Settling Down
Even on a peaceful night,
I wriggle in my sheet –
From the fidget as I try to lie –
To bare my shoulder, tuck my feet –
On this side, that side, wrapped-up tight,
Or sprawled-across the seam –
Until my breath becomes a sigh
And frantic thoughts become a dream.
Written in Chalk
We should play by the rules,
But the rules are on the move.
For some, they’re merely tools
That will morph and will improve.
Ev’rybody has their house-rule,
Long may they evolve –
If all agree, then all is cool,
When hiccups needs a solve.
Parallel Paragraphs
Don’t just write what you know,
But let your words off the lead in the wood –
To run and bark where the nettles grow,
In a left-hand neighbourhood.
Use your writing as reason to read,
To shake up the status quo –
Sometimes the blank page plants a seed
To write what you want to know.
Snoozeville
I wouldn’t spend so long a-bed
If my dreams didn’t bore me so –
But I wake-up with a weary head,
As I sense their dullness go.
What trite is my mind assembling
In its gaudy world of fake ?,
That is clear not worth remem’bring,
’Cept for a disappointing ache.
Timid Tectons
Britain sits at the heart of its plate,
So far from the faultlines, far from volcanoes.
Though Arthur’s Seat and the Giant’s Causeway celebrate
How we once had those
Britain sits where the crusts are thick,
Though they used to bend, as the Great Glen shows.
And Lincoln lost its cathedral spire, when a final kick
Gave some glancing blows.
The Z-Factor
The world is full of av’rage talents,
Nothing-specials, soon-forgottens –
The world is full of you’s and me’s,
All dreaming silks but dressed in cottons.
Those stars are the ones-in-the-million,
While the million are all of we –
Ignoring one-another’s slop,
In search of stars we’ll never be.
Many Snappy Returns
Yesterday was my birthday –
Oh what a mirth-day,
And jolly-well worth-day,
Shining so bright !
But that was all yesterday,
And time never rests a day –
It moves-on and quests-away
During the night.
A Space Ploddyssey
As Kubrick prophesised
When the ape-men went exploring –
Space is vast, and time is slow,
And the future will be boring.
Red suited, black oblonged,
Very very small –
Man is dumb when met by wonder,
Stanley most of all.
The first three minutes of the movie are a black screen. I’ve heard this described as the ‘overture’, a not-unknown feature of big blockbusters in the Sixties. Thinking about it, this moment does indeed pull together all of the tedium scattered through the film into one masterpiece of Cageian vacuum…
More seriously, there is the interview between the BBC and Frank and I’m-Sorry-Dave. It takes seven minutes for each transmission to travel one way, so the crew give their answer, and have to wait fourteen minutes until they get their reply (plus the time to record the reply, unless it’s being streamed live). Shouldn’t we next see them looking as if they had actually got up and done stuff in those fourteen minutes, rather than look as if we rejoin them five seconds later ? The fact that the film prioritises the suggestion that they are so dull they would happily remain sat in silence than have any moments of – human interaction, work, getting a drink, their hair getting a bit mussed-up, even unintentionally swapping places – says everything about why this film and I can never be friends.
Brass-Cornered Boxes
Wooden and leather bound, fit for a steamer,
A portable treasure chest, waiting for gold…
The trunk of a journeyman, noble, or dreamer
A personal world in a box in the hold.
What wonders are lurking, restrained by its lock ?,
To be served-up on life’s hungry trencher.
Not wanted on voyage – but oh, when we dock,
Then its contents shall spill-forth and venture.
Sting
The hornet laid her sting in my leg,
Injected her toxic egg –
Her ovipositor dripping with yolk,
As if to joke how childbirth hurts.
The pain began in rapid pangs and spurts,
But at least, I said in spite,
At least it’s just a sting, this thing,
And not a hatching parasite…
Rhyming Couplets 