We all of us Are branded and defined – So that must make me… Well…nevermind. If you catch my name Then all the better, But it won’t be me who drops A single letter. Cos if I’m any good, Then you’ll find out in the end – It will beam-out through the ether It will sneak-out round the bend. But just for now, Go easy on the fame – My ego, it can take it If you don’t know what’s my name.
If you really wanna know Then you can learn it – But honestly, I think I gotta earn it. And as for folks Who helped me get along – They’re worth a hand, They’re worth a whole-damn song. But they’re more then gabbled names And anecdotes – And since you’ve never heard of them, Best save it for the liner-notes. But if you leave my presence With a head full of fun, Then whatever be my name, My work is done.
Back in the days of cathode rays, Electron guns of RGB Would bring the colour to TV – Except they could get out of phase When untoward magnetic strays Would tamper with the purity.
And boy, were mine unpure ! With ev’ry colour out of sync, Where skies were green and trees were pink ! They told me there’s no easy cure – “But I’ll get used to it, I’m sure” I tried so hard to think.
And I might have made it through, But for the glaring lack of red That ultimately screwed my head – Faces, lips, and roses too – Those cyan people made me blue As if the aliens had bred !
I thought I’d tuned-in to the mood To love all races in my sight – But skin-of-denim just ain’t right ! So I rejected modern dudes For old-time films and attitudes That showed the world in black and white.
There are five times as many Yankees Speaking English as the English, So who’s English do you think will win ? Whatever the linguistic tankies wish, We’re just a little fish – Perhaps it’s time to take it on the chin ? Or, to be overt (and probably incite your wrath) – You do the math !
Ow !, that hurt. So stark and ess-less on the page, Just stoking up my British rage – Yet kids today are fine to say it – They don’t care, it’s just a thing you say, Like missing out the pointless yoos And adding honest zees That they know we’ll criticize – They choose to do it anyway, These wize-guys.
So what’s my beef ? Am I so shaky in my self-belief I have to wave my flag At quickening American ? Does my inner Anglo-Saxon gag And want to ban their New-World-ness ? Well, yeah…I guess – We’ve traveled far, we dove right in We took the rout of least chagrin. But it’s all just arbitrary guff, And how long can I really bluff Until I must admit, their way makes sense ? Time to quit – don’t be a bore, For in this theater of war, My silent letters voice me no defense.
I know I have no chance tonite To tell the kids what they can say – Just as my teachers had no right To scold me for ‘okay’. But oh !, it hurts to hear my cherished forms Be cast away. Yet if the kids choose that instead of this, Well, who the hell am I then To dismiss them for their choice ?, As if I have a voice they’d listen to. So on they plow their furrow By their dollar, yard, and boro – For kids will always marvel at what’s noo.
I can assure you that it isn’t only Americans who can make wrath and math rhyme. There are so many other British voices besided RP, despite the OED’s attempts to pretend otherwise.
By the way, I can’t help thinking the last line looks less New York and more Scottish ! I suppose I could say ‘nu’ instead, but I think that will look even stranger.
At the meeting of the streets And the corners of the road, So grows an unexpected copse No seed has ever sowed. It sprouts up overnight Like a fungus on the make – This squatter on the pavement, Brings the Winter in its wake. Its trees have all blown over, And its needles all have shed To the gutters and the breezes, Until even these have fled. Then suddenly one morning We shall find the corner bare, Save the grey of frost and concrete And the chill upon the air.
Office chairs with starfish bases, Wobbly levers, sofa wheels – They never fit quite right, most cases – Either leaving swinging heels, Or bunched-up knees and hunched-down shoulders, Wimpy pistons full of slack. But still, a useful perch for folders Till the backside needs it back.
Think right, say right, Keep it careful, keep it kind – Keep a clean and healthy mind That wants no truck with spite. And yet, that inner voice Who always loves its little games, Who always knows the nasty names, Will whisper up its choice. It knows they’re wrong, and that’s the point, It’s daring us to shout them out Because they’re wrong and still have clout Because they’re out-of-joint. It’s bating us to say the word – It wants to make us take the blame For ev’ry hurtful hateful name We’ve ever heard. But these are not our whole – These shall not define or break us, Just stray thoughts and troublemakers – Yet we are in control. It only loathes itself, infact, But we can still refuse to sink – Let’s judge us not in what we think, But how we act.
I overindulged last month: Had far too many ideas. Now I’m a bloated, empty husk Who’s run right out of tears. My motor’s barely revving now, From weeks of crunching gears. My spark is fused, my wit is blown, I haven’t a thought to call my own.
Come the Twelfth Night and the tinsel comes down – It’s time to de-decorate, if that’s a verb – The fairy lights lodged in a box in the loft, And the tree swiftly shunned to the kerb. But we always leave the poinsettia, She’s always the last to go – We purge the urge to scourge the spurge, As long as she’s on show. For maybe a little of Christmas lives on While her red and her green are in clover – But after a week, so she’ll wither as well, And that’s when the season is over.
Twenty-Twenty – what a blast, The year when the planets kissed ! We were so young and life so vast, With not a moment missed. We met by chance, we met online, When hiding from the flu – That year I tippled too much wine And fell in love with you.
Twenty-Twenty – let it sing, The year we sang our tryst ! The swallows came upon the Spring, And you had taught me whist. From kitchen top or garden bench, Our screens would share the view, That year I learned to speak in French And fell in love with you.
I know, I know, we were the lucky ones, Laughing along with the doomsayers’ chimes – We weren’t the heroes, we were the stuck-at-homes, Making the best of the worst of times. But when I look back on that strange, strange trip, I’m glad that we saw it through – If I ever must face the Apocalypse, Then the end is much better with you.
Twenty-Twenty – our world shook In the year when we must not move – I tried and failed to write a book, And saw my cakes improve. I spent all day upon the phone, And watched how the garden grew – In the year that my neighbour learned trombone, And I fell in love with you.
I know, I know, we were the silly ones, Giggling our way through the shock of it all. I know that we felt it, just like the millions, But those aren’t the memories we choose to recall. I’m glad that we lived with that strange, strange fate, When the world was surreal and new – If I ever must wait such a lonely wait, Then the lonely’s much better with you.
And with that, it is over – The baubles taken down and packed, The tinsel and the fairy lights, The crib stowed with its Israelites, The cards recycled, tree exiled, The wilted wreath is rudely sacked. That time has passed, so let it go – The year moves on, the snowdrops grow.
Rhyming Couplets 