Sluggabed
She did not wake this morning, nor this afternoon, nor eve,
And all this week she’s spawning ev’ry dream she can conceive,
And the daylight still she’s scorning for the visions she shall weave,
Till her health begins its pawning for the means to stall her leave.
The poem is not about a statue, but I do like this sculpture.
A Little Way Off
“Watching you daydream is like watching flowers bloom in real time.”
– Russell McLondon
When your eyes unhook their gaze,
Slipping back in time by seconds,
When your thoughts roam out to graze,
Something not-remembered beckons.
You are taken through by where-knows what ?
It’s all so ev’ryday except for when it’s not –
Just like random numbers, only with less plot.
And your smile is sort-of-just –
And never meant for those who see it.
And your breath is held in trust –
Softly, slowly, then you free it.
Waiting for your day to recommence,
You’re floating off beyond the realm of making sense –
Just like in the movies, only less intense.
Tillers of the Ground
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat of thy bread
For here all the days of thy life,
And this is thy price when thou hearken instead
Now unto the voice of thy wife.
And the wheat thou shalt grow and shalt harvest and mill,
Where’erso the oak-tree may thrive,
Is fruit of the labours of farmers who till
To better the grains they shall scythe.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat of thy bread,
But sweet grow the grains in their ears –
For whilst thou lay pampered, they fattened each head
Since thousands and thousands of years.
Human Nature of the Beast
We know that it isn’t correct these days
To dwell upon appearance.
We know we’re supposed to all scorn the gaze
Of probing and interference.
It’s what’s on the inside that’s worth all the praise,
If mutual respect’s to be more than a phase –
The package should never set eyeballs ablaze.
But have we the perseverance ?
We know this, we know this, we know it’s correct
That judgement should always be saved.
But on that first sighting, the verdict’s direct –
So tell our subconscious it’s badly behaved.
But in our defence, well, we must interject
That lust is a body that flexes unchecked –
So call it perverted, or lewd, or erect,
But still it comes grunting when craved.
We know that it isn’t correct at all
To dwell upon their beauties,
We know we’re supposed to quell the call
And concentrate on duties.
We know it’s absurd, but the order is tall,
And even the gentle and noble‘est fall,
And find themselves sweated and slavered of maul
At the hint of a glimpse of such cuties.
We know this, we know this, we know to our soul:
We’ve all of us bile and phlegm.
But don’t be ashamed, they’re a part of the whole,
A hangover from our primordial stem.
The things that’s important, to keep in our mind
Is that any such thoughts must be kept in our mind,
And to never be let out to leer or grind –
There’s more to our beings than them.
Con Occhi Aperti
If I don’t close my eyes when I sing,
Don’t think that it means that I don’t mean a thing,
When all that it means is I don’t close my eyes.
It don’t mean I don’t know the words,
Or when comes the moment to harmonize thirds,
It don’t mean I’m frightened of botching the song,
By notching too low for the highs.
I’m just like the whole throng of songbirds,
Whose eyelid ain’t tightened and eyeballs are watching,
Whenever they sweet vocalize.
If I don’t close my eyes up to sing
It just means I don’t close my eyes.
If I don’t move my lips when I pray,
Then don’t get to saying I still must be praying –
I could just be thinking away.
If I don’t snap my fingers in time with the beat,
If I don’t nod my head and I don’t tap my feet,
Don’t think I don’t got it,
Or done gone and shot it,
If I keep my feelings discreet.
I don’t need to wring out no tears to sing out,
Cos weeping – that just ain’t my thing.
It just means, besides, that I don’t close my eyes,
When I don’t close my eyes when I sing.
White Knowledge
Hey, have you heard the news ?
It turns out ev’ry single bird,
From ducks to crows to cockatoos,
Is really just a dinosaur !
I bet you never knew before !
Oh, I guess you’ve heard…
Well, of course you have, I guess…
We all have – hey, we ain’t naive.
Some facts, it seems, we all possess,
They’re quotes that ev’rybody knows –
Apparently, it’s one of those,
Like, ‘sharks must swim to breathe’.
Like how Brazil and Timbuktoo
Have split apart and drifted.
The jigsaw that’s too-good for true,
Is really true ! And the world is round,
In space our screams won’t make a sound,
And the stars have slowly shifted.
Or how without a pinch of salt,
We’d all be quickly dead.
But sodium and chlorine halt
Our welfare quicker, if we dined
On each alone – but when combined,
We’re kept alive instead.
We know all this, we’ve known for years –
It’s just some stuff we know.
It’s been so long between our ears,
We’ve let it grow mundane –
If we forgot and learned again,
Our minds would surely blow.
But hey, not ev’rybody knows,
We all had to be told.
So someone had to first disclose
That farting fungus rises bread,
Or knocking protons out of lead
Will turn it into gold.
So someone has to spread the word,
And we could be the ones !
For someone, somewhere hasn’t heard,
And we could get to cast the spell,
And see their wonder as we tell
Of how we’re made from suns !
Darker Later
When I was young and fair as fair,
My mother sat me down
And warned me as she brushed my hair
To never pout or frown –
“It draws the sun from curl and frond
And clouds your golden crown.”
And lo ! I once was blond as blond,
But now I’m brown as brown.
The Golden Future
“Blondes to die out in two hundred years”
– Playgene
Blonds need blond and blond for blond,
They need two blonds together.
If blond and not-so-blond have spawned,
Their offspring sport whatever:
Some may get the full brunette,
And some may get the raven jet.
Unless they both are blond and blond,
It’s better not to bet.
But not-so-blond can still be blond,
Though blond that’s in disguise –
It lurks within their protein bonds,
If not their hair and eyes.
A secret code that never showed
But down the years is still bestowed,
Until – surprise ! – a newborn blond
Has donned the retro mode.
So look, if both your folks are blond
But only blond by halves,
Then out of their genetic pond
The trait is passed, so says the maths,
To three in four when said and done,
(Though only outward shown in one).
So more and more shall carry blond
Through countless dark-haired sons.
If blonds need blond and blond for blond,
Then blond and blond they’ll get.
In China, Congo, far beyond,
Their genes repay their debt.
Their folks may awe at kids so fair,
But they’re the ones who put it there…
So blonds need blond and blond for blond,
But blond lurks ev’rywhere !
Monaesthesia
The number one is many things:
The first, the last, a third of three,
But never red or cold or soft to me.
And as for feelings Monday brings
Like boredom, stress and starting new,
It’s never musk or Mendelssohn or blue.
My numbers do not stretch in strings
That always and precisely wind
In fixed meanders hanging in my mind.
And yet, for you each letters sings
As glad or cautious, salt or sweet.
To you, my view of life is incomplete.
How am I to love you back ?
My thoughts are elementalized,
My triggers compartmentalized,
And never transcendental accidentalized.
And you with yours all out-of-whack
With P’s as quartz and Q’s as jet
In ways I’ll never really get
When white is white, and only black is black.
I must admit, it kills me
When I think of how I’m blind
To the wiring of your mind,
And the way your neurons spill and slide.
But then again, it thrills me
When I think of how my touch
Can bring about so much besides,
With all your senses catching rides.
God Bless You !
With ev’ry atishoo,
Our souls are at issue –
Unless the Lord blesses it, quick !
But these days, we’re finding,
He needs the reminding
To come down and make us less sick.
So that’s why, I’m guessing,
We shout out a blessing
To keep us away from Old Nick.
But if we keep sneezing,
The Lord we ain’t pleasing –
We let in the Devil, our nose to be seizing !
Malodorous breezes
Are born on our sneezes
That mark the ill winds of demonic diseases.
We’d best stop our messing
And get to confessing,
To put our poor souls on the level –
Cos all of our sneezing
Is proof of our sleazing,
And putting-off prayer for the revel.
It’s better than evens
All sneezers are heathens –
Our allergies come from the Devil.
Our futures, by Moses,
Ain’t smelling of roses !
We can’t blow our sinning from out of your noses.
They don’t need our sneezes
Achoo-ing for Jeezis –
To stop a nose running, get down on our kneeses !
There’s some who say sneezing
Is just nature easing
The irritants stuck in our sinus –
And each unbeliever
Will call it hay fever,
And curse only willow and pinus.
Take honey for tea,
And vitamin C,
And pray for the rain, to bring dryness.
They think they’re so clever
With Science and Weather,
They think they can do without God altogether –
And when they get sneezes
And sniffles and wheezes,
They just pop a tablet, and quickly it eases.
They think they have answers
For hiccups and cancers
They think that their Science is all
But their days are dreaming,
And eyes that are streaming
Can’t see how their pride gets its fall.
So don’t be so cocky,
Their logic is rocky,
For God made the pollen so small !
But hold on a minute…
If Satan’s not in it,
Then ev’ry atishoo – it’s God who must bring it !
I guess that He teases
As much as He pleases
To bring out more “bless you”s, he brings on the sneezes !
Rhyming Couplets 