Funerary Minimums


The cemetery’s too egalitarian these days,
Nobody is building family tombs –
Just rows and rows of polished slabs which rigidly obey
All the ordinances for their little room.
Terraces of back-to-backs, each equal to its peers,
With nothing special here to mark our way,
Where ordinary folk have come to wile away the years,
And once they’ve settled-in, they’re here to stay.

The cemetery’s far too lacking temples, forts, and caves –
We need some wider plots and grander stones –
But not for just the wealthy to enrich their flashy graves,
While we others cram in boxes full of bones.
We need some council monuments, apartment blocks for all,
Where we lie down with our neighbours, mixed and matched.
To give some more variety for those beyond the pall,
Who have spent their lives in communes, not detached.

That’s right, I spelled ‘wile away’ without the H. It was deliberate, to enrage the pedants with my cunning whiles.

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.

Before the Movie

Coming soon to a screen near you –
A story of creeping dread,
As the trailers tick the minutes down
And the tension comes to a head…
Is this the film I meant to see ?
Is this the screen where it’s shown ?
Should I have chanced my luck in the foyer
For the cinematic unknown ?
Is the perfect flick on the screen next door ?
Has my pleasure been usurped ?
The corn is popped more slowly into my mouth,
The Coke unslurped.
Until the censor’s certificate
Declares this film is safe.
At last, I sigh in calm relief
As the psycho butchers the waif.

Film Pluvieux

In Hollywood, in black & white,
The private eyes come out at night –
And always, it has rained that day,
To douse the streets in glossy light.
I wonder if the dames who slay
Are better set when cars don’t spray,
And lonely streets are not so bright,
And P.I.s drink the dry away ?