Sluff
The friendly weeds are rambling over
The concrete desert flats.
Dandelions, rich as clover,
Are cracking through the slats.
And people too, with dogs and cats,
And lawns and privet hedges,
Have made a world for noisy brats
To soften brutal edges.
But certain sniffy poets would
Look down on all this life,
And cannot see the neighbourhood
Within the urban strife.
And yes, the ugliness is rife
Compared to York or Kent,
But here a working man and wife
Can still afford the rent.
Hannah Without the Haitches
Anna…
Anna with an accent,
A European accent –
So she could be from anywhere…
(Well, anywhere but France.)
I’m no good guessing accents
Much beyond ‘North of the Trent’ –
Though ‘Eastern European’,
That must put me in with half a chance.
(In France she would be Anne, see,
With an ‘e’, is what I meant.)
But Anna’s international,
And how those borders love to dance…
But hang on…wait…she’s Ana,
One ‘n’ Ana ! Oh, that’s different !
There’s less and fewer Anas
And so suddenly my odds advance.
Except…there’s Spain…and Portugal…
The Balkans…half the continent !
And yet, I just can’t make those fit,
And I dismiss them at a glance.
Perhaps she’s Anastasia…
She must be Greek or Russian sent !
And Greek ? I just don’t think she’s Greek –
There’s something Slavic in her stance…
So Russian. Nazdarovya !
Though by way of cockney Kent,
Where London adds its subtle spice
Into her journeyman’s romance.
In truth, I only know she’s Ana –
Maybe Moscow, maybe Ghent.
One day I might just ask her where,
But not today – why break the trance ?
Everything from Shells
Downs go up and downs go down,
As wave on wave of frozen ocean
Built each ridge and vale and crown
With ev’ry ancient tide in motion.
Tiny creatures swarmed the sea
And dropped their tiny plates all over,
From Stonehenge to Normandy
As deeply as the Cliffs of Dover.
Singular alga sounds all wrong, as if the term has become strictly a mass noun.
Desert Island Diss
Eight songs ? Just eight songs ?
Then how will I even survive ?
Eight thousand is nearer the mark
To keep my spirits alive.
Eight song played back-to-back
That’s half-an-hour-ish, tops.
Just half-an-hour of paradise
Until salvation stops.
Washed ashore with a gramophone –
The wind-up kind, I’m guessing.
You’ll need a bigger bribe than that
To get me to confessing.
It always sounds such agony,
This torpid, tropical clime –
I’ll take the grimy, busy rain
Of cities ev’ry time.
There’s Bill and the Bible, as well, of course,
So that’s the loo-roll sorted,
But for my pick of luxury,
I’d like to be deported.
Eight songs ? Just eight songs ?
Is that all you’ll allow ?
If music is so rare and cruel,
I beg, please drown me now…
Berlingo
Berlin – City of the english Language,
All Thanks to Hollywood and Touristdollars –
With bilingual Signs to ease our Angst and Anguish,
And fluent Secondtonguers and subconscious Scholars.
From Burntborough Square to Prince Elector Way
Welcome to Berlinnington-on-Spray.
White Rose, Red Leicester
A long-dead king is promenading
Before he gets re-buried in state
A tyrant, even if not the monster
That the Tudors tried to create.
But wait –
We’re missing the beauty here,
We’re too consumed with republican hate:
“Take a good look, Liz” we’re so busy gloating,
“Take a good look at ev’ry king’s fate”.
So a long-lost king was dug out of the ground –
So what ?
But how do we know whose bones we have found
Despite some five hundred years of rot ?
That is the beauty we’re missing, I say –
The beauty of DNA !
It shows us just who’s our forebear or grandson –
And surely that’s all worth a king’s ransom !
And where were such secrets first teased from their source ?
Why, right here in Leicester, of course !
Talk Like a Pirate
“Ever since Robert Newton played Long John Silver in 1950, pirates have all spoken with the same accent.”
– The Dorchester Echo
Curse ye, Robbie Newton !
Curse yer lily-lubbered hide !
For thanks to ye, all pirates be
The yokels o’ the crimson sea !
We used-a hail from Luton,
Or Nidderdale, or Morningside –
But now it’s said we’re born an’ bred
In Lynmouth, Lyme an’ Lizard Head.
From the Needle to the Scilly,
Round the Bill and up Goonhilly,
Fowey to Zoyland, thar we blow
From Durdle Door to Westward Ho !
Ye scurvy-livered, timber-shivered blaggard, Robbie Newton !
Ye turned us to a joke, to a’ the folk that we be lootin’ !
Ye’d have us be a parody o’ bushy-bearded mutiny,
A pantomime upon the sea, jus’ pussycats freebootin’ –
We should be briny soldiers, but who could fear our bands
Wi’ these parrots on our shoulders and these hooks upon our hands ?
Ye’ve decked us in a strange disguise, wi’ peggy-leg an’ lock-o’-dread,
An’ always wi’ the patchy-eyes fore’er a-lookin’ ’skance.
We used-a be the buccaneers o’ Buckin’ham an’ Birkenhead,
But now we’re jus’ the poxy-pillaged pirates o’ Penzance.
From Portishead to Plymouth Hoe,
We’ll drag yer name to ten below.
From Brizzle Dock to Davey Jones,
We curse your skull an’ cross your bones !
The Daphne Shanty
One man drifts upon a door –
Too far from home, too far from shore,
Without supplies, without an oar.
Or so I’ve heard it told.
Both he and raft, three days ago,
Were languishing upon the deck –
Now all the rest are ten below,
Yet he by chance has fled the wreck.
Instead, he gets to starve and stare
At water, water ev’rywhere !
Beneath the fierce, unflinching skies,
He waits his death and hungry flies –
When shadows cross his salt-caked eyes…
A figurehead in gold !
So weigh the anchor, hitch the stay,
We’ll blow you back to yesterday –
We’re all adrift and outwards bound,
An island’s waiting to be found.
So dance with the carambola,
By the fair isola of the giorno prima,
Ev’ry newborn gleamer.
One man drifts below a prow
Too far from home – but safer now,
If he can only climb somehow…
And so our yarn sets sail.
Up top, he finds no sign of life,
Yet down below are cages crammed
With birds, and beasts, and flowers rife:
As live as he, and just as damned.
A hold here to behold ! All brought
From out the land he sees to port.
But where are they who stocked this store ?
If only he could swim ashore,
To the island of the day before…
Ah, therein hangs a tale…
So drop the anchor, be becalmed,
We’re porpoised, parroted and palmed
In paradise, in distant climes
A long long way from Greenwich times.
So dance with the mola mola,
By the lost isola of the giorno prima,
Ev’ry shipworn dreamer.
This is based on the opening of Umberto Eco’s novel.
The Rover
If you find England is too small, my dear,
Then jump on my boat and I’ll sail you from here !
I’ll sail you to Russia, I’ll sail you to Spain,
I’ll sail you away from her beer and her rain.
But if in a day or a month or a year
You find that you’re missing her rain and her beer,
Well, I won’t be there, dear, to sail you back home –
For I’ll be in Oslo or Cairo or Rome.
Fruits of the Verge
Normandy roads beside Normandy fields,
All run between Normandy ditches.
Your radishes, cabbages, onions and leeks
Are right on the roadside in vegetable pitches.
They’re unfenced by hedges or sedges or nettles,
Just Normandy roads between Normandy riches.
Rhyming Couplets 