Open Season
August is a month that’s open wide,
When windows welcome in outside
And shoulders sport their freckles with a pride.
August is a month of empty woes,
Of open necks and open toes,
And bright unfolded blooms upon the rose.
August is a month of busy highs,
With covered heads and shaded eyes,
But still with smiles as open as the skies.
You Bet Your Life
Blaise Pascal once placed a Bet,
And for a Stake he risked his Soul:
“If of Gods there’s Nothing yet,
Then all our Faith can’t fill the Hole –
But then, since no God will Notice,
For no God then Is at all,
So our Prayers unto Abyss
Have done no Harm nor broke no Law.
But, should I now choose Desisting,
Claiming Heavens are Unmanned –
And, should now our Lord be lis’ning,
So shall He declare me Damned.
Therefore, weighing Odds and Chances,
Losses made and Gains received,
Wager wise where Luck enhances:
’Tis far Safer we Believed.”
Roll up ! Roll up ! The Tote is open,
Honest Blaise the Bookie always gives the Smartest Odds.
And ev’ry Sharp and Rookie can apply
His Patent Foolproof System to the Big Game in the Sky.
Poker-Face Pascal knows the Score,
He’s Croupier to the Heavenly Draw –
He’s got the Inside Track on Hoping,
He’s the Turf Accountant to the Gods.
Alas, Blaise, your God is not
The Only Game to play in Town,
A thousand other Evens Lots
Can yet be Laid when eyes are Down.
Such Longshots aren’t worth a Flutter,
Spin the Wheel and watch the Ball,
And pray it Lands within your Gutter –
Better not to bet at All.
So, whichever Gods are Winners,
Rank us Luckless all the same:
As Heretics and Bankrupt Sinners –
Even those not in the Game.
And if I Bust, I’m Damned if they
Shall claim the only Stake I’ve got.
But Stick or Twist, collect or Pay,
Let’s ante-up the Mortal Pot.
Roll up ! Roll up ! The Gods are waiting
Three Prayers for a Fiver, and the Fate Tombolas roll !
Now ev’ry Saint and Skiver gets to play
With Aces high and Jokers wild, and Tabs till Judgment Day.
Brokerman Blaisey knows the bid,
With Afterlife Shares just seven-a-quid:
He has the Dope and Gen and Rating,
He’s the Underwriter to the Soul.
Heavy Weather
I try really hard, really hard
Not to moralise weather.
It is what it is, what it was,
What it will be forever.
The sun isn’t good, isn’t bad,
It is nothing aware –
And the rain is the rain, just the rain,
And the rain doesn’t care.
The sun will soon shine soon enough,
To relieve soggy sorrow –
So don’t think me bad if I think that
It might rain tomorrow.
Sunnis & Cartoonies
Tell your children, tell your spouse,
Use a biro, use a mouse,
Ev’rybody in the house –
Doodle-up Mohammed !
Take a minute, take a day,
When at your lunch or at your play,
Ev’rybody, sketch away !
Scribble-down Mohammed !
Draw his eyes and draw his nose
Draw his fingers, draw his toes
What’s he look like ? No-one knows !
Draw, you all, Mohammed !
Draw him as an diplomat,
Draw him as a Knicks fan,
Draw him as an acrobat,
Draw him as a stick-man,
Draw him seemly, draw him sleazy,
Draw him dreamy, draw him cheesy,
Draw him any way you pleasy
Draw your pen but not your blade.
Draw to show our common sense
Or draw to show we take offence
Or draw to show they try to censor.
Draw to show we’re not afraid.
Tell the Arabs, tell the Brits,
Use your pencils, use your wits,
Ev’rybody, Bics not blitz !
Don’t let’s awe him, let’s all draw him !
Ev’ry colleague, guest and mate,
Join the party, bring debate.
Ev’rybody – love not hate !
Come, let’s draw Mohammed !
Niggles & Naggles
I’ve always suspected, vaguely,
Though I’ve never attempted to probe –
But it simmers away to plague me
At the back of my frontal lobe.
Of course, of course, I don’t dwell long,
But it’s never, not really, quite forgot –
Of course, of course, I could be wrong,
But of course I think I’m not.
Aves Republica
We all know what will happen
If these ravens quit the Tower –
Strange to think these scavengers
Should hold such royal power –
To keep the crown from toppling,
They are crippled in one wing,
To fawn and clown for punters,
(All still peasants of the king.)
But you should be flying, Raven,
You should have flown,
For what cares a raven for propping-up thrones ?
Be mightier, Raven, than magpie or rook –
For the higher you fly, so the smaller we look.
We all know what will happen
If these ravens quit the Tower –
So much like us, they’re savaged
Just to keep the nobs in power.
They’re victim of Victorians,
They’re prisoners to lore –
If only they could bring them down,
And goad them “Nevermore !”
For you should be soaring, Raven,
You should be gone,
For what cares a raven for owners of swans ?
Be mighty, oh Raven, and help us stand tall –
For the higher you fly, so the further they fall.
The whole myth only started in Victorian times, and to this day these magnificaent birds are denied their natural instinct to fly for the sake of tourist pounds.
A Pile of Babbage
You built a Diff’rence Engine
Just to see if it would work,
Then locked it in a cabinet
And let it snooze and shirk.
In all of its magnificence,
It’s still in cog and joint.
You say it makes no diff’er’ence –
I say, that’s just my point !
Verbally Hyperbole
Ladies and gentlemen,
Merchants and rental-men,
Fully intended and coincidental men !
I beg your attendant attention, please –
With the greatest of ease,
And a bonnet of bees,
I lyric’ly soar from my teasing trapeze.
So all of you gathered
Are thoroughly slathered
With rather a lather of blather and blust-
An oral oration,
Unceasing cessation,
A wordy and nerdy yet sturdy narration
Of lustre-ful gusto and thrust.
I’m using my jam
To chamois the sham,
To dropping the whopping and stopping the spam.
So, bacon and lentil-men,
District and Central-men
Ladies and gentlemen – all this, I am !
Not shy to express a finesse in my screeds,
As the speeding line breeds and the reading stampedes –
Cascading and braiding and always exceeding,
I’m weighed-in and played-in and feeding the creeding.
With no time for coasting, but making-the-mosting,
A magus contagious in outrageously boasting.
With languid loquacity,
Verbal vivacity,
Flexing my rhetoric raconteur’s rhapsody.
I’m so versatile and I’m so verse-o-phile,
So worthy and wily and worth-all-the-while –
Beguiling my styling, and fertile my smile,
Compiled and dialled for rapid rapport –
For miles and miles behind and before,
Let all know my score,
Let all hear my roar !
All sentimental-men, shout your encore !
So, pouch and placental-men,
Ladies and gentlemen !,
All this, I am. Damn ! All this and more !
Wherefore by their Fruits ye Shall Know Them
And thus the Lord saith until Satan
“Testest thou my great creation,
Tempt and trick and lead astray:
The Righteous shall refuse to play,
And know thy works and block thy game,
And firm upon the path remain.”
The Devil thought and mused awhile,
Then broke into demonic smile,
And so with cunning, wrote a tome
Forged deep within his hellish home
With hints and winks and clues abound
To show itself corrupt, unsound.
For here was found a petty god
Who knew no mercy, spared no rod,
But set such rules upon His flock
Which He Himself would break and mock,
And kill His own as took His fancy –
Proud and jealous tyrant, He.
Alas, Old Nick does now succeed
Too well, as heretics still bleed,
And signs are begged from out the skies,
As morals spring derived from lies –
The Faithful, though, shall call absurd
This book, and not believe a word.
Instrumental
Rock should not be petrified, but pulsing through each vein –
Amplified, electrified, and pumping up the gain.
Strumming to a major key, counterpoint in fifth,
Tickling out the melody, teasing out the riff.
Echowashes linger, rippling out and out to heaven,
Tapped out through each fingertip, and cranked up to eleven.
Talent is a rare event, from who knows where or what –
Blessèd or genetic sent – you got it, like or not.
Play for me,
Play until your fingers bleed
And stain your strings in red.
Won’t you play for me,
Play my each awoken need, on oscillating thread:
Quivering through coils magnetic, shimmering with new aesthetic,
From a shining mind eidetic, visions sparkle round your head.
So play for me,
Play because your splendours feed my ev’ry living shred.
And yet your great ability will only stretch so far,
And no adept virility on wuthering guitar
Can fill the sucking cavity of your poetic hash,
Can give your couplets gravity, or potency, or flash.
And no electric symphony can make your rhyming king,
And no angelic harmony can make your lyrics sing.
Talent, I can but surmise, is fickle what she brings
When genius in beauty lies on six vibrating strings.
Play for me,
Play until your fingers span
My senses and my lot.
Won’t you play for me,
Play to make me greater than the sum of parts forgot.
Do not cling to rhymes pathetic, senseless oral anaesthetic
When you’re playing such poetic, why use choking words to clot ?
So play for me,
Play because you simply can, and we poor scribes cannot.
