Part-Time Poet
I’m only a poet on Tuesdays –
For most of the week, it’s ignored.
When all of the rest
Of my life is distressed,
That’s all I can really afford.
I’m only a poet on Tuesdays,
I’m only an artist in brief.
By Wednesday, it’s gone
As the week presses on,
And my words are all buried beneath.
Flexi-Time
The time upon a clock is always wrong,
For any two will not concur –
Some dole their endless stock of seconds long,
While others scatter theirs a-blur.
So never trust upon a clock:
’Twill gain a tick but lose a tock.
The Elusive Mister Morningstar
Who was it brought flood and killed
Now all bar eight and two-by-two ?
And who was it the plagues fulfilled,
And ev’ry firstborn slaughtered through ?
And who was it dictated Law
With racist hates and petty spites ?
And who was it commanding Saul
To genocide Amalekites ?
Who was it with love divine
Came not with peace but with a sword ?
And who was it made Constantine
Kill all who prayed to Jove as Lord ?
And who was it Indulgence sold,
And rent the schismic Church apart ?
And who was it sought relic-gold,
And clast the icons, smashed the art ?
Who was it turned Papal might
Crusading east with zealous cares ?
And who was it sent butcher knights
To Temple Mount and Friday Prayers ?
And who was it built witches’ pyres ?
And made that bigot Luther split ?
And who was it filled Henry’s ires,
And Bloody Mary’s roasting spit ?
Who was it set Cortez loose,
And murd’rous-censor Thomas More ?
And who was it hid child abuse ?
And Cromwell’s terror ? Holy war ?
And who roused Torquemada’s will ?
And Galileo’s truths deny ?
And who keeps Ulster troubled still ?
I swear it wasn’t I.
This is my response to Mick Jagger’s Sympathy For The Devil, which I think is an absolutely appalling piece of poetry. Does it mean to suggest that the Devil is worthy of sympathy ? If so, why does it have him confess to having his fingers in such ruthless pies ? Does it intend to damn him as an unrepentant sinner ? If so, then boredom-city !
Childless Genes
I am the product of four-billion years-worth
Of winners and breeders, and fighters and choosers.
But now they shall wither, extinguished forever –
For billions they flourished, yet still wound up losers.
But hold on, my genes are my sister’s, my brother’s –
They’ll swim through the side streams, these spawny succeeders.
For they are the product of four billion years-worth
Of fighters and choosers, and winners and breeders.
Seismic Sirens
“A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.”
– Geology Now
It only takes an ankle,
Or the merest hint of wrist,
And oh, calamities abound !
These wenches shock the very ground !
The seething earth they rankle
With each rendezvous and tryst.
It only takes a look or pout
To make the boiling magma spout.
Prog Log
Pick a part that plays: obey it.
Snatch a patch ablaze, and spray it.
Rack it up with praise, and pray it.
Pump it full of haze, and grey it.
Graze it and weigh it.
And raise it and pay it.
In a thousand little ways – array it.
Amaze it and sway it,
Abrase it and fray it,
But however we lay it, let’s lay it down dense.
There’s nothing here of consequence,
Or making sense – and do we care ?
That show’s so-over, over there –
It’s more than incongruity can bear.
Those bare-faced bears’ credulity
Is worth just one and two and twenty pence.
We’re seeking for a mark to steer,
The dark to clear –
But hark ! Is that a Mellotron I hear ?
Waiting for our gaze to slay it,
Searching for the phrase to say it,
Just pick a part that plays,
And play it.
Man, that’s so intense…
A piece of sheer nonsense, just for the sake of the sound of the words. I make no apologies.
Not Telling
(A skipping chant)
I’ve got a secret,
Maybe I shall speak it –
Maybe I shall leak my secret indiscreet.
I’ve got a story
Told to me by Rory –
Maybe I shall store my story safe and sweet.
To how many folk
Shall I utter not a croak,
Shall I never chat or jaw
What I saw ?
And how many days
Shall I mutter not a phrase,
Shall I never breathe a word
What I heard ?
Your hunger’s getting bolder,
Your guesses getting colder –
But promise to be good
And I’ll tell you when you’re older.
Five fives are twenty-five
And three threes are nine
I’ve got a secret
And it’s mine, all mine.
There have actually been whole studies conducted into skipping chants and clapping songs, and it seems ti’s a surprisingly conservative world, with endless variations around a few old standards – number one in the playgrounds for the past few decades has been A Sailor Went to Sea, latterly morphed into We Went to a Chinese Restaurant. I don’t hold out much hope of entering the canon, and quite honestly until it’s been playtested by proper six year olds, we’ll never know if it even meets the brief.
Jilted
I offered to take her to Pisa –
I knew she’s never been.
I offered the beauties of Giza,
And ev‘er‘ywhere between.
I offered her Sinan and Plato and Gluck,
I offered her Ozu and Donne
I offered her Titian and Tolstoy and Hooke,
And ev’rything, ev’rything under the sun.
The whole of the planet was waiting before us,
And all of its wonders were ours.
But no, she left with the stranger from Taurus –
I could not compete with the stars.
Unwise in the Ys
We start the wars, we fight the wars,
We win them and we lose them –
We argue out the truces and the peace.
We write the laws, we break the laws,
We honour and abuse them –
And either way, our meddling shall increase.
For we are Men, alas, we’re Men,
We’re being masculine again:
We’ve got the whiskers, got the beer –
We’re patriarchitypes, my dear.
For we are He, alas, Himself –
We’ve got the jobs, we’ve got the wealth.
We must be heard ! We shall be heard !
We started with the final word.
At least, that’s how it’s always told
By critic and historian:
From hunter-gather days of old
To present times – the myth is sold
That ev’ry man is brute and bold,
And endlessly Victorian.
But we are more than legacy,
We’ve learned to share and redefine.
The mercy that you beg of me
Is yours these days as much as mine.
For we are us, thank god, ourselves,
We’ve equal now, not trolls and elves –
But that’s enough from me today,
I’d rather hear what you might say.
Roofus
How do churches stop the rain ?
And send the downpours down the drain ?
That’s pretty simple to explain –
See, the footings hold the buttress,
And the buttress holds the flyer,
And the flyer holds the corbel,
And the corbel takes the strain.
For the corbel hold the springbrace,
And the stringbrace holds the hammerbeam,
And hammerbeams hold hammerposts,
And up, and up again.
These hammerposts hold collar-ties,
And the collar holds the kingpost high,
And the kingpost holds the ridge-beam,
And in turn, the weathervane.
So the kingpost holds the struts up,
And struts support the rafters –
Or at least, they hold the principals –
(The big ones, in the main.)
Then the rafters holds the purlins,
And the purlins holds the sheathing,
And the sheathing holds the shingles,
And the shingles stop the rain.
Hammerbeam roofs were developed in England in the 1300s, but not named such until the 1820s. So just why are the short horizontal ties called hammerbeams ? I mean, what’s so hammer-y about them ? I suspect it was just to show that architects could be manly when talking about their erect members.
Rhyming Couplets 