Can it be, October already ? Then time to grasp at the accidental inspiration for some short poems. Over the coming week you can enjoy some vol-au-vents prompted by the official titles, all of little consequence but hopefully of some enjoyment.
T-Moth
T-Moth
Tell me, rectilinear thing,
If you’re a moth then where’s your wing ?
When not in ragged, fraying flight
It’s held-out straight and rolled-up tight.
You’re crucified in upper case,
And dressed in brightest white and beige –
No camouflage for any place,
Except, perhaps, the printed page.
Demergence
Demergence
How long should we leave the Lego built
Before we break it down ?
How long will the sandy castle stand
Before its turrets drown ?
How long should we sit back and admire
The finished jigsaw puzzle,
Till it’s taking up the table space
Where other things could bustle ?
Time then to embrace the entropy,
Disrupt the orthodox,
And smash the status quo with relish
Back into its box.
Britannias
Britannias
What ho ! I’m Ali,
Born in Cairo –
True-blue British, doncha know ?
Like squire Sanjay –
Mumbai-bred,
As English as a phone box red.
And then there’s Chang,
From County Down,
By bowler hat and Chinatown.
And Elzbieta,
Glasgow gal,
As fish-and-chips as any pal,
And Welsh Pierre
Of Montreal,
So fluent in the bat-and-ball.
The best of British,
Tweeds and cap –
As much as any other chap.
Fads & Fangles
Fads & Fangles
It started with vinyl,
Then moved to cassettes –
Now cameras use film,
And our watches use springs.
For all we progress,
So we harbour regrets –
The world has gone wireless,
But we long for strings.
We’re too young to ever
Remember those days,
But we switch-out the hoover
For artisan brooms.
I wonder what’s next ?
A typewriter craze ?
A love for old diesels,
Because of their fumes ?
We’re questioning science
Like never before –
We’re leery of vaccines,
We’re losing our spark.
I hope it’s a fetish,
And not something more –
We’ve no use for luddites,
Or Ages of Dark.
It started with vinyl,
Then moved to 5G –
It used to be fun,
Till the humour was gone.
But if it’s just fashion,
Then let’s let it be –
Be retro today,
And tomorrow move on.
Fascists
Fascists
The Nazis used to be quite rare,
With few who earned the name –
But now it seems they’re ev’rywhere
And free speech is to blame !
These random people on the net
Who think they get a say –
I call them out as fascists, yet
Their views leap by the day
I put them down, but still them come,
Replete with facts and stats.
I can’t believe how many scum
Are lurking in the chats.
They should be rounded up, the lot,
And left to rot in Hell –
And if you disagree, a spot
Gets found for you, as well…
Lying in State
Lying in State
I fully admit, I don’t understand
This waiting in line.
Hours and hours, as if it’s a test,
Come rain or shine,
To be a part of history, they say,
To mark the moment –
To prove themselves her loyal subjects ?,
Or maybe beg atonement ?
I fully admit, I don’t understand,
As the World looks on –
We’re not all doing this !, I cry,
Till my voice has gone.
I scoff and rant and pity them,
But I’m one of a very few –
And nobody’s lis’ning to me, of course,
They’re all watching the queue.
I fully admit, I don’t understand,
And I never will.
I hope this brings about a change –
No more standing still.
But right now, the status is in the quo,
The ink won’t leave the pen.
I’ve never felt so alien
To my fellow countrymen.
Qwerty Sonata
Qwerty Sonata
I can hear her fingers dancing, dancing,
Over the keyboard, rat-a-tat-tat.
The tempo always five-to-a-heartbeat –
I clock her typing, wherever she’s sat.
Her fingernails, a little too long,
Her bangles jangle, an octave higher,
Grounded by the bass of the spacebar,
And leak of her headphones bringing the choir.
I can hear our fingers dancing, dancing,
Stretching for shift, then back to home –
The double-letter quavers, the patter of delete,
And the rhythm of return as a metronome.
But not all keyboards are tuned the same,
Staccato or reverb in stroke-length and gauge.
I like it the most when we harmonise together –
An orchestra of typists, filling the page.
God save the Queen (but the Devil take the Plebs)
God save the Queen (but the Devil take the Plebs)
And so it begins, the Toady Race,
The public performance of grief –
Saccharine and suffocating,
Preaching your True Belief !
Posters declaiming official tears,
Tributes gushing with pomp.
Change the stamps and coins and anthem –
Such a jolly romp !
Get that sobbing good and loud,
And really have a bawl !
Hope your knees are in good shape
For the curtsy and the crawl.
Show yourself sufficiently sad
For ev’ry arse-licked toast –
Bow and scrape and bob and tug
Till the knighthood’s in the post.
Vive la République !
In other news, I see we’re going to get a bank holiday for the funeral. But we will continue not to receive a bank holiday for Election Day. Priorities, I guess…
#NotMyKing
Brick for Brick
Brick for Brick
I grew up with castles and churches and manors,
Their architecture feels like home –
While Indian temples and Chinese pagodas
Were glorious aliens in stone.
It all made sense that Kublai Khan
Had not one dome in his Pleasure Dome
But when I saw the Great Ming Wall,
It all felt too familiar –
It looked like something the Romans might have built,
Had they reached this far
Rounded arches, crenellations, arrow loops –
All quite bizarre.
The only telltale signs were in the watchtowers,
And their roofs –
Simple saddelbacks, slightly concave,
They were hard-hill-hatted booths.
Not like the four-square hips of the Romans –
Projections providing proofs.
Except…on many of the towers we see,
These structures are robbed away.
And we’re left with familiarity
That’s out-of-place, astray.
Was it built-up piecemeal, really ?
At this point, who can say ?
From what I can see in images, the watchtowers had roofs that were a mix of hard-hill and hanging-hill, the difference being that the latter had slightly overhanging eaves as in the image below.
To be clear, saddleback roofs (aka gable roofs) were not unknown to Romans, but not I think used atop their watchtowers.
Rhyming Couplets 