Socks Again
My feet were frozen, but for you,
Who sheathed them safe in cotton.
My toes would wriggle, all day through,
My nails were chipped and rotten.
My shins lacked spots beneath my trews,
I couldn’t slide on wooden floors,
My feet were too-small for my shoes,
And empty was my chest of drawers.
But you have given me a lift,
I’m walking taller, free of holes –
All thanks to your so-thoughtful gift,
That sweetly saves my soles.
Football Widows
Keep your head down,
Nod along,
To the chatter at work and down the pub.
See out the season –
Silent and strong
Whenever they ask you “what’s your club ?”
Just shrug and smile
And change the topic,
Even sheepishly confess
“It’s not my thing”,
And quietly drop it,
Shuffling back to the wilderness.
Don’t get smug
How partisan
Their view of the pitch is – they already know !
The offside outrage
Of the av’rage fan
Is part of the fun, and all for show.
So make no fuss,
Keep your comments mum,
And join the sweepstake for the whatever-cup.
The topic will change
And your chance will come –
Keep your eye on the ball, and don’t give up !
Mrs Silver
Back in the days he had two legs,
I’m sure young John was quite the catch –
A sailor seeking fortune
And a plucky wife who was his match.
Step-forward our unnamed heroine,
A negress perfectly at home
As landlady of The Spyglass
While her hubby’s on the roaring foam.
He promises to heave-to by the hearth,
And tend to Captain Flint.
But is she happier to see
Adventure re-ignite his glint ?
I wonder what her story is,
To wash ashore in Bristol Town ?
Then selling-up, and sailing who-knows-where
To rendezvous, or drown.
Red-Herring Gulls
The sudden shriek of a seagull
Takes me back to the ozone, back to the seaside –
To those Summers of sand and Ninety-Nines,
Where the fish is fresh and the Sun still shines.
From ever since I was knee-high,
Be it Morcambe, Cromer, or Ryde.
The seagulls were my holiday guide.
But these days, the seagulls are ev’rywhere,
Yes, even in Winter, even in the bleak –
When gloomy days in gloomy suburbs
See dozens pecking kebabs from the kerbs,
With ev’ry beak in a mocking shriek.
Well, go ahead, gulls – for a second there
I was back on the prom without a care.
Brackish Streams
I’ve always been a weeper in the wind –
It only takes the slightest breeze
To turn-on my capillaries,
As drip by drip, I am chagrined,
And have to whip my hankie out
To stem each overactive spout.
I don’t know why
The weather makes me cry,
Especially the cold.
An eye-jerk sense,
Or anti-drought defence
That will not be controlled.
I’ve always been too salty in the frost –
All the Winter, all those leaks,
To run and freeze upon my cheeks.
So tear by tear, my poise is lost,
Into a sobbing, briny wreck
Who cannot keep his ducts in check.
I don’t know why
My gaze is never dry,
Until my eyeballs rust.
They even seep
While closed and fast asleep,
Then desiccate to dust.
England without the English
A strange village, this. But why ?
The pub is near the village hall,
The church is near the school.
The pear trees over-reach the wall,
Beside the milking stool.
So where precisely does the oddness lie ?
I think it’s in the accents heard –
But not of locals, rather Poles,
They say “howzat” and “’pon my word”
And land the choice Mikado roles.
No reason why they shouldn’t, true,
But still…they’re more than quite a few…
A strange village this, no doubt.
There’s thatch as far as one can see,
And rolling downs for views.
So why do folks from Italy
Fill Church-of-England pews,
While Argentines keep bees and run the scouts ?
Speaking English, fishing pike,
Or growing leeks and supping beers,
And naming local landmarks
Like they’d known them all their years.
No reason why they shouldn’t, though,
Yet change round here is often slow…
A strange village this, alright.
As mentioned in the Domesday Book
And in the Civil War
Where Indians have found a nook
Behind the stable door.
With a hint of local brogue, but only slight.
And Caribbean morris-men,
And Russian gardens with a gnome,
And Chinese shepherds down the fen –
And yet, so very much at home.
No reason why they shouldn’t, Ma’am –
They’ve asked me round for tea and jam.
You can tell this poem is out-of-date by its use of ‘Ma’am’.
Tartan Tarts
I asked her what was the tartan she wore,
She smiled and told me Smith.
I’d never considered that Clan before,
But fair enough – the Smiths of yore,
The Sassenachs of Aviemore,
The flints in the monolith –
The common Clan for the ev’ryman,
The hammers and tongs of myth.
She asked the tartan in which I deck,
Buchanan, perhaps, or Brodie, or Beck ?
I smiled, and told her Burberry Check.
It seems that the Gaelic word for smith is the origin of the Clan McGowan, but that even before surnames arose in the Highlands, some Scots had Anglisised their profession to ‘smith’.
Normanisation
We know who is the hero of the story
By their name,
Who overcomes the Pharaoh
And is master of the game.
They may be short and strong, like John,
Or florid, like Lysander.
But nobody can take the conn
When called by something blander.
Our names say who’s the hero,
Who’s the villain, who’s the fodder –
The latter, if they’re named at all,
Are given names which keep them small.
Who’s an agent of the Bureau ?,
Who’s a desk-bound plodder ?
Why do you even have to ask ?,
Their nametags clearly show their task.
We know who is the hero,
And the hero ain’t called Nigel
But when your name is Nero,
Then you’re Emperor of Rigel !
Kevins never save the day,
And clearly Richards have to lose,
The Mauds won’t steal our hearts away.
And Tracys never make the news.
Our names say who are heroes,
Standing-out from us bystanders.
The latter, if they get a shot,
Are only there to serve the plot.
There’s millions – so many zeroes –
Never Homer, always Flanders.
Yet still the parents set the stage
And give their children names of beige.
Job-Locked
It’s never been as easy as now
To apply for a brand new job –
A couple of clicks on the morning train
And your old boss’s loss is your new boss’s gain.
Except…you’re one of the millions now,
A lone CV in the mob –
And all those skills it took years to master,
The algorithm can reject ever faster.
We’re all sending pleas into the void,
Just begging for a happier lot
We’re bored and stressed in our current roles,
Our daily slog has poisoned our souls.
We grumble away with our hope destroyed,
As the years see our futures rot.
We know precisely what we want to do,
But the gods say ‘not for the likes of you’.
Untouchables
Ev’ryone hates vultures,
Those ugly hulking things –
Bald-headed, blood-stained,
With undertakers’ wings.
Ev’ryone hates vultures,
Circling overhead –
Never flapping, always patient,
Preying on the dead –
Ev’ryone hates vultures,
With necks so long and kinked –
And thanks to us, the good news is
They’ll soon become extinct.
Ev’ryone hates pathogens,
And keeps their quarters fresh.
But once we’ve killed the vultures,
Who’ll clean-up their rotting flesh…?
