Ravelling
Penelope just cannot seem
To stitch the seam to stop her shroud –
She warps her wefts and weaves her wools,
And intermingles through the crowd.
But somehow, she can’t cast them off,
Who team around her loom –
They watch her fingers thread and pull,
To spin the fabric of the tomb.
‘Tache-less
Those clean-shaved chaps all suffer hell
From a lack of stiffened upper-lips,
Their razor-bothered mouths are far too sleek.
When it comes to cunning twirling, well,
They simply cannot get to grips –
Their naked filtrums wobble when they speak.
No rakish pencil wits
For these tongue-tied sunburned Brits,
But the unconnected stubble of the meek.
No bushy walrus manliness
On faces long on gangliness,
Whose claims to hairy days are bare-faced cheek !
Yes, it’s that time of the calendar when all we scribblers unable to draw even a stick-man are made to feel unworthy in the face of the wrist-flicking pencil-jockeys. But at least I can console myself in jotting down some words to accompany their sketches.
And for the first time, I have managed to write something for every day of the month. But this does mean that me usual Halloween-themed poems will have to share the days at the end of the month, giving you all double bubble.
And as with previous years, I’ll use it as an opportunity to display some artwork I’ve found that I enjoy, even though it sometimes has a rather tangental relationship with the poem beneath it.
I sent in my poems, my beautiful poems,
For the algorithm to read.
These weren’t my so-sos, my whatevs, or ho-hums,
But the ones where my spirit is freed.
The greatest I’ve mastered, the finest I’ve crafted –
But the AI just shrugs as I plead.
Rejected by binary, silicon-shafted –
With empty and split-second speed.
But I don’t know why I expected a hearing
From anyone human, indeed –
And so all my labours will not be appearing
My children just hung-out to bleed.
For this must be why I am never selected,
The victim of corporate greed.
It cannot be talent that sees me rejected,
For how can my stuff not succeed…?
The Drum Shop
A chamber filled with cylinders of air beneath the skins,
A cavern dedicated to the art of beating things,
A desert for the trumpets, and a wilderness for strings,
But oh, this is a heaven for the drums !
Where cymbals tsk-tsk-tsk all day,
And tambourines are shake-a-shake,
And castanets come out to play,
With wood-blocks in their wake.
Congas and tom-toms and bongos in pairs,
In a four-four and three-four and quick-march in double-time,
Bass drums and kettles and tablas and snares,
To the beat of the bodhran and ting of the wind-chime.
And oh, the sticks and hammers and brushes !
So many way to make a bang !
To shake-up the silences, heat-up the hushes,
With stirrings of sturm-und-drang !
So ring-out those cow-bells, and anvils and cannons, and gongs,
And all that belong in here –
And if you have nothing, then play with your stomps and your claps,
And your finger-snaps, my dear !
From sleigh-bells to maracas, via triangles and dhols,
In a chamber filled with shimmers and alive with clangs and tolls –
It’s a cavern to percussion, and to nothing but percussion,
And yet home to ev’ry drum that swings and rolls.
Stop the Boats
On the one side, it’s bloody-well hard to claim for asylum today –
The government channels are ever more narrow and blocked.
On the other, why didn’t they put-in a claim in France, on their way,
Before their midnight dinghies had even undocked ?
On the one hand, the locals are facing a shortage of doctors, and schools,
And even basic respect from the Guardian-class –
And on the other, they’re attacking the same old targets – like tools
Of the very establishment that would crush them on-mass.
On the first, there are no council houses for those on the waiting-list,
And no chance of ever affording the private rents.
On the second, there’s plenty of luxury flats sitting empty, unmissed,
For city bankers and royals and overseas presidents.
On the one part, the inequality’s rampant throughout the nation,
That’s breeding and stoking the conflict as tensions are bared.
On the other…no wait, there is no other damn explanation !
No wonder both locals and migrants are angry and scared…
Slum-Makers
The walls of Pompeii are all full of graffitos,
Where Romans left scratches of slanderous hissings,
And chalked-out each grievance like buzzing mosquitoes –
But mostly left scribbles like dogs leave their pissings –
Thousands of scribbles from two thousand years ago,
Scrawling on walls just to scream “Look at me !”
The historians love them, for what they can show
About what life was like in the First Century.
And it wasn’t only the cells and latrines –
For nowhere was safe – not shops nor graves –
It’s been the obsession of soldiers and teens,
Since the ochre hands-prints were left in the caves.
Even cathedrals had pilgrims who jeer,
And localised rumour-reportages –
So once a time, old Kilroy was here,
While Chad kept a record of shortages.
So who are these Romani Ite Domums,
With their slogans and sweary scrawls ?
And why must they commandeer the commons,
By spraying on public walls ?
Yet those who condemn the tags the hardest –
And the St George flags – then represent
The likes of Banksy as a cutting-edge artist,
(On a stolen canvas, and paying no rent).
But I must be honest with the street art fans –
However old, scrub them out, unread.
Don’t justify the hooligans
And the anti-social stink they spread.
Be honest, should the youths of today
Have loose on your house, your car, your soul ?
Or would you deny to the future the say
Of the historic daubings of every troll ?
‘Reportages’ in the second verse is not French, so should be pronounced as ‘report + ages’ – four syllables, with stress on the ‘port’.
Hercule or Hercules ?
I’m never a fan of the gutter press,
But sometimes even the filth have a scoop that we need to have told –
Corrupt politicians must always be hounded until they confess,
(Though spare us the muckracking piety wallowing under the fold).
Holding our powers to answer is really not where the threats lurk,
But wholly with kings –
And an anarchist press is better by far than an old-boy network
Pulling the strings.
So let no little grey cells be a tool of the latter,
In a toxic smoke-filled room.
If the Augean Stables need sweeping, then what does it matter,
Whose hand is pushing the broom ?
What a Pointless Waste…
You advertised a vacancy,
And I, with hope, applied.
I sent you my complete CV,
And I never even lied.
I’ve oodles of experience,
I’ve done the thing you do –
But the algorithm closed the fence
Without an interview.
I guess a hundred thousand others
All could do your job
So how am I to rise above,
The ever-hungry mob ?
I guess I’m lacking bullshit,
And my buzzwords are too few –
So the algorithm doesn’t hit
My name for interview.
I send out applications
For the slightest likelihoods –
But they only yield frustrations –
Cos I’m clearly damaged goods.
I guess by now I should have learned
My usefulness is through
As the algorithm once more spurned
My chance of interview.
You advertise a vacancy,
And I, with gloom, apply –
Though it’s only a formality
That makes me even try.
For the algorithm, it appears,
Just loves to turn the screw,
And will never in a thousand years
Bestow an interview.
The Spotless Page
There’s a nagging need to write
That lurks within us, don’t you think ?
For the page is far too white
Until we stain it with our ink.
But more these days, I find
I tend to leave my paper bare –
Yes, their emptiness can blind,
But I prefer to simply stare.
There’s a nagging need to write,
And so I shall, some day, engage –
When my mind’s as crisp and bright,
And overspilling on the page.
Rhyming Couplets 