Follow Your Nosings

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Follow Your Nosings

Ev’ry staircase runs in two directions,
Even MC Escher’s –
Join midway – on a landing, say,
And we all must make selections –
Oh, the pressure !
Do we climb for the sky through the oculus eye ?
Or sink in the bowel of the gravity well ?
Perhaps it’s an endless trip round a Mobius strip,
To spiral-step forever.
Jacob’s dreams have gone to town,
As the stairs go up, but the stairs go down –
Descend today, and tomorrow we rise,
Or labour now for a future of ease.
Yet up is always hard on our thighs,
And down is hard on our knees.

Some Officers Have Coaches And Horses To Order About

detail from Royal Sappers & Miners, Working Dress, 1854 by George Campion

Some Officers Have Coaches And Horses To Order About

Landau, take me down the lane.
Hansom, turn beyond the trees.
Phaeton, take me home again
By fifty-four degrees.
Ride a tangent from the mews
To the sign of the Hypotenuse.

Adjacent to the Octogon,
Opposite the bend in the strand,
For a measurable distance on.
Times by the four-in-hand.
Send a spyder, send a fly,
On a steeplechase by the root of pi.

Frontispiece

bookplate

Frontispiece

On the Inability of many Victorians
to adequately append to their Dissertations
such short and succinct titular Benamings
as would better serve their weighty Publications
without exposure to crucial Details
of sundry Devices and Plots thus delineated
by which the presumed Reader is disprivileged
and their subsequent Enpleasurement undersated.

Ping-Pong

a load of balls

Ping-Pong

Here’s a sing-song on playing ping-pong,
With a rat-a-tat-tat on the tic-tac-toe
With a whack and a smack and a snickersnack,
With a there and back to the come and go –
But the pitter-patter must clatter, I bet
When heard from the other side of the net.

Here’s a song-sing on playing pong-ping,
With a mi-re-doh to the swash and the swish,
With a tock-tick tock-tick clacker-click,
With a slow-slow-quick and a bosh-bash-bish,
With a fum-fo-fi-fee la-la-land –
But how does it sound if you play left-hand ?

Here’s a sing-ching on playing pong-pong
With a buckle-my-Schubert under par,
With a nee-nah nee-nah stick it up your jumper,
Baa-baa blast-off twinkle star,
With an eeney-meeny knees-and-toes –
But how does it sound if you’ve got no nose ?

Here’s a see-saw on Plato plink-plonk
With a yan-tan-tesseract mamma-me-and-you
With an all-for-one and a four-four-two,
A diddy-diddy-doo-da and lop-bop-be-doo
With an ella-menno-pee and a ringo-john-and-paul
But how does it sound from inside the ball ?

Here’s a *dok-dok* on playing *pat-a-pat*
With a *boing-boof-bok* and a *spit-spot-SPLAT*

Delay Pedal

press to........delay

Delay Pedal

Strike a note – an A – with a delay to fade away and underlay the next you play.
Strike a note – an E – and you will see how easily it echoes free within the key.
Now slide away and do you see how this delay shall carry me
Across the stay, the next, and three, till they decay in filigree ?

Trees in Threes

flight landscape nature sky
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Trees in Threes

        1.
Trees are nice and all,
But I feel I’ve already seen ‘em –
They’re big and fat and tall,
With not a conker between ‘em.
And they’re so brown,
So endless brown,
Except where the leaves have greened ‘em.

        2.
I’ve spied these trees before
On the other side of the woods –
They’re taunting me, I’m sure,
With their secret brotherhoods.
They move about at night, I swear –
For how else did those trees get there ?
But when I question them, they just ignore,
And won’t give up the goods.

        3.
Poplar black and willow white,
I think that I have got that right –
But easy to confuse them, each,
Like copper birch and silver beech.

Hieroglyphs

egyptian symbols
Photo by Lady Escabia on Pexels.com

Hieroglyphs

We’ve seen them all on ev’ry wall
In Egypt – carved in profile style –
But here’s a game to try and name
The most – Let’s see, it’s been a while…
The eye of the Sun, I know that one,
The wavy lines that mean the Nile,
The ankh, the egg, the owl and leg,
The feather, sphinx, and crocodile,
The scarab of course…and was there a horse ?
The slug-like snake, that’s worth a smile…
The goose (or duck)…and then I’m stuck…
But the walls stretch on for mile on mile.

Twenty Seconds

washing hands

Twenty Seconds

        1.
Eeny meeny, counted Queenie,
Fingers one two three and four –
A fish alive and thumb makes five,
And on the other hand there’s more.
So rub-a-dub and squeeze and scrub,
And this little piggie wee wee wee
Index middle ring and little,
Pinkie perky owe-you-tee.

        2.
Queenie went to market
To buy a bar of soap
She went to Deal and Margate,
And Cape Town on the Hope,
But a laundry-maid from Washington
Had bought up ev’ry crate,
So Queenie had to wash with none
But ashes from the grate.

        3.
Queenie on her lone and only,
All her friends are all indoors –
They’re down with spots and chicken pox,
And tummy-aches and sores.
Queenie finds the streets are empty,
Like the swings and slides and stores –
They cannot come and play today,
They’ve all been through the wars.

Double Double Rondo

folk dance

Double Double Rondo

Back up to the top, keep it going on round,
Keep it going on round and never let it stop,
And never let it stop, run it outwards bound,
Run it outwards bound, send it back to the top.

And better move it on, don’t ever let it drop,
Let’s keep it in the air and take it underground.
So never break the chain, pass it on, chop-chop,
And back up to the top, keep it going on round.

And in and out of knots, getting tightly wound
Dodge left, weave right, all over the shop –
But the race ain’t won till the victor’s crowned,
Keep it going on round and never let it stop.

And gallop for the line, catch the hare on the hop,
Let’s fly with the fox and chase with the hound –
So dig in the spurs and whip with the crop,
And never let it stop, run it outwards bound.

And never leave living while our hearts still pound,
While the music’s sweet and the colours pop.
Never quit the quest till the answer’s found,
Run it outwards bound, send it back to the top.
Keep it going on round…