Significance
A survey sought to sample us
Down to a thousand souls –
I was never questioned though,
So others filled my roles.
But who were these individuals
Standing in for me ?
I always hoped to be unique,
Not cloned so easily !
Am I nothing more than maths,
A mindless analogue ?
Am I so predictable,
A predetermined cog ?
Probably. With seven bill’yon-odd,
The odds are high,
All thinking they’re alone, like me –
Statistically shy.
No Biography
When I die, don’t worry who I was,
Don’t carve my name at Poets’ Corner –
I hope my rhymes still cause a fuss,
But let no stranger be a mourner.
When I die, let me die and be done,
Don’t raise blue plaques or rename streets –
I’d love to think my words still run,
But they weren’t written for receipts.
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*
Rue Britannia
The trouble with lefties is cultural cringe –
The feeling that England and Englishness
Are suspect, colonial, Tory in dress,
And bearing the taint of the hooligan fringe.
I swear, that there’s many a comrade I know
Who just longs for our country to go down the gutter –
So while we’re all queuing for teabags and butter,
At least they can tell us they so told us so…
We know all the customs, yet scarcely believe them,
We laugh at the toffs and the pomp and regalia,
Meet with them rarely, yet long for their failure –
We just see the wigs, not the justice beneath them.
However we came here, we’re on the same side,
So don’t be ashamed of the marks that distinguish –
We’re caring, and hopeful, and diverse, and English !
For aren’t we the ones who are all about Pride ?
And St George’s banner – why must we destroy it ?
Let’s demystify it, but love the old flag.
So wave it, or don’t – but it’s only a rag –
It’s not gonna kills us if others enjoy it.
And yes, it is shame about God Save the Queen
With its sentiments we’re ill-at-ease to endorse –
But with national anthems, that’s par for the course –
It hardly excuses our virtuous spleen.
Ignore all the words, and just hum to the tune –
A dirgy tune, sure, but the one that we’ve got.
And at least we all know it – let’s give it a shot,
It’s only a minute, it’s all over soon.
There’s bad in our past, but those times were withstood –
Let’s learn from our worst-selves, and never forget,
And sing out our best side, and build on it yet –
The odd bit of bunting might do us some good –
Don’t think that old England is not worth the fuss,
For we’re all a big part of the way she turns out –
Let’s change her for better, not whimper and pout !
Be proud of our nation, for this land is us !
Slums by Design
The rich live in houses, the poor in cells,
This is how classes are classed –
From Kensington Gore to Tunbridge Wells
The best were designed in the past.
The poor get newer and concreted hells
That are decomposing fast.
Of course, the new could be just like the old,
But then they would all get far too bold –
So keep them ugly, keep them cold,
And build them not to last.
Ghetto
For most of the people who live in a city,
They’re not in the city at all –
They’re out on the suburbs, a bus-ride away,
In the bland and the ugly and small.
But anyone’s free to enter the city,
Though nothing is free once you’re there –
There’s beauty and splendour for those who can stay,
And a curfew for those who just stare.
For only the richest can live in the city,
The rest are the visiting poor,
Who traipse-in to work there for day-after-day,
And in through the tradesman’s back-door.
They’re cleaning the crap off the streets of the city,
They’re polishing egos and chrome,
And serving up coffee for minimum pay,
Then taking the final bus home.
Cocky & Fishy
Candirus – do they ?
No. They don’t.
Firstly they can’t,
And second, they won’t.
They parasite gills –
Not penises, ever.
They’d suffocate up there –
That wouldn’t be clever.
They don’t swim up pee-streams
(Even if laminar),
Cos fluid dynamics
Need far too much stamina.
They haven’t a tool
To wedge your tool wide,
Nor have they the strength
To push-up inside.
So next time you’re spreading
A rumour or two
That deep down you desp’rately
Want to be true,
When pissing on truth
Cos it pleases your gut –
Recall the candirus
And keep your hole shut.
Longhold Tenancy
A neighbour, it was, who alerted us,
Alerted himself by the muffles within –
Apologising for making a fuss,
“I’m no busybody, and she’s hardly kin,
That’s why it took me this long to call –
If only I knew my neighbours at all.”
I worked for the landlord’s agent, so
I grabbed my coat and signed-out keys
And hopped on a passing 220
To Fulham, above the Cantonese,
Lift not working, second floor,
With a gentle tap upon the door –
No reply, except some mewing –
So I rapped again, then risked the lock,
Announcing myself and what I was doing –
A sudden guest can be quite a shock.
Nobody home (though the stench was strong) –
It turned out I was very wrong.
She sat upon her sofa, asleep,
With two cats guarding her, agitated,
The kitchen another three cats deep,
And a sixth who snuck in while I waited,
Calico, Siamese, blacks and tawny,
Most of them hissing, all of them scrawny.
I knelt down beside the tenant then,
Gently touched the back of her hand –
The coldness a jolt, but I touched her agen,
And all I could think of was all I’d got planned
For that afternoon – all now postponed,
While windows were opened and constables phoned.
The cats were making ev’rything harder,
They’d made a mess, and were clearly starving –
I found some tins of food in the larder,
The way they fell upon it was jarring.
Flies aplenty upon the ceilings,
I fought down all my nauseous feelings.
The undertakers had taken her
By six, so careful and so unblinking.
I stayed away in the kitchen, shaken,
Stroking the cats to stop from thinking.
The PCs left the place to me,
The neighbour popped-in with a cup of tea.
“I don’t think she had family, really,
Kept herself alone, poor mite,
Except her cats, she loved them dearly –
What’ll become of them, tonight ?”
I scooped one up to work her charms,
Into his unexpecting arms.
Another neighbour took another,
I badgered the landlord to take a brace,
And one to my less-than-happy mother,
And as for the last, she’s at my place –
This job, right down to its chromosomes,
Is all about providing homes.
Insults are Written by the Winners
Don’t call me a philistine,
That’s racist !
Don’t call me a vandal or a thug.
Don’t think just because you’re lower-case-ist
That these words don’t have history to lug,
That each was once intended to be place-ist,
And keeping up old rivalries is strictly for the mug.
Or am I being studenty and smug ?
The slandered tribes are all long gone,
They’ve changed and merged and all moved on,
And only pedants care enough to bug.
Of course, the history involved
Is fascinating to behold,
Yet language doesn’t care, as it sweeps it all beneath the rug.
But if you disagree, that’s fine,
You’re free to call me philistine –
And even though I’m not, I’ll only shrug.
Proctotryp
Who burned down the Temple of Artemis ?
“I,” said a man, “I did it for fame.
I am proud to be the arsonist,
Forcing the world to know my name !
Whistle me in nervous breathiness,
Whisper me between your cheeks.
You’ll all remember Limpfart of Ephesus !
Carry my name on the wind where it sneaks !
Limp…fart…
Limp………
fart………
Toot my horn till my name reeks !”
Rhyming Couplets 