Author: Toastingfork

Not afraid to rhyme.

Hairshirts

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Vertumnus by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Hairshirts

Hey, have you seen this ?  Chillis give us allergies !,
I watched it on The One Show and I read it in The Mail.
Never mind the experts – they claim our claims are fallacies,
Yet we know how we feel – and we’re feeling rather frail.

Hey, have you caught this ?  Cucumbers cause impotence !,
I found it on the internet – it’s all there if you dig.
So much for ‘mostly water’ !  That’s Big Salad’s influence,
They pump them full of chemicals – that’s how they grow so big !

Hey, have you scoped this ?  Sweetcorn gives us cancer !
I heard it at a coffee-shop, and in a waiting room.
So sure, go ahead, if you want to be a chancer,
But know I told you so when those yellow lumps bring doom.

Hey, have you shared this, at Waitrose or Pilates?
Let’s spread the word and spread the fad, and let our bodies heal.
Let’s get some trendy diets at the nation’s dinner parties,
Then maybe I won’t have to taste those bastards ev’ry meal !

Silicon Sideman

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Silicon Sideman

The trouble with a drum machine
Is that it hasn’t got an ego,
Trouble with a drum machine
Is that it always keeps in time:
The fourth beat goes where the first three go,
As do the crash and click and chime.
Ev’ry beat created
Is so beautifully weighted
And it comes along precisely
When a beat’s anticipated.
Yes, some settings let it swing
(In a very predictable way),
But at its heart, it can only play
As its programming dictates –
It has no art in how it syncopates.
From the moment we press start,
It serves up static jazz and bluesless blues
At gridline rates –
And despite what the singer would choose.
It can’t insist on using toms or gates.
However loud, however smart,
It never tries to build its part,
With never a roll and never a fill –
It just keeps beating,
Beat-beat-beating,
Beating on and on until
At last the plug is pulled, the button pushed,
The damn thing overruled and hushed,
And finally each tireless brush and stick is still.
The trouble with a drum machine
From marching boys to charging pop,
Is knowing when to make a noise,
And knowing when to stop.

Silent Witnesses

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Silent Witnesses

Halfway between the Tube and the office,
I pass them each morning, sat on a front-garden wall.
I pass them on neither a side street or high street –
They watch us commuters, but we barely see them at all.

On always the same wall (perhaps it’s their own wall) –
With placards and Bibles, but no blood and brimstone, they sit.
I guess they’re a couple, I guess they’re retired,
But what do I know ?- we haven’t yet talked, I admit.

For I have no int’rest in what they are selling,
Though they’re barely selling, and no-one is buying it seems.
But better by far their quiet shop-window
Than Loud-Hailer Preacher, who stands by the station and screams.

Who’da Thunk It ?

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Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com

Who’da Thunk It ?

Verbs in English are really German
In how they like to behave –
Especially when irregular,
Which helps explain how give gives gave.
So when a Norman interloper
Such as catch is gadding about
Well, either its past sees it catched up in logic,
Or its sneaky imitation has caught us out.
The way they are is how they evolved,
And they’re simply something that must be learned.
Yet even today, the strong turn weak,
As learnt is ousted by the friendlier learned.
Snuck may have sneaked in recently,
But verbs have become less fraught –
Where once they flied-out and grandstood, now
Their work’s less overwrought.

The Root of Necessary Evil

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Photo by Anthony on Pexels.com

The Root of Necessary Evil

Whenever someone is keen to stress
That money can’t buy happiness,
Just take a look at their mode of dress:
Are they all stained and dishevelled and reeking,
Threadbare of t-shirt and rumpled of slacks,
And sporting the Houses of Primark and T K Maxx ?
Or are they rather more sharp and bespoke in their speaking,
In voices never broken or cracked ?

The fact is that we all of us can sleep a little better
When we never have to fret about just where we’re gonna sleep,
Or we have to listen-out at ev’ry daybreak for that letter
That we need to hide away before our kids can catch a peep,
Or pretending that we cannot hear the scritching of the mice,
Or the buzzing of mosquios, or the growing of the mould,
Or the dripping from the ceiling that we’ve told the landlord twice,
Or the asthma of our children, or their shivers in the cold,
Or the mischief of the local youths that’s more than just a lark,
Or another bloody car alarm, or couple’s blazing row,
Or the rumours of a stalker whose been seen about the park,
Or the…wasn’t that a gunshot that I dreamt I heard just now ?
Or just dreading ev’ry time when there is someone comes a-knocking
That it’s possibly the bailiffs or the summons to the court.
Or perhaps it’s just the thought that we no longer find this shocking,
Or that were the worst to happen, then we’ve next-to-no support.

I suppose they’re right, down deep,
That money and greed can lead to excess,
And it sometimes becomes a trap, I guess.
But enough for a good night’s sleep ?
I’d call that happiness.

Love Birds

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Love Birds

February, when the end of Winter
Greets the first of the start of Spring –
And what better time for the ravens to be mating,
For these early birds to be doing their thing ?
Valentine ravens, tender and dear –
They’re mating-for-life for year after year.

Coming out of the edges of the wilderness,
From the Northern moors to the middle-class downs –
Now nobody persecutes their loving anymore,
So they do it in the open and they do it in the towns.
Valentine ravens, cawing their love –
A far better symbol than a bear-cub or a dove.

Snow Angels

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Shepherd Wedding by Jennie Hill

Snow Angels

“Why did St Valentine have to get martyred in February ?“

– Mark Hall

Strange, how this day of love
Is a day of sneezes and fingers numb.
Why does it fall with a deathly chill
As the hothouse roses succumb ?
Maybe it serves to underscore
How love is often bittersweet –
Whereas, in the height of Summer,
This day would be lost in the endless heat.

Strange, how this day of red
Is a day of snowdrops and Winter mould.
Why does it fall when the days are short
And the nights are bitterly cold ?
Maybe it serves to warm the frost,
And give our torpid hearts a shove –
Whereas, in the height of Summer,
Who needs a reminder to fall in love ?

Plastic Roses

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Plastic Roses

February rolls around,
And on comes the propaganda –
Singletons are not allowed,
We put a downer on the crowd.
So February rolls around
And ev’rybody has to pander.
Haven’t we all heard the songs ?
Haven’t we all seen the movies ?
Still we seem to get it wrong,
And still we just won’t play along,
And still we’re far too choosy.

“You there !  You on your own !
Out after curfew !  Come here, sonny !
Where are your papers ?  Where are your cards ?
And your chocolates ?  Oh, so you think this is funny…?
I think you’d better tell me which restaurant you’re booked in,
And the name of the one you’re meeting, too…
You know it’s only lovers who may walk the streets tonight,
All spinsters, slobs and nerds must hide from view.”

Ah, ignore me –
What am I even getting angry for ?
So the world is in love…
Would I rather the world were at war ?
Go – shout it out, have your fun,
And I’ll get on with mine –
Just please, never pity me, never that –
And we’ll get along just fine.

Kiss-Kiss Boom-Boom

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Kiss-Kiss Boom-Boom

Loving and laughing are nothing but tricks –
Just social conventions we do for the kicks.
We desp’rately want to be one of the crowd,
And if we suspect, then we do them too loud.
We’re unsure and frightened, we’re playing our parts –
We want to believe, but we know in our hearts…
We know that biology’s running this gaff,
And it needs us to love, and it needs us to laugh…
So sod it, who cares if it’s all in the head ?,
We’re gullible fools who are easily led.
If love is elusive, it don’t mean it’s broke –
For even the cynical like a good joke.

The Merchantman Shanty

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detail from Moonlight over the Bosphorus by Edward Hoyer

The Merchantman Shanty

“Work songs were banned in the Royal Navy.”

– Capt A. Bakalarka

I used to sail with the king, I sailed
On a Royal Naval brig,
But there they wouldn’t let me sing
Whene’er we raised the rig

     So we hauled away in silence so,
     We had to heave without a ho,
     We dare not peep a quick-quick-slow
     Or the cat would make us holler.

We mayn’t disturb his majesty
     With a too-rye-ay and a yo-ho-ho,
For only lubbers sing at sea
     So let all singing go.

I used to sail with the king, I sailed
On a Royal Naval sloop,
But I couldn’t let my whistle ring
Whene’er we swabbed the stoop.

     So we scrubbed away in silence, see,
     We had to dumb without a dee,
     We dare not hum a do-re-mi,
     Or the cat would make us holler.

We mayn’t disturb his majesty
     With a too-rye-ay and a yo-ho-ho,
For only madmen sing at sea
     So keep your whistle’ing low.

I used to sail with the king, I sailed
On a Royal Naval barque,
But I must not pluck a single string
Till safely after dark.

     So we sailed away in silence, aye,
     We had to hew without a cry,
     Unless the roaring wind was high
     And the cat can’t hear us holler.

We mayn’t disturb his majesty
     With a too-rye-ay and a yo-ho-ho,
For only sirens sing at sea
     So take your singing below.

The lines in roman are sung by the shanty man, the lines in italics are sung by the crew.

I originally had the line “Whene’er we swabbed the poop”, referring to the poop-deck, but…well, you’ve already sniggered, haven’t you ?  So I changed it to ‘stoop’, which sounds like it should be a suitably nautical word even though it isn’t. It’s actually the American term for the front steps upto the front door of a terraced house, often spanning over the area.  But then, boats have attached ladders upto the poop-deck, don’t they?