Hold Your Breath & Count To Ten
Hiccups come with a thump thump thump,
To wrench out guts and punch our lungs –
A painful start, but soon each jump
Has settled down to ting our tongues.
But we never notice when they go,
They slip away to no concern
Once we ignore their gulps below –
To build their strength for their return…
Pilar’s Eyes
Two blue-eyed parents ?
Then how can a brown-eyed child be ?
If brown is dominant,
Her true-colours are right there to see.
Ah, poor Hercule,
Inheritance is trickier than that –
It’s not down to a single gene
To slot into a simple clever fact.
A type-O body ?
Then how can there then be a type-A son ?
This child is not his blood,
Once the cutting-edge analysis is done.
Ah, poor Lord Peter,
Kinship is less iron-clad these days –
It’s not down to a single letter,
Pumping through the logic of your plays.
It’s not really fair,
That your ingenuity is overtaken –
You made us feel so clever
When we thought we’d learned what science you’d awaken.
Ah, poor hindsight,
Your layman’s clues are too much on the nose.
It’s not down to a single twist
To show whose blood is blue and eyes are ohs.
Submissions Policy
We are a prestigious journal of literature,
Just three times a year –
We favour the terribly serious, dense and obscure,
We hope that’s clear.
We’ve got a readership high in the double-digits,
We’re highbrow, yet cosy –
We look-down on rhyming as only for populist midgets,
But love verse that’s prosy.
So if you send us one, just one, of your poems,
Make sure it’s unseen –
For if you dared to succumb to a previous showing,
It’s no longer clean.
It might be only your blog, and viewed by only a few,
But that is enough !
What were you thinking, to waste your words, adieu,
Like any old stuff ?
You should have kept it locked in a drawer,
Until our benevolent sun
Is shone down upon it, as no eyes before,
Its virgin lines undone.
If you’ve said it before, we won’t help you say it again –
You’re spent goods, my dear.
For we are the ultra-exclusive, and so shall remain,
Just three times a year.
Jaw-Jaw
Talk to me, lie to me, yell at me even,
Or swear all you like, I don’t mind.
Tell me of rumours you scarcely believe in,
Just don’t leave your tongue-bone behind.
Yabber all day in a language I can’t understand,
Or in words so pretentious and bland –
And if I ignore you, then talk to my hand,
With silences brailled and signed.
Chat with me, bitch at me, sing to me even,
Just never stay quiet for long.
If I still have ears, then you know I’m receiving,
However tight-lipped and headstrong.
Gabble at double-Dutch, pardon your French at me,
Prefixed and strong-verbed to argue and disagree,
Stutter and tut till I grunt my decree –
For only our silence is wrong.
The Crocks
As Plato says, the perfect plate
Is in the Cupboard in the Sky –
Whereas, the china made of late
Is rather less than meets the eye.
And that’s because, as Plato says,
They’re all reflections, second-hand –
The perfect plate, we have to guess,
Is more than we can understand.
So is it bone or porcelaine ?
And just how deep, and just how wide ?
And round or square ? And striped or plain ?
And is it scalloped round the side ?
Yet plates for boats or finger buffets
Have a diff’rent set of needs –
And no one plate can be enough,
For each one fails, and each succeeds.
And good luck getting customers
To all agree on which is best –
For what one hates, their twin prefers,
And ev’ry taste must be addressed.
Plato thought the perfect plate
Was out there, where the angels eat.
But surely any tool is great
That holds our food up nice and neat ?
Of course, the concept of ‘perfect‘ is as childish as the concept of ‘infinity’.
Liminal Valley
I find my breath held in suspense,
My eyes seek bogeymen –
My heartbeats race,
My footsteps pace,
My mind counts down from ten.
I swear the pixels glitch agen –
Though when I turn to face,
There’s just the floor
And nothing more –
And yet, there hangs a trace…
There’s something strange about this place –
I’ve been round here before.
I’m growing tense –
There’s some sixth sense,
I’m trying to ignore.
I’ve seen that sign upon that door,
I’ve seen that metal fence –
I can’t say when,
But now and then
The colours seem too dense…
This is my attempt at trying the Roundabout format.
Thrice-Summoned
When the rumour had spread in the playground
That to utter a name three times was the trick
For a spirit to teleport-in, unbound –
Well, that left me with nits to pick.
I was the kid who wanted to know,
Just what was the interval and decay ?
How spaced the words could we let things go
Till the algorithm would fail to display ?
Was a mirror needed ? For all, or just some ?
And what would a mispronouncement produce ?
I wanted experiments, testing the outcome –
Like would bettle-gurz still invoke the Juice ?
It came down to the grip of a true name –
For use their true name, and hold them in power.
And thanks to my parents, I well knew the shame
Of a boy with the mid-name of Passionflower.
So when the rumour had spread in the playground,
The taunts commanded that I must appear.
I pitied those spirits we likewise hounded –
Yelling their names till the dead can hear.
But nevertheless, I so wanted to know,
If my voice could reach to the great beyond ?
I called three times, deliberate and slow,
And waited to see on who would respond.
Despite my suspicions of phoniness,
I tested the theory all the same –
But wasn’t surprised by my loneliness –
For all I called, still nobody came.
The Hottest Place in Town
I guess that Hell looks best at Halloween –
When demons dress-up extra ghoulish,
Trickster gods act extra foolish,
And Pandemonium puts on the best night ever seen.
Pluto lights the Styx up with Dawali candles floating by,
Where the Siren and Cthulu sings duets to Valkyries on high,
And Zarathustra and Confucius let the punchlines fly.
While Sedna twirls the Fairy Queen,
And Yetis smirk as Mummies preen,
Till it all ends with the fireworks, loud enough to hear in Fiddlers Green.
The only ones not round the fire
Are Gabriel and his Angel Choir,
Whose harmonies, so pure and strong,
Would silence Hades with a song.
Alas, they’ll keep us waiting long…
But Hell still looks a treat tonight,
So full of love and wishing –
A pity Jesus took to fright,
He don’t know what he’s missing !
Pumpkin Eyes
This is the time for extroverts,
In black and blood blood red –
These are the days of gothic flirts
To dance with the not-quite-dead.
It’s no place for the camera-shy
To sulk in their solitude –
Those killjoys who refuse to try,
And mope instead of brood.
But the timid are always lurking,
Till our fresh attention makes them disappear –
Their breaths are overworking,
When they have to carry-on and quell their fear.
Ask them what they’re frightened of, out there,
And no surprise –
It’s the unrelenting stare
That comes from all those thousand hidden, judging eyes.
This is the hell for introverts,
Where showing-off is top –
So they play-along until it hurts,
And the mask at last must drop.
It is no time for dressing-down
With hoodies for a cowl,
For loners who refuse to clown,
But choke instead of howl.
But the bashful are always haunting,
Always hoping to just blend-in, and fend-off eyes –
They find the season daunting,
But they have to venture-on with no disguise.
Ask them what they’re frightened of, out there,
And they recall –
It’s the ones who just don’t care
That there are quiet ones who aren’t like them at all.
The Slow Comedown
Here we are at last,
Upon the podium, as number one –
We may be shipping water fast,
But let’s enjoy our moment in the sun.
So here we are, complete,
With laurel wreaths on heads unbowed –
We may be dead upon our feet,
But let’s just grin and wave-out to the crowd.
So here we are, enthroned,
With medals hung and champagne sprayed –
We may be stumbling, leaden-boned,
But let’s not sleep and miss-out the parade.
So here we are, high noon,
With all our talent spent and flexed –
We may be all forgotten soon,
But let’s not worry now to what comes next.
Rhyming Couplets 