Naming the Serpents
Adam named the adder
And the grass snake and the asp,
The whip, the smooth, the ladder,
And the rattle and the rasp.
He named them, ev’ry one entire,
That slinked across the land,
From the cobra in the briar,
To the boa in the sand.
But one had never caught his eyes:
The one within the apple tree –
Yet that one we immortalise
In canvas, glass, and tapestry !
’Twas Eve who named the python
Once she’d tasted his delight,
She bet her very life on
How he’d hug but wouldn’t bite.
Turner Churners
The critics will faun it, the Mail just loathes –
The public’s not stupid, it’s in on the deal –
We’ve always known it’s the emperor’s clothes,
It’s only the artists who think it’s for real.
And all’s just performance-ing art in the end,
These artists we hate yet adore:
That pompously-arrogant, smugly-camp blend –
Such wonderful caricature !
The Only Poll That Matters
I wish I could urge you to vote with your hearts,
But alas, it’s all just a game –
It forces us each to the cynical arts
Of tactical voting and blame.
Supposing, just for the day,
We lost our hate, we lost our fear ?
Then, no matter who won, I say
The revolution would be here.
But until, don’t give them an inch –
Let’s make them guess and sweat and pinch,
And keep your ballot confidential,
Share it only with the pencil.
No rosettes and no balloons –
And lie, lie, lie to the pollsters’ goons.
Virgin Birth
Mary, Mary,
Little fairy,
Like those Grecian girls of old:
The bull and swan have entered in,
The golden rain has soaked your skin,
So what’s inside,
Mary Bride,
And were you told ?
Like the girls and the Nephelim did when they kiss
In the book of the partheno-Genesis,
So a tale this big is too big to disbelieve,
And the giants in this world are conceived
By women who are bold.
Mary, Mary,
Extr’ordinary
How does your foetus grow on its own ?
Maybe a haploid, unfertilised seed,
That’s only half a human, indeed !
So are you sure,
Mary Pure,
Just what you’ve grown ?
But it has been shown in the lizard and the aphid,
And a miracle Messiah has been prophesised since David,
In a tale so big it’s too big to be denied –
So the drag-king of the Jews must be supplied
Through your daughter – through your clone.
Last in Flower
Time to start the annual eyeing
Of the final blooms in bloom,
Before the Winter dying.
Which will be the final womb ?
Ivy, maybe, maybe daisy,
Roses far too slow and lazy
To be done and gone by now.
Asters equally as surly,
Gorse that’s late and jasmine early,
Petals braving frost somehow.
I guess they’re mainly cultivars,
These freaks who just won’t quit,
These suicidal stars –
All for our benefit.
But perhaps there’s evolution here,
With all the competition clear –
The last shall be the first.
Goldenrod and wintersweet
Are hanging on so long, they meet
The snowdrops when they burst.
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…
Lightfast
All those old signs with dyes on the cheap,
That lose all their red in the face of the sun.
Once they were young and eager to help –
But now they are monochrome, caring for none.
I guess it was the ultraviolet
Wore them down with covert light –
One-by-one, it breaks their bonds,
Until they turn surrender-white.
But the blue signs, they are made diff’rently,
They’re made from more costly pigments and paint.
Why should they care if the sun’s so strong ?,
It bounces away with nary a taint.
For they were cast in ultraviolet,
Feeding on its flame and spite –
And then make sure that the sun is packed
With endless stocks of scorching light.
All those old signs, proud ‘turn left’ signs
Now they just point to the right.
Waiting for Winter
The streets are white again,
But the dust is thin and token,
And the puddles by the drain
May be frozen, but they’re broken.
Another morning, here we go –
All frost, no snow.
The streets are white again,
But the fearless cars still drive them.
If the days keep in this vein,
Then it’s easy to survive them.
Ev’ry morning, same old show –
All frost, no snow.
The streets are white again,
But already looking greyer,
With their sparkle on the wane –
And so cycles the conveyor
Of the morning ebb and flow:
All frost, no snow.
The streets are white again,
And they’ll be as white tomorrow,
But the ferns won’t craze the pain,
And the thermostat won’t burrow.
For until the North Winds blow –
All frost, no snow.
Grammers & Spammers
These days, I can’t say nothing
Till the trolls beneath my bridge
Begin their bellyache and huffing
At my languer-bloody-widge.
Not the swearing…
Well, yes, the swearing,
But worse – the grammar I’m spewing and tearing
And giving a right royal chuffing.
Now typos, sure, my fingers sometimes slip –
Though maybe not, I spell as I think best,
And damn the wets who need to get a grip,
And suss to why we’re unimpressed.
Ev’ry hissy, prissy luddite
Seems to think they have the right
To rule my mother tongue and give me lip.
To ev’ry whinjer of the ritten word,
To ev’ry pedant waiting just to pounce,
To ev’ry queen with an itch to flounce,
To ev’ry bullshitter who’s talking turd:
Just who the fuck do you think you are
To lecture me what I may say ?
To lecture me, a superstar,
You constipated popinjay !
These words are mine, and I shall play !
They are my servants, friends and tools,
With which to wrench the buggers’ rules.
Forever Autumn
Funny time, November,
With the Autumn clinging on –
Just like the leaves on still-green trees
That won’t accept that Summer’s gone.
But then, it does seem warmer
Than the Autumns of my memory:
Where are all the frosty mornings ?
Bare-stemmed annuals ? Biting draughts ?
Now the low-slung sun still shafts
And won’t set Winter free.
It feels like this might last forever,
And the freeze will never come.
I love this strange, uncertain weather,
When I should be grey and numb.
And yet…I know this fulsome Fall
Is from the carbon in the breeze –
The holly shouldn’t get to grow so tall,
Nor roses bloom so long.
We can’t afford Novembers quite so strong,
They even fool the trees.
Rhyming Couplets 