Roses are…um…
My love is like my writer’s block
It sneaks up from behind,
It twists me like a weathersock,
It leaves me deaf and blind,
My confidences sharply fade,
My workings have resigned,
As all at once, my serenades
Have quite escaped my mind.
Rockabye Lullabye
Sleep now,
I’ll wake you
If something should happen.
Best grab it
As it grabs you,
And blow your light out.
Breathe now
Like beach waves,
Let deltas come lapping,
Enjoy it
While you’ve got it,
There’s some go without.
Sleep now,
I’ll wake you,
But not till the morning.
Best welcome
The dreaming,
And dream one for me.
Breathe now,
Like purring,
Until the new dawning.
Enjoy it,
You’ve earned it,
And it all comes for free.
Music of the Ancients
All of the best tunes are already written, I swear,
Before I was even born.
I spent my teens so acutely aware
I was out of my time and the world didn’t care.
So all the best tunes have already bitten me,
Hooked me, then left me forlorn,
Changed the planet, and now they are history,
Un-recreatable, storied in mystery,
Came and then went and it’s not even fair –
Each time that I sing them I mourn.
It’s not my aloofness, it’s not of my choosing,
It’s downright confusing why I cannot bear
Whatever my peergroup is eager to share –
I call theirs noise and they call mine corn,
Abusing the ears of the other, with no tune to spare.
But that’s just me, ignore my scorn,
I guess we each tootle a different horn.
So set it to music, and that is my essence –
An unrequited adolescence,
Only enlivened by songs from the dead and the square.
But throw in the Trident piano, and baby I’m there !
Heathrow Terminal Ultima
In this temple of angels,
We’re pilgrims in limbo,
Awaiting Saint Peter to check in our baggage –
To weigh out our burdens,
And peer at our passports,
And turn us away, or to bid us safe passage.
And then we are summoned
By guardian cherubim,
Prodding and stripping and shriving our souls.
Our pockets are emptied,
Our liquids are measured –
And we submit meekly, as humble as foals.
So on through the pearly gates,
Searching for metal,
And out into Heaven, we worthy and pure.
No longer unclean,
We are free of all duty,
Absolved of suspicion, we’re righteous once more.
We browse through the magazines,
Sip our espressos,
And wait for our boarding as one patient crowd.
And once we are seated,
We are the departed –
Our spirits are flying first-class to the clouds.
Eau Dear…
Bottled water ? What a skeeving,
What an tosser, what a waste –
A plastic-spewing aqui-thieving,
Just to get the same damn taste !
Ever since the Romans dreamed
Of aquaducts of running water,
Engineers have turned their streams
Into a torrent, piped to order.
Teeth are whiter, homes are cleaner,
Cholera and lead are gone –
Footprints smaller, gardens greener –
Thrown away for Evian !
Hipsters sip ’em, yuppies neck ’em,
Horrified by simple tap.
The only brand I drink is Peckham –
Piss-off Perrier, you’re full of crap !
Gotcha !
Tag, goes the virus,
And suddenly, I’m it,
Chasing, and panting,
And laughing, and transmit.
No rules for no-backsies,
It’s free-for-all, all day
No sitting this one out,
We’re all of us in-play.
They say this game is older
Than ancient Babylon.
I’ve given you my secret –
Pass it on.
The Lull in the Air
After the storm, in the fury’s wake,
When the wind is an innocent breeze,
It barely can muster a half-hearted shake
Through what remains of the trees,
But knows its debris demonstrates
Where a mighty chaos strode –
In toppled fences, shattered slates,
And a litter of twigs in the road.
After the storm, in the cyclone’s calm,
When the wind is feeble and spent,
It sheepishly strokes us, meaning no harm,
As it whispers its way through the vent.
But the proof of its debauched revelry
Is strewn from the park to the square –
And it’s secretly proud of its devilry
As it gently ruffles our hair.
Thumbs Are Fingers Too !
Somewhen early in the tetrapods,
The limbs all ended in fives.
They weren’t placed there by any gods,
But by whatever survives.
And even then, the fifth was smaller,
With one joint fewer to flex –
So even when we stood-up taller,
The same stubby thumb projects.
Somewhen early in the primate time,
We took to trees when stressed,
And found our thumbs could help us climb
If they opposed the rest.
And so they carried, worked, and threw,
With a thumbs-up and okay,
When the runt of the fin with phalanges-two
Hitched a ride on its DNA.
Somewhen, late in far far future,
We may make do with fewer –
Our pinkie, perhaps, a vestigial moocher,
No longer much of a doer.
Just ask the horses, running on a finger,
The others written-out of their glands –
Best to keep using ’em, that way they’ll linger,
For genes have little use for idle hands.
Freestyle
Love, like jazz, is something that I’ve never braved,
It’s not been in my bracket.
Never tempted, never close-shaved –
Whatever, I’m happy still to lack it.
But you demand my offbeat soul be saved,
And freed from its long-sleeved jacket –
Assuming me as crippled and enslaved,
Or thinking I just can’t hack it.
But I have all the fellowship I craved,
Without it costing a packet –
So love, like jazz, has passed me by unscathed,
In all its faff and racket.
Aardvaarks
Double-A in English ? Well, that can’t be right.
What are we to do with this alpha-oversight ?
A whiff of the exotic, though who knows from which address ?
So how do we pronounce it ? I guess we’ll have to guess.
It looks a bit Old-Testament, like Baal the Canaanite,
Although surely ancient Hebrews had a diff’rent way to write ?
With diff’rent letter-forms, and with not-a vowel included –
Whoever chose the spellings in the Roman was deluded !
With a single-A that’s long and a double-A that’s short,
Spelling things in English shouldn’t be a tricky sport…
Our batteries are flat and our gearboxes stall –
So we need to gain sobriety, but just who can we call ?
Infact, the double-A in Hebrew loaners are probably a relic of a slight ‘h’ sound between them, splitting them into two separate syllables. The Greeks, when translating the Bible, had little use for mid-word H’s, and eventually the sounds merged (though not the letters, because as everyone knows spelling must remain fossilised). See also Aaron.
And yes, I am aware that Aardvaark is usually spelled with only three A’s, and I’ve decided I don’t give a toss. Maybe Afrikaans pronounces ‘aar’ and ‘ar’ differently, but nobody in English does (hence the difference (and lack of difference) between Haarlem and Harlem). So if you are happy being silly in the front half, then I see no reason to get serious with the aarse-end.
Rhyming Couplets 