Thank-You and Goodnight
The End of the World should come on a Sunday,
After a glorious night on the tiles –
When we’re hungover with breakfast at noon,
Then we’d welcome Apocalypse, fire and typhoon !
We’ve slogged all the week, so give us some fun, hey,
Hold off the Hades till priests fill the aisles –
Not with a Mardi, but Samedi Gras !
A season finale, and one last hurrah !
The Dandelion International
Daisies and thistles are blooms fit for socialists,
Sharing a flowerhead as a co-op’rative –
Pooling their pollen with petals in common,
A composite commune where sharecroppers live.
From grounsel to ragwort, these working-class blossoms
Are seed-making factories, union towns –
They all get to share in the dew and the nectar,
And all get to put on the sunflower’s crown.
Trick or Lure
I love the Union Jack,
Far more than any church or crown –
I love the way the patriots all wag.
I love it on a tea-towel,
I love to wear it as a gown,
Or on my underwear and pocket-rag.
I love the Union Jack,
I love to see the whites fade brown,
I love to see it limply droop and sag.
I love to snub the Welsh as well,
I love to fly it upside-down,
And call the flag a Jack and not a Flag.
Unfinished
Must not lie back on the poems I’ve written,
Those sonnets and couplets are all in the past –
Thoughts from a week ago, month ago, years,
Thoughts of their moment, but never my last.
Haven’t I changed since, even a little bit ?
Diff’rently conscious, evolving, hard-won.
Got to keep writing, keep feeling, keep living,
For what good’s a poet who thinks their work done ?
West Country R.P.
Ev’ry -ing is singing,
And ev’ry plosive plodes,
Arrs are round and rhotic –
But not to overload.
Vowels are never clipped
And haitches never drop –
Ays are broad and classy,
And glottals never stop.
The Siren
I sit upon this rock to warn the sailors all to keep away,
I even sing to them a warning sound –
But guaranteed, there’s always some who cannot help but stray,
Just to get a better gawp at what they’ve found.
They could have sailed on by, as many do, onto a safer bay –
Not got distracted till they ran aground.
Yet once back in the tavern, you should hear the traps I lay !
It was never fault of theirs they nearly drowned !
I Believe in ‘Yesterday’
‘Yesterday’ is spoken ev’ry day,
It’s just another word we say,
It’s not pretentious, trite or queer.
So it’s a yes to ‘yesterday’ –
But very much a no-damn-way
To ear-and-bile-molesting ‘yesteryear’ !
The Wages of Sin
Thanks, Dick Turpin – what a guy !
Killed a few, but by-the-by.
Thank you Ripper, Jack the Flash –
Take the tour and rake the cash.
Thank you Crippen, bask in fame –
Morse was made through your good name.
Thank you Shipman, take my breath –
Waxworks beckon, Doctor Death.
Et In Orcadia, Ego
Did the Romans ever make it over Antoninus ?
Did their legions hike the Highlands, past the cirsium and pinus ?
Did they meet his high-king highness,
In his fiery hair and golden torc ?
And did they think this seaside-caesar woaded-rogue or hawkish-ork ?
So did the Fleet Agricolan heave-to in Scapa Flow ?
The orcas and the auks go by, but they don’t know.
Toxic
Poison and venom – the diff’rence between them
Is pedantry.
Biologists may take exception,
But only they should.
Most of the rest of us navigate life
Quite pleasantly
With a definition that’s still close-enough
To be good.
Rhyming Couplets 