,
These Jurassic movers,
These Cretaceous shakers –
In the Fathoms of Mammon,
From sea-beds to breakers,
Till the shark and the salmon
Cast out these apostles.
But there in the fossils,
Their statues awake…
Moabites are ceph’lopods
We’ve yet to discover
They’re out there, still buried,
In one rock or another –
And each slab we lever,
So hopes the believer,
May yet be inscribed
With this prodigal tribe:
A bit like a nautilus,
A bit like an octopus,
A bit unlike either.
And just like the ammonites,
They need us to free them –
We know not what they look like,
But we’ll know them when we see them.
