Tilly in Potentia
Will she be sensible ? Will she be silly ?
Will she be rosy or will she be lily ?
Will she be grungy or will she be frilly ?
Will she be steamy or will she be chilly ?
Whatever she’s like, be it willy or nilly,
She won’t be like Polly or Sally or Milly,
She won’t be a Molly and won’t be a Billy –
She’ll always be utterly, strutterly, Tilly !
These Eyes ain’t for Crying
The day that she left me
All cliches ran true,
And words like avow
And bereft and eschewing
Were bringing their heft
As their moment was due.
But I’m over them now,
And I’ve things to be doing.
The day that she left me,
All tears ran stains
That nothing could hide,
Not the beards of druids.
But now I’m more deft
At controlling my drains,
And so no salt is dried
By the theft of my fluids.
Alphabet Soup
Any fool can bake a poem,
Far too many do.
I was once a fool myself
Who thought he’d have a chew.
My fruits were mushy, overripe,
My verse a sickly brew:
With plums that withered into prunes
In scrag-and-gristle stew.
Any fool can bake a poem,
Ain’t no hill of beans.
I was once a fool myself
With burnt and stodgy means
But ev’ry sour mouthful will
Yet teach us fine cuisines:
We cannot dine on peaches till
We finish up our greens.
A Song for the Songless
They sing in the streets and they sing in the bars,
They sing in the churches and trawlers and stores,
They sing in their homes and they sing in their cars,
They sing in the boardrooms and sing on the floors –
The bachelor’s anthem to conquest,
The jilted’s lament to regret,
The sweet bridal hymns of the swan-dressed,
The beggarman’s blues and the barber’s quartet.
Not always, of course, will they court with the air,
For this ev’ryday life is a spoken affair –
But the turn of a phrase or some random percussion
Will start their intoning and stop their discussion.
Their melodies sparkle, of course,
Their voiceboxes throb with a pitch never hoarse,
Their larynxes warble at source,
Their vocals ring loud as their lungs bring the force.
And do I not envy them, do I not bruise,
And do I not see in them something much greater ?
As angel and troubadour, siren and muse –
And if they speak now, well, they’re sure to sing later.
I speak in the street and I talk in the bar,
I sleep in the pews and I queue in the banks,
I laugh in my home and I shout in my car,
I sigh in the shower and whinge with the ranks.
And never give voice to the op’ra.
And never enjoin with the choir.
And never partake with the pop’lar.
And never sing lower and never sing higher.
And often, of course, there is no beat or chord,
For this ev’ryday life is in prose and unscored.
But a name or a squeak, and the world is soon scaling –
And flaunting the shame of my harmonic failing.
My melodies waver askew,
My voicebox is mono, my pitch is untrue,
My larynx is cloyed-up with glue,
My vocals are strangled, there’s nothing to do.
But don’t you dare pity me, don’t you dare hoot,
And don’t you dare see me as anything lesser:
As indolent, insolent, cripple or mute.
I need no more shame and I need no confessor.
They sing in the streets and they sing in the bars,
They sing in the nurseries, sing in the field,
They sing for their supper and sing for the stars –
They sing, and the world for that moment is healed.
I’ll never equate them, I’ll never succeed them.
I try not to hate them, I certainly need them.
My vocal chords never ring true when I pluck –
I guess that’s genetics. I guess that’s dumb luck.
Musings on the Nature of Hadrian’s Wall
The wall is long, the scarp is steep,
The stones are square, the ditch is deep,
And where it’s robbed away, we reap
Just sheep and mud and mud and sheep.
Duality
Why, oh why
Does Friar Fry
Regard himself as I & I ?
My questing question grew and grew,
As fruitlessly I’d try and try
To fathom out that guily guy.
I chewed that puzzle through-and-through
For where the answers likely lie –
He knew, of course, I knew he knew,
But still he let my brooding brew,
While smirking on some higher high
The way those holy dudes will do
While letting we poor students stew.
His glance was always slightly sly,
As if to say “I’m using you !
I may yet further crew accrue –
Am I not worth my duet due ?”
And so, dejected, by-the-by,
I looked him in the eye and eye
And bid he share his news anew –
“Oh Friar Fry, pray wise me why
You see the world as mine & my ?”
He looked me back and sighed a sigh
And said “You know what’s truly true ?
We each and all are two-by-two –
Both I & I, and you & you.”
Nom d’Usage
Oh yes, my love, yes ! Oh I shall, yes, I shall !
Oh, I shall take your hand – but alas not your name.
Now, pray do not think me an ungrateful gal,
But must we be titled and branded the same ?
I know, yes, I know – it makes us a union –
(And as reasons go, well, that’s not a puny one.)
But, honestly, darling, your name is, well…bland.
In no way notorious, curious, grand,
Nor pithy and sharp, nor noble and fine.
It’s boringly ordin’ry, jars most discordantly,
Wholly abundant, redundant and panned.
(And woe, don’t I know, so is mine !)
There’s nothing else for it, we each must do better –
Let’s cast both asunder, and start out anew.
We’ll tailor each phoneme and polish each letter,
To craft us a cognomen worthy and true.
Dynasties ? Damn them ! Just patriarch fetters –
Anonymous rungs of begats and begetters.
Soon, my love, soon, shall the world know our name,
And sing out each syllable, ring out each tone.
And suitably christened, we’ll join in the game –
Inhabit our alias, make it our own.
And if they should wonder at who we became –
It’s only a label by which we are known.
This is written with a female voice, since they’re the ones used to changing names.
On a complete tangent, why do we say ‘nom de plume’ and not ‘nom de la plume’ ?
Love is Science Fiction
Riding on a comet’s tail,
Or sailing on a solar sail,
Or swimming with a cosmic whale, so free –
If it could ever be.
Soaring in a space balloon,
Above the dark side of the Moon –
So watch the skies, I’ll see you soon, ma chère –
Follow if you dare.
I guess I dream adventure far too much,
But ev’rytime we touch,
I feel the rockets fire and slip the clutch.
Meeting emperors of Mars,
Or space cadets in flying cars,
Or cybernauts from neutron stars, and lo !
We never get to go.
Surfing on an astral flare –
It can’t be done, and I don’t care –
So grab your board, I’ll see you there, for eight.
Alas, I may be late.
I guess I know I’m stranded on this place,
But each time we embrace,
It feels like I’m already out in space.
Charting interstellar seas
’Round Neptune and the Pleiades,
And who would not desire these – and yet
Desire’s all we get.
But fly with me to all extremes,
Where gravity can’t ground our dreams,
And we can dance on ether beams, my friend –
At least, we can pretend.
I guess I’ll never know what thrills I miss,
But ev’rytime we kiss,
I bet they feel an awful lot like this.
Purple in May
Throat-wort over here and five-tongue over there,
Clinging to the brickwork,
When other weeds won’t dare.
Any scrap of dirt will do,
Waiting till the bulbs are through –
And suddenly, they’re ev’rywhere,
Ready with their reddy-blue.
Butterflies this side, bumblebees the other,
Ferrying the love-notes,
Each bloom to its lover.
And then the scatter-seeds will blow,
And where they land, so there they grow,
As next Spring will uncover,
By sprouting mauve and indigo.
Throat-wort is an old name for campanula (aka bellflower, but I always think of bellflowers as larger and grander). Five-tongue is a literal translation of Pentaglottis, the genus name of green alkanet. The truth is, I needed two-syllable names for both of them.
The Singalong Song
We are not the greatest people,
That this world has ever seen –
Others will be worse and better,
We fall somewhere inbetween.
We could lie and claim a greatness
No-one would believe,
Or swear undying loyalty –
But none of us is that naive.
We ain’t gonna lie:
We do okay, we sometimes try,
We kinda manage to get by,
And do our thing.
Let’s cut the hype and tell the truth,
That we exist – we have the proof !
So doctors, welders, grans and youths –
Altogether, sing:
We are us,
And we are we,
And we ain’t you,
Cos you are you –
So you be you,
And we’ll be us,
And neither side will make a fuss,
And if you ever ask us why we sing,
We’ll say it’s just the way we swing.
We are not the oldest people,
Other folks have come and gone
Many nations came before us,
Others joined us later on,
We could lie and claim a legend
No-one would believe,
Or swear eternal destiny,
But none of us is that naive.
We ain’t gonna cheat:
No time to boast, no time to bleat,
We’ll keep our heads and keep our feet,
And take our chance.
Let’s cut the crap and ditch the doubt:
We’re here today, and that ain’t nowt !
So teachers, parents, guides and scouts –
Altogether, dance:
We are here,
And we are there,
And so are you,
And others too,
And ev’ryone
Is ev’rywhere,
And nobody will even care,
And if you ever ask us why we cheer,
We’ll say it’s just because we’re here.
Rhyming Couplets 