For Your Consideration
Award me no Oscar,
Bedeck me no Grammy –
Your platitudes bore me,
Your clapping is clammy.
Nobels are for losers,
Don’t grovel and crawl –
Your Emmys are empty,
And Pulitzers pall.
So spare me your trinkets,
Your Tony or Bafta –
Just pay me with sales,
And reward me with laughter.
Pray, do not insult me
With Knighthoods and gongs –
If you wish to do honour,
Keep singing my songs.
Accessories at Large
To the gloves that leapt from my pocket,
To the brolly that stayed on the train –
You wanted freedom, so go out and rock it !
We never shall meet again.
I hope you’re not in the gutter,
Or locked in the lost-and-found –
For why should my loss be turned into clutter,
That benefits no-one around ?
I hope you are roaming distant lands,
Passed-on as your comfort spreads –
I hope you are warming worthier hands,
And sheltering fairer heads.
What are you, then ?
Self-seedling, settler-sprout –
A start-up venture risk-taker,
Pushing-through and on the scout,
You upward-mover, windy-shaker.
What will you become, young bud ?
Are you a goer or a dud ?
So little green, and so much mud –
Watch out ! I hear there’s slugs about,
I fear this is no easy acre.
One lone leaf, and you’re a grass,
Or bulb, or orchid, or a palm.
But two, and you’re the other class –
They’re both an embryonic farm.
So what will you become, new shoot ?
Will you grow tall, will you bear fruit ?
So little leaved, but taking root –
Well lass, let’s meet at Michelmas,
If you should reach the Autumn’s calm.
Free Zing
February can’t say farewell
Without one final trap –
A week of warm, then a week of hell,
And the bitter cold goes snap.
Winter can never yield to Spring
Without a parting shot –
A week of ease, then a week of sting,
To see that he’s not forgot.
All the World’s a Soundstage
We are the redshirts, the unnamed extras
Who maybe get a line or two –
We’re barked at once by assistant-directors,
We hit our marks and leave on cue,
But won’t be back next week, it’s true –
We only get one day in the sun.
We won’t make the credits, we’re not in the crew,
And when we hear cut we know we’re done.
We are the parents and colleagues and friends
Who get to star in little shows –
The kind that never starts or ends,
But runs forever, where plots are slow.
We haven’t got many watching, we know,
And the scripts aren’t great, but they’re often fun –
It’s not that bad, and the parts all grow,
Until we’re cancelled, one-by-one.
It seems churlish to say how much I dislike It’s A Wonderful Life, but it does have the decently to be conveniently out-of-copywrite. And let’s face it, that film has made an awful lot of people very happy. So I really should just shut up.
A Love Like Vague
Nothing spoken, nothing tensed,
Or nothing sharply out-of-phase,
But something that is slowly sensed,
A re-tuned hum, a distant haze,
That draws me daily through the maze
With more for than agenst.
Nothing solid, nothing whole,
Or nothing with a cutting edge,
But something with a little soul,
A knowing twinge, a gut-felt hedge,
That walks me out upon the ledge
With just enough control.
Limb-Slungs & Beam-Shanks
Some daddy-longlegs are spiders in cellars,
And some daddy-longlegs are leg-craning flies.
Some are strange scorpings who walk in the harvest,
But all have more leg than they should for their size.
Some daddy-longlegs are tip-toeing fellers,
And some daddy-longlegs are mummies-on-stilts.
Some have evolved from their cousins the farthest,
But all are as lanky as when they were built.
Amateur Amore
Adults, parents, they all say the same –
That my love is just puppies, is all.
This is my first crush, my first move in the game,
And to fall in love just means I’m gonna fall.
Sixteen, they say, that’s nothing,
This is just a beta test –
This girl, this guy, is yesterday tomorrow.
They say, don’t talk of loving
When I’m lonely and obsessed –
It’s only right I have to suffer sorrow.
Neophyte, dilettante, call me what you will,
But just don’t tell me I’m practicing a skill !
Adults, parents, they’re quick to exclaim
That my love is a see-saw, you know ?
They won’t meet my steady, won’t even learn their name,
When they soon need to forget old so-and-so.
Sixteen, they say, is nothing,
This is just experience –
A chance for some rite-of-passage fun.
Well, I may be new to loving,
But it’s still my present tense –
And I have to think that this one is the one.
Fledgling, tenderfoot, call me ingenue,
But I’ll break my heart myself, no thanks to you !
Suds’ Law
I’ve often thought there’s something zen about the washing-up,
Of the rhythm of the saucepan and cycle of the cup,
Of plunging-in all dirty and pulling-out so clean,
Of the slight-self-satisfaction of using no machine.
The sculpting of the bubbles and the water steaming-hot,
Of the stray spoon in the bottom and the ring beneath the pot,
Of never glancing sideways at the mountain yet to come,
But only at the plate between our finger and our thumb.
A swirl until it’s squeaking sees its spotlessness restored,
As it’s stacked into a stoic jenga on the draining-board,
Then polished and re-housed once more – or left to drip and dry,
Till the water streaks the glasses and the runoffs calcify.
Splashes on our shirt-fronts, splashes on the floor,
Till the water’s grey and tepid, and we fill the bowl once more.
Yes, the art of washing-up is quite humble in its zen –
And come back after dinner, we can do it all agen…
Poetry Briefing
I should have written a shorter verse,
Where a couplet’s too verbose –
As slim as is a haiku terse,
Or a limerick at most.
A sestet tops, or a triolet,
Or a nonet’s fading ghost –
As tightly as a minuet
When sent by pigeon post.
I never should have waffled-on
Beyond the break, you see –
All trace of pithiness was gone,
As the twelve-bar blues run free.
If sonnet-length should not be crossed,
I should curtail this spree –
But no – I fear all hope is lost
As the ballads call to me…
Rhyming Couplets 