A Pile of Babbage
You built a Diff’rence Engine
Just to see if it would work,
Then locked it in a cabinet
And let it snooze and shirk.
In all of its magnificence,
It’s still in cog and joint.
You say it makes no diff’er’ence –
I say, that’s just my point !
The Gravity Pin
Paperweight, paperweight, glorious paperweight,
Balanced on letters and jottings and files –
And whether beneath you are crooked or straight,
They are anchor secure in obedient piles.
Falling Worlds
(After Molière, The Learnèd Ladies, Act 3, Scene 3)
Another world has passed us by
Just as we were sleeping,
And fallen through our vortex as we lie –
A happenstance unseen across our sky.
For all the while the linens we were keeping,
A momentary spark can live and die.
Miss-World
Ms is such an ugly word,
Let ev’ry Ms become a Miss –
I know no-wedlock is inferred,
But Ms is such an ugly word.
And Mrs too, a mumble slurred –
It’s not the sense, but sound I diss.
For Ms is such an ugly word –
Let ev’ry Ms become a Miss.
Wimples & Dimples
Abbey – a building with arches and towers –
And also a girl who fidgets and glowers.
Abbey – a building with gargoyles and gables –
And also a girl who hides under tables.
Abbey – a building with vaulting and chapels –
And also a girl who giggles and grapples.
Abbey – a building with windows and doorways –
And also a girl who’s curious, all ways.
Patina
Her hair is purest white, not quite,
Her skin is hinted bisque,
Her eyes are palest blue in hue,
Her lips are coral kissed.
Her subtleties of shade displayed
Are never blanched, but lush –
And with a gentle goose, educe
A gorgeous crimson blush.
I would just like to add that the goose was consentual.
Building Slump
Oh, poor buildings ! Gutted inside;
They mistake your artisan pride for slumming.
They rip-out and knock-through, your subtleties egress
To plate-glass and concrete – the onmarch of regress.
Go, poor buildings ! Run off and hide !
The architects are coming !
They turn all to shit that they plan, draw and quarter,
But keep your façades as the trophies they slaughter.
Equality
There’s a glassy ceiling above me,
Way up the greasy pole
But I’m still down in the basement
Just pence above the dole.
A fraction of us may hammer the ceiling,
Always demand more,
But most of us working stiffs are afraid
Of the rise of the quicksand floor.
A Friend in Blend
All through Europe, there I’ll find you.
(Never back in Blighty, mind you.)
Ev’ry café, ev’ry table –
Lipton’s Yellow Label.
St Random’s Day
The 6th of June is ev’rywhere, it seems,
It turns up all the year.
This av’rage day has gained the fate
Of ev’rybody’s av’rage date.
The 6th of June has crept into my dreams,
The Swedes have whispered in my ear –
Or maybe D-Day’s up to tricks ?,
Or the Devil claimed oh-six-oh-six ?
I guess we each of us have such a day,
For tripping-over, bric-a-brac finds –
It pings our sonar, winks our eye,
And scores us another proof, we cry !
So patternless-patterns will work their way
Into the slots at the back our minds –
We know they’re wrong, but still they fix,
Just random rolls of double six.
Rhyming Couplets 