Verse
Contents:
The Ugly Baby
Speaky Stuff
Miscellaneous Verse
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2007
THE UGLY BABY*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
A mother and baby were travelling
By train from Earl’s Court to Raynes Park
When the ticket collector, inspecting
Their fares, was heard to remark:
“My goodness, that baby is ugly!
That’s one ugly baby, is that.
Show me an uglier baby
And I’ll eat the badge off my hat.”
The mother was weeping in chagrin
When on stepped an elderly dame
Who sat down beside her and asked her
Why she was crying, for shame.
“The ticket collector was horrid!”
The sobbing young matron replied.
“He said things so utterly beastly,
I wish I had curled up and died.”
The elderly lady said “Did he?
Well, that sort of conduct won’t do.
You go and you tell him what’s what, dear,
And I’ll hold the monkey for you.”
THOUGHTS ON A SALMON
AND CUCUMBER SANDWICH*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
The cucumber is a cautious vegetable
Not given to audacious schemes
Its growth obeys the laws of botany
Joys and sorrows has it not any
But sometimes it dreams
The salmon is a bold adventurer
Plunging far up distant streams
On and on it swims victorious
Laboriously glorious
But sometimes it dreams
The cucumber struggles through the foam
The salmon snuggles down in loam
Alas! These dreams can never be
They only meet when I have tea
WISHES
I.
I wish I were
A piece of cheese
Alone upon a plate
The piece of cheese
That failed to please
The piece that no-one ate
I’d wait until
The guests fell ill
And blamed the blasted Brie
And as they died
I’d smile inside
To know it wasn’t me
II.
I wish I were
The water
In which the taps are sunk
Caressing girls
Who wash their curls
And always
Getting
Drunk
CHAMOIS
The chamois leaps from peak to peak
So gracefully and so precisely
Wide-eyed, dainty, swift and sleek
And it cleans your windscreen nicely
LIZARDS*
Lizards lounge
In lizardskin
Beneath the noonday sun
But girls, the meanies
Wear bikinis
Spoils all the fun
LET’S HEAR IT FOR AMPHIBIOUSNESS
The sun is out
The sky is blue
But I’m an octopus
Boo hoo
The sea is warm
The water’s clear
But I’m an alley cat
Oh dear
The sun is fun
The sea is free
And I’m amphibious
Tee hee
PIGGIES*
This little piggy went to Safeways
This little piggy went to Spar
This little piggy went
All the way to Fortnums
How rotten to piggies we are!
THE NICE MAN AND THE NASTY MAN
A nice man met a nasty man
Upon the road one day
The nice man said “Nice man!
Let me give way!”
But the nasty man said “Nasty man!
“I’ll make you stand aside!”
He took out his revolver
And the nice man died
Now nice men and nasty men
Who go upon the road
Recall we’d all be ghastly men
Without the Highway Code
NATURAL SELECTION
Shopper
In a supermarket
By the damaged bargain stand
Selecting
Tinned tomatoes
With a can in either hand
In your brow
So deeply furrowed
In your eye
So tightly drawn
How an aeon
Of mankind
Marches onwards
To its dawn!
THE TAXI DRIVER AND THE TRAFFIC LIGHT*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Through the orange light I go.
Is not dangerous, I know:
My brother always do it so.
Through the red light, too, I drive.
Why under the seat you dive?
My brother do it, and survive!
At the green light, though is clear
I stop. You say go on? No fear!
What if my brother coming here?
THE CHILD AND THE MAN
A child saw a sweet thing
A man saw the child
The child was entreating
The man smiled
The one’s complete requiring
The other’s wise regard
But the man wished his desiring
Were so hard
NO SMOKING NO SPITTING
No smoking no spitting
No standing no sitting
No asking the driver for favours
No lounging or lying
No laughing or crying
No rockers or rollers or ravers
No how-do-you-doing
No witting or wooing
No holding of hands in the aisles
No billing or cooing
No I-will-be-trueing
No smirking or smiling of smiles
No fondling no flirting
No fingers-up-skirting
Or other such gross impropriety
No necking no knocking
For we find it shocking
This modern permissive society
If you like you can tell us
That we’re only jealous,
But no, we are old and know better
You can say that we’re fools
But we know the rules
Which must be obeyed to the letter
So learn them in stations
The old regulations
And then it may happen that one day
The bus will get started
O dearly departed
And run all the week, not just Sunday
SUDDEN BURSTS OF BETTER HEARING
SUDDEN
BURSTS
OF
BETTER
hearing
WOULD
PERTURB
PRE-REFLECTIVE COGITO
To the really lazy man
Making love is a chore
Only where there is a wall
Can there be a door
Cast aside your innocence
Claim your right to see
And stare upon
Your staring
Endlessly
PHILOSOPHY TUTORIAL
Scholastic life
The don affirms
Is just a can
Of ringworms
For terms and terms
And terms and terms
Determining terms
In terms of terms
VALENTINE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
When you are coming on 35
Standing in the launderama
Watching the lights change
With your varnish tarnished
Your packet of Drive
And two mistakes at your heels
As hubby’s grubbies
Head for the second rinse
Then maybe you will wonder
What made the lights change
What took the charger
the turret the prince
And as you frown and knuckle under
As the suds revolve
And the driers hiss
Then maybe you will remember
This
THE APPLE THAT GROWS ON THE TREE
The apple that grows on the tree
Is governed by laws of fruition
The flea that makes fleas with the flea
Responds to his own intuition
But man, when he feels the need
To indulge in his leerings and lechings
Is prompted by cunning and greed,
And calls it ‘looking at etchings’
THE BEAUTIFUL PRINCESS
AND THE SLIGHT DRAWBACK
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess
With eyes of heavenly blue
And hair as soft as flour,
Her waist so nimble it defied
The finest corsets,
And her legs so long that to shave
Just one of them
(Had this ever been necessary)
Would have taken well over an hour.
Almost every morning to the beautiful princess
From urban and rural districts
In city and shire,
There came a selection of invincible heroes
Who had single-handedly slain
Countless murderous and unhelpful dragons,
Nasally exhaling fire,
Just to be pretenders to the beautiful princess
(Who really preferred kissing frogs).
She did not demur, however,
And some of them, usually the most froglike,
Were permitted to meet her father,
A qualified torturer, who would ask them:
“What’s so great about her?”
While, to apologies from the beautiful princess,
Extracting their tongues with pincers.
By the time a score or two
Had failed to explain themselves, it became clear
That to start with, not one of them
Had a good answer, and also, that while
They lacked tongues their chances were poor.
Now, there were no flies on the beautiful princess
As frog-frequenting readers will perhaps be aware:
Perceiving that her father’s skill was
A slight drawback, she turned him
Into a gnat and a friend of hers ate him.
Which all goes to show that with
Very great beauties
One should take very great care.
THE WORLD OF YOU
The world
Is bad
The world
Is sad
The world
Has none
Of what
It had
The world
Is sore
The world
Is poor
The world
Has peace
And love
No more
The world
Is old
The world
Is cold
And yet
This much
Is true:
I think
The world
Of you
A LASS
When we first met
I wanted
To be alone with you
And now
Alas
I am
PECULIARLY ATTRACTIVE
Your nose is like a perfect ski-slope
And your eyes are not boring
Your arms fold better than a Swiss army knife
Your shoulders are not waxy
As shoulders sometimes are
And your elbows are unsuitable for elbowing
Your clothes are clearly the right size for you
Your abdomen would make a poet
Cross out a thousand similes
And the finest gouache paints could not
Do justice to your kneecaps
As to your inner workings I cannot say
But your bowel movements appear to be
Supremely regular
And your pancreas is assuredly pancreatic
Of your pyloric sphincter I have heard
Nothing but good
I should like to fill the hollow
At the base of your throat
With vintage claret
And land a squadron of tiny amphibious
Aeroplanes on it
I should like to play
Noughts and crosses on your shoe soles
In short you are the best thing
Since double-sided sticky tape
And I have no problems
With your continued existence
CHIMNEYPOT HOLIDAY*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
When summer comes
And busy mums
Put flowers in the grates,
Then lots and lots
Of chimneypots
Come sliding down the slates.
Upon their heads
In flowerbeds
And on the lawn they land,
Each with a sandwich
And a peach
And sixpence in his hand.
“Hurray!” they cheer,
“The summer’s here!”
And hurry down the lane:
If you can be
On platform three
You’ll see them board the train.
Lots and lots
Of chimneypots
Are off on holiday,
But where they go
We just don’t know,
Because they just don’t say.
Do they take their bread and peaches
To the sea, like other folk?
The down line to the beaches
Or the up line to the Smoke?
Do they like a spot of shooting
With the Irish and the Scots
Or do they stay in Tooting
With related chimneypots?
I wish I knew,
But one thing’s true:
When swallows all migrate,
Then lots and lots of chimneypots
Are very nearly late,
For autumn comes, and busy mums
Fetch fircones for the fire:
A scritch, a scratch, a burning match,
The flames are leaping higher…
But here’s the train: they’re in the lane,
They’re up the garden track:
With one quick bound they’re off the ground:
The chimneypots are back!
LETTER TO THE COUNCIL
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Dear Sir,
I wrote to you last Thursday
And now I write again
To say that something must be done
About my roof and drain.
It’s all right when the sun shines,
But when the rain comes down
It washes me completely out
And then I nearly drown!
So can you please send someone soon
To sort this problem out?
Yours, Incy-Mincy Spider,
Number One,
The Spout.
THE REPLY:
Dear Mr Spider, re. Yours
Of Twenty-second inst.,
The Council has considered this
But still is not convinced
That inundation situations
Such as which you claim
Come under Byelaw 16A
Or section C of same
I therefore write to let you know
The Borough Council can’t
Accept your application
For a Spout Improvement Grant.
THE RETORT:
Dear Sir,
Your callous attitude
Shall have its aftermath.
I’ve moved my lodgings – see you soon!
Yours, I.M.Spider,
Bath
THE STATION-MASTER*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I had a little station
Once upon a time
A lonely little station
On a distant stretch of line
Flowers on the platform
Flowers by the gate
Flowers in the waiting-room
For when the train was late
But the problem was that no trains
Ever came to call
Fast trains slow trains
Stop trains go trains
No trains at all
I would stand upon the platform
Looking down the line
Waiting for a signal
Waiting for a sign
Soon the track would tingle
Soon the wire would hum
Soon the bell would jingle
Soon a train would come
But not even a few trains
Ever came to call
Freight trains through trains
Red trains blue trains
No trains at all
Then one day I saw it
Smoke out on the plain
Smoke that billowed from the
Smokestack of a train!
On my heel I turned and
To my room I ran
For the phone I reached but
As I reached it rang
“This is Clapham Junction
Ringing to complain
That for several years you
Haven’t had a train”
“No trains on your schedule
No trains on your haul
High trains low trains
Rain trains snow trains
No trains at all”
“Now that we have seen this
Now that we have checked
You are hereby closed with
Immediate effect”
“But a train is coming!
Listen – please!” I said
“Let me just have this one!”
But the line went dead
As I stood with teardrops
Dripping off my chin
There was a commotion
And the train came in
Such a train as this one
Never had I seen
What a locomotive
What a great machine
Toffs in every carriage
Toffs in all the bars
Drinking double whiskies
Smoking fat cigars
“Where’s the station-master?”
Rose the cheerful cry
But from down the platform
Came there no reply
Now the track’s deserted
Now the weeds are tall
Now the rats are nesting
In the entrance hall
Now the till is empty
Now upon the door
Hangs this doleful legend: ‘
Gone for evermore’
And in yonder graveyard
Where the bumbles drone
Where the cowslips cluster
Stands a simple stone
‘Here the station-master
Should by rights have lain
But the cunning devil
Caught the only train!’
LITTLE MISS MUFFET*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet
Cursing her curds and whey
“Nasty old curds!
Curds are for birds!
Give me a slug any day!”
“Or give me a spider,
A juicy fat spider
O for a spider au lait!”
Now little Miss Muffet
Sits on her tuffet
Looking so sweet and so fey
But once in a while
Her tongue parts her smile
And licks the odd morsel away
AUNT MORPETH
There is no rea
Son to suppose
That when Aunt Mor
Peth blows her nose
And throws her pa
Per hanky in
Her Royal Wed
Ding way-pay bin
The germs that in
That bin repose
Don’t miss the warmth
Of Morpeth’s nose
THE STORY OF MILT
There was a young fellow called Milt
Whose brain had the texture of silt.
It would seep through his nose
And repose at his toes,
Which caused his companions to wilt.
One day his young lady said, “Milt:
“You’ve had it, kid. This is the jilt.
Your brain’s a disgrace:
It’s all over the place.
Just look at that stain on the quilt!”
This rebuff was the last straw to Milt.
“That’s it!” he declared, “I have spilt
My last drop of brain.
To hell with the pain:
I shall have my schnozzle rebuilt!”
Alas! The unfortunate Milt,
Though solvent, was no Vanderbilt.
To have schnozzelonomies
Calls for economies:
Soon he was pawned to the hilt.
The op, when he had it, poor Milt,
Left his nose and his ears on a tilt. T
hen later his brain
Started seeping again
And ruined his favourite kilt.
The moral of this tale of Milt?
Not everyone’s edges are gilt.
It seems only those
Who can pay through the nose
Can dictate how their nose should be built.
DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN ORAL CONTRACEPTIVE
Got up
Went to bed
Nothing happened
LUCK OF THE DEVIL
When Lucian was a student
And cut the class at nine
His colleagues, as they struggled there,
Would be annoyed to find
A message on the blackboard From the
Principal, which read:
‘Early classes cancelled –
‘Lecturer is dead’.
“The deuce!” each man would mutter
As he turned away again,
“I should have done what Lucian did
And stayed in bed till ten!”
—
When Lucian was a diplomat
And charged with deeds of state,
He often didn’t bother much
But left them far too late;
And to the mission snooker room
As Lucian potted blue,
A breathless messenger would come:
“Flash telegram, for you!”
‘Démarche reconsidered’
The telegram would say
‘If you have not delivered,
‘You have saved the day!’
—
Now Lucian’s nearly ninety-six:
You’ll find him down the Stag,
On his seventh bitter,
Playing three-card brag.
A silver candelabra
And a trout are in his boot:
The burglar and the poacher
Are losing all their loot.
And as they curse his fortune
And the barmaid stands him ale,
Sir Lucian, M.A., K.C.B.,
Just grins and flicks his tail.
ENGLISH
I do not like these seemly Scots
Hot-water bottle hottentots
How abject is their stolid guile
Their self-revering self-denial!
The Welsh, of course, are even worse:
Unhealthily adept at verse
And far too keen, if anything,
To prate, narrate, orate and sing
And as for Ireland’s ghastly crew
I think the least that’s said, don’t you?
One must be more than slightly squiffy
Just to drink the river Liffey
No: all in all, when all’s been said,
I’m glad I’m English, born and bred.
(At least, that is, I’m glad I’m not
A Welshman, Irishman or Scot)
ACTORS
Bored men in open shirts; tight-
Trousered loungers in eternal wings.
Gaunt girls in black
With tragic cheeks and espadrilles,
Charlady headscarves and art deco
Ear-rings. Tomorrow, and tomorrow,
And the matinee the day after that:
Rehearsals, and blocking, and standing
At bus-stops muttering lines,
Library fines for the scripts that get
Dog-eared and crumpled and covered
With signs. The quarrels, the pleading,
The kneading of so many selves
In a strident routine; the flats
And the costumes, the dust,
The occasional sharing of food
In a meaningful communal interdependency
Scene. Bit parts: casual
Film usherettes and petrol attendants,
All for their Art.
But once in a while,
Once in a while, when it really jells
When you’ve flung your soul to the gods
And the gods catch their breath….
Sorry Dave? What, right from the top?
VIEW
I met an old gentleman
Up at the square
He was sitting alone
By the wall
It was Sunday
And there was nobody there
No-one around us at all
The smoke from his pipe
Spiralled up to the blue
As I sat down with care
At his side
We sat and we stared
At the beautiful view
Below us the waterfowl cried
Quite silent
Entranced
By the wreaths of his smoke
I almost forgot he was there
But thinking of manners
I suddenly spoke
Of the beauty of birds
From the air
I must have been drunk
With the glory and awe
Of the infinite view that we shared
I thought he was lonely
I praised what I saw
I wanted to show him I cared
The old fellow still hadn’t spoken to me
So I suddenly asked, “Don’t you find
That nature’s more lovely
Than humans can be?”
He turned
And I saw he was blind
THE LOST LYRICS TO ‘FÜR ELISE’*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Oh this bloody tune
Goes on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And
When you think “At last!
“At last it’s gone!
You know you’re wrong
It just goes on
And on and on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
The day will come
When I am gone
And still this tune
Will linger on
And on and on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
And on and on
Für Elise
He wrote it
Just to please her
Just to squeeze
Elise’s knees
I
Hate
That
Girl
Oh why did why did why did
Why did why did why did
Why
Did
I
Take
Up
This
Tune
I
Hate
This
Tune
This tune
This bloody tune
It just goes on
And on and on
(Etc.)
UNCLE CLAUD*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Uncle Claud
Grew rather bored
Of shaving, don’t you see
So he devised
A handy-sized
Cut-throat-a-rotary
With wheels within
And arms that spin
And razors one two three
Now when you’re bored
Remember Claud
Inventor, RIP
STARS
The stars are cheap this time of year
I buy them by the pound
And put them in the freezer, dear,
To use the whole year round
And when the moon is fair and full
And pulls me from my bed
I reel it to the windowsill
And slice some off, instead
Sliced moon with stars, a perfect feast
For one so young and gay
And soon, when I have been released
I’ll start a takeaway
NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHERS*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Misguided
Poet
Please
Desist
Henceforth
Encouragement
Resist
Pawn
Pen
Rest
Wrist
TELEGRAM
POMPEII
BORING
EVERYONE
STONED
STOP
POOR JOHNNY MERCENARY
Poor Johnny Mercenary,
Tired of fighting foes,
Chucked it all for Civvy Street:
Who knows,
He could have made a fortune
On the import-export side
If he hadn’t
Pricked his thumb on his fountain pen,
Caught tetanus
And died.
So think of poor old Johnny, men:
He’s gone to meet the Lord,
No better witness that the pen
Is mightier than the sword.
EPITAPHS
I.
Here lies a man
The man is dead
At least that’s what
The doctor said
II.
Here lies a man
I never knew
I don’t miss him much
Do you?
III.
Here lies a priest
John East, deceased
From beastly priestly
Things released
IV.
Here I lie
Unseen, unseeing
There you stand
For the time being
V.
Adieu ô ciel
Je suis martyr
La mort m’appelle
Je dois partir
Adieu Brigitte
Salut les gars
Je vous quitte
Je pars
Aaaargh
I HAVE SEEN SOME MEN WHO
I have seen some men who
Breast their life openly
Taking it full, with
Arms outspread
I have seen some men who
Go through life sideways
Apologetically, with
Lowered head
I have seen some men who
Back through life longingly
Slip through life nimbly
Barge through life largely
March on life grimly
Mince through life primly
But in the end
They all fall down and are dead
MAY MOSS NEVER GROW ON YOUR TOMBSTONE
May moss never grow on your tombstone
May mice never nest in your mound
May bats never dive-bomb your flowerpot
And may all of your carving be sound
May the vicar, on chasing the lovers
From where in your memory they lay
Remove all the paraphernalia
And throw certain items away
May you never be sold or developed
Or part of the M52
And may friends come and weed you in summer
And think a few thoughts over you
HERE I LIE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Here I lie I’ve
Served my term
And now I serve
The questing worm
Damp and hollow
Cold as clay
My orbits stare
The years away
But I shall rise again
One day
And in my tattered
Shreds of shroud
Go grimly through
The cringing crowd
To find the bloody
Stupid fool
Who threw me in the
Swimming pool
CRISPY POSTMEN*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I like my postmen crispy
Firm around the knees
Waiter, I’ll have postman
Oh, and make him crispy please
I like my postmen crispy
Soggy is no good
After crispy postman
I’ll have crispy postman pud
I like my postmen crispy
Caps and postbags too
But I always leave the bicycles
For someone else, don’t you?
HOW FORTUNATE
How fortunate that human ears
Stick out instead of in
The workings of the inner self
Must make a frightful din
How fortunate that no-one’s nose
Points up instead of down
For if our nostrils faced the sky
We might fill up and drown
How fortunate that no-one eats
From inside through to out
I wouldn’t care to mount the stair
With all those tubes about
THE SOLE SURVIVOR*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
While passing through Suburbiton
Upon the evening train
I met a gentle gentleman
Who held a silver cane.
His hair so white and wavy
And his tie so neatly neat:
He stood so close above me
That I offered him my seat.
He turned his gaze upon me
And I solemnly declare
I have never seen such joyful
Joy as in that stare.
“Young man” he answered slowly
As he shook his shaking head,
“Young man, you have redeemed me:
And I’ll tell you why”, he said.
“I am the sole survivor
Of a ship that sank at sea
Off Greenland, in the Arctic,
In the spring of thirty-three.
“A hundred sailors perished
In those unforgiving waves.
A hundred of my messmates
Went before me to their graves.
“One single piece of flotsam
Was the gift of fate to me:
I lay upon it gasping
As it wallowed in the sea,
“And when, in desperation,
Someone tried to clamber on,
In greater desperation
I would scream at them, ‘Begone!’.
“I prised apart their fingers
As they tried to reach my place,
I bit them on the knuckles
And I kicked them in the face.
“How their eyes implored me
When they knew that they would drown!
How their voices bubbled
As the water pulled them down!
“How that night has left me
As I alone survive,
The only one to reach dry land
And live, and love, and thrive,
“How my soul has suffered
Through these dreadful wealthy years,
The oysters left uneaten
And the tears, the tears, the tears…
“But now the guilt is over, sir,
For after all this time,
Your words have given me a chance
To expiate my crime.
“I shall remain here standing
On these humble, footsore feet:
How sweet the pain of saintliness!
I shall not take your seat.”
At this I upped and threw him
Through the window of the train:
Since we were doing ninety
I did not see him again,
But as I got the crossword out
And buttoned up my coat,
I wondered what one wouldn’t do
To keep one’s life afloat.
ARTICHOKES*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I would not be
An artichoke
And here’s
The reason why
Artichokes just
Sit around
In fields
Beneath the sky
And there’s
Another reason
Why I take
This point of view:
I’ve never met
An artichoke
That’s half as
Nice as you
OH MR BUSINESSMAN
Oh Mr Businessman
Landing in Bangkok
“You want lady? Just knock!”
Oh Mr Businessman
Reaching the hotel
“You want lady? Ling bell!”
Oh Mr Businessman
Sitting all alone
“You want lady? Use phone!”
‘Mamied Mr Businessnan
Isn’t life hard
“You want lady? Cledit card?”
Good Mr Businessman
Switching out the light
God bless Mrs Businessman
Night night
DILLODAFFS*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I wandered cloudly as a lone
That peely-wheels between the scaff
When all at once I passed a zone
Marked DANGER: MUTANT DILLODAFFS’.
“Pah. Mutant dillodaffs indeed”,
I snottled as I lit some snout.
“Whatever next. A vicious breed
Of killer artichokes, no doubt. “
Just then the sky goes black. What’s this?
Fliss-fliss, my arms are bound,
And in my ear a narstly hiss
Says “Darling! Look what I have found!”
The dillodaffs – for they it was,
Great yellow-headed whirligigs –
Have put me in a china vase
And soon they’ll throw me to the pigs.
SHAKESPEAREAN ACRONYMS
Help!
A
Maniac’s
Left
Everybody
Totalled
–
Tiresome
Hack
Entertainer’s
Tyrannical
Experiments
Merely
Prolong
Endless
Shipwreck
Tale
–
Killingly
Ill-advised
Noble
Gent
Lets
Everyone
Act
Rotten
PRAYER*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Lord, forgive these lesser folk
Who little know of thee
They’re on the whole a worthless lot
And not as nice as me
UT SIBI SIC ALTERI
I helped a man across the road
A car came by and squashed him
Since his views were rather loud
A copper kindly coshed him
Then the cop arrested me
I’m still in prison now
When I get out I do not think
I’ll do good deeds, somehow
GRADUATE OPPORTUNITIES
(Sad cello music. Enter final year student JULIE, depressed)
JULIE:
Everybody’s busy and nobody cares
Everyone exists and no-one lives
Everybody grabs and nobody shares
Everyone takes and no-one gives
I’ve researched and revised
I’ve been passed from hand to hand
I’ve been counselled and advised
By those who ‘understand’
But I’m giving up the struggle
I just can’t stand the pace
I’m just another mouse
In the old rat race
For you can read until you burst
You can burn the midnight oil
But it’s the rat that gets the first
And the mouse that gets the toil
If you can take it, you will make it
If you can’t, and if it shows
Well then you’ve fallen by the wayside
Because that’s the way it goes
——————————-
(Puff of smoke. Enter FAIRY GODMOTHER)
FAIRY GODMOTHER: Stay! Take heart! Do not despondent be!
JULIE: Who are you?
FAIRY GODMOTHER: I am your fairy godmother, your champion in adversity!
JULIE: I don’t believe you. You’re just deus ex machina, come to make sure I have a happy ending.
FAIRY GODMOTHER: Oh no, sweet child, be calm, and heark to me: I am your Careers Guidance Counsellor, your CGC!
JULIE: Oh go away, I’m fed up of being counselled.
FAIRY GODMOTHER: But what is this? This sad, dejected face I see? Is this the Julie Fresh that once appealed to me to find eternal recompense for her degree?
JULIE: Yes, but I’m not like that any more. I’ve changed. I’ve given up.
FAIRY GODMOTHER: Oh piffle, tush and fiddledidee! Is this the product of a university? I bring glad tidings, child, hotfoot from heaven! Your redemption! Your deliverance!
JULIE: What is it?
FAIRY GODMOTHER: ‘Graduate Opportunities Seventy-Seven’!
JULIE: So what. What’s in it for me?
FAIRY GODMOTHER: What’s in it? The world is in it! Riches heaven-sent are in it. Gascoigne, Gush and Dent are in it. Watneys, Wiggins Teape and Wimpey, Chater Spain and Chalmers-Impey; all but the kitchen sink is in it. Rio Tinto Zinc is in it!
JULIE: Could I have all those things?
FAIRY GODMOTHER: But yes of course, most certainly. Just you make sure of your degree (a two-one or a first will do, and then attend an interview) and after that, why goodness me, the sky’s the limit! You could be –
JULIE: – A pioneer of industry!
FAIRY GODMOTHER: Good girl! That’s right! Pull out the chocks, and spend your life in Metal Box!
JULIE: The law!
FAIRY GODMOTHER: Insurance!
JULIE: Broking!
FAIRY GODMOTHER: The City!
JULIE: Paradise!
FAIRY GODMOTHER: Nirvana!
JULIE: Woking!
FAIRY GODMOTHER: You could be in applied computing and software!
JULIE: I could join Cadbury Schweppes and make chocolate tonic bottles!
FAIRY GODMOTHER: Dunlop!
JULIE: Esso!
FAIRY GODMOTHER: Through the hoop!
JULIE: I could be one –
FAIRY GODMOTHER: – of the Glaxo Group!
JULIE: Anglo-American Corporation…
FAIRY GODMOTHER: Consolidated Gold…
JULIE: All right! I’ll do it!
FAIRY GODMOTHER: Splendid! Sold!
JULIE: I’ll show them all, the ratrace rats, with their pinstripe suits and their bowler hats, I’ll beat them all, I will, I’ll risk it: I shall become a United Biscuit! If life’s a slog, all right, I’ll slog, for Huntley, Palmer, Peek or Frean, I’m sick to death of being a cog in the university machine! I’ve had enough of the powers that be, I want to be the powers! I’ll graduate, and then be free, for evermore, from Wardley Towers!
CHORUS: Allez Julie, Allez Julie etc (JULIE is carried off in triumph)
* From Wardley Towers, or the Fresher They Come, Undergraduate Revue, Modern Languages Departnent, University of Bradford, 1976
First performed by Julie Godfray and Val White
NEVER SLIM*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
He may be a lonely heart
And she may write to him
But he must be professional
And she must please be slim
Photographs may be exchanged
And meetings spoken of
But he must not mend motorbikes
And she must not want love
He must know good restaurants
And she must fry good eggs
He must have nice manners
And she must have nice legs
. . .
He should not have come on strong
For she did not like him
He was not professional
And she was never slim
THE POISONER MUSES*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
If I should die at five to three
How long would you remember me?
By quarter past you’d weep no more
Your sighs would be aside by four
And soon, come twenty-five to five,
You’d think “What fun to be alive!”
Before the tea were cold at six
You’d be about your usual tricks
And ere the angelus at seven
You too, no doubt, would be in heaven…
Alas, I’m here! We dine at eight:
And I for one shall not be late
JOAN OF ARC
Joan of Arc liked cereals
So much she couldn’t stop
All except the ones that went
Snap
Crackle
Pop
MAY
Grey
May
Day
June
Soon
AUGUST
August landscape
Thickly lying
Pheasant
In a spinney crying
Breezes
Past my window rushing
Rose on rose
Abruptly brushing
Leave your
Sempiternal age
And settle briefly
On the page
TODAY
Today
Is not a day for considerations
Today
Is not a day for nostalgia
Today
Is not a day for the finishing touch
Today
Is not one 365,000th of the millennium
Today
Is a hook line and sinker day
Today
Is tomorrow’s warm-up day
Today
Is an expansive gesture day
Today
Is 86,400 seconds
Today
The newborn will shout to the future
Today
The young will rise from their pushchairs
Today
The old will come from their bungalows
Today
The dead will lie down and be discounted
Today
The obsessed will proclaim their obsessions
Today
The religious will sell their possessions
Today
The second reserve will slaughter the captain
Today
The wrapped-up will unwrap the wrap that they’re wrapped in
Today
The widows will leap into bed with the vicar
Today
The dead will get deader, the quick will get quicker
Today
The cynics will jump from the white cliffs of Dover
Today
The prosers will close and the rhymers take over
Today
The spermatazoa will swim past the ova
Today
I
Will
See
You
NEUTERED
Boys like
Hitting things
Girls like
Knitting things
Fishmongers like
Slitting things
Footballers like
Spitting things
Students like
Sitting things
Vets like
Itting things
MR DALEY
Every morning Mr Daley
Checks his wallet and his flies,
Says goodbye to Mrs Daley,
Walks out through the door
And dies.
“Lovely morning, Mr Daley!”
Says his nosy neighbour, Fred.
But, where once was Mr Daley,
Now there’s just a blob instead:
A blob that in the place of Daley
Shakes and heaves and strains and grows
Until it takes the shape of Daley
Even down unto his nose,
And, when it’s as tall as Daley,
Off this newborn android trots
To face the office, à la Daley,
Chair the talks and call the shots;
Returning once again like Daley
Later in the day to dine,
Gives a kiss to Mrs Daley,
Answers, “Yes dear, thank you: fine”
But smiles not when Mrs Daley
Runs her fingers through his hair
And says “You’re getting old, John Daley:
You are not the man you were”.
FELL
Take me north to Skinburness
To Silloth and Skiddaw
To Beck Foot and to Bothel
And to Torpenhow and Faugh
Take me south to Cockermouth
Or up to Wedholme Flow
If Slaggyford is where you want
I’ll grit my teeth and go
Take me to Bewaldeth
And to Blindcrake if you will
But take me not I beg you not
To lovely Loadpot Hill
Take me west to Rottington
Lank Rigg and Cleator Moor
To Murton Fell and Dubwath
And to Unthank and to Caw
Take me east to Burnhope Seat
Or Ullock if you like
To Sty Head and to Sadgill
And to Drigg and Bleng and Grike
Take me to Pelutho
Or to Gilcrux or Cold Fell
But take me not to Loadpot
For I’ve not been very well
WISHFUL THINKING
I wish my knees were not like these
I wish my nose was one of those
I wish my eyes were not this size
I wish my arms had greater charms
I wish that she would notice me
I wish that you weren’t wishing too
I SEE
Mother’s gone out, it’s a quarter past two,
So come with me, come with me,
Come with me, do,
Up to the second-floor library, where
Father is teaching the Spanish au-pair.
To judge from the noises behind the closed door,
Clearly Conchita has studied before:
To each of his efforts she answers with glee, “I know!
I know!
I know!
I see!”
YOU MEN YOU
Don’t go to John’s house
I advise you
Don’t go to John’s house
Whatever you do
Those who go to John’s house
Won’t reveal
What goes on in John’s house
They won’t squeal
So don’t go to John’s house
You men you
The bill of fare in John’s house
Is visitor stew
KONVERSATION
When you mention rumpy-pumpy
On the whole I’ve found it’s better
To begin with das Wetter
HEDGEHOG
I wish I were
A hedgehog
With which no word will rhyme
So all those
Blasted poets
Wouldn’t waste their blasted time
SOMEONE LET THE CAT OUT*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Someone let the cat out
And the cat
Spat
Whiskered through the night
Streaking like a comet
Through the low lamp light
Someone let the cat out
And the beast
Greased
Lightning in the sky
Flashed between the houses
And shook them with his cry
Someone let the cat out
And the world
Hurled
Curses at his head
As they heard the cry and woke
And staggered out of bed
Someone let the cat out
And the cry
Died
Sudden in the air
A skid a screech a crash
And then a silence everywhere
Someone let the cat out
And a man
Ran
Owing life to luck
And the people came and shuddered
For the cat had squashed a truck
CRAZY PAVING
Ranting raving panting
Paving
Moaning midnight moans
Shifting prising lifting
Rising
Groaning gruesome groans
Mumbling shrieking stumbling
Seeking
Heading for the phones
Dialling smiling breathing
Breathing
Oh those crazy stones
FOXT
I am foxt I am flustered
I have whipt the cat
I am subtle I am cupshot
As a newt and as a rat
I have been to the scrivener’s
I have seen the Frenchie king
I’ve been bitten by a barn-weasel
Weasels are the thing
I have swallowed a tavern-token
It was one over the eight
I’m rolling and I’m reeling
And boy I’m feeling
GREAT and
Now I’ve got the courage
To tell you what I think
But perhaps I’ll tell you later
When I’ve had another drink
I TO I (I)
As I walked out the other day
I met myself along the way.
“Hello” said I, and I replied,
“Good grief! It’s me! I must have died!”
“Now hang on, me” said I, “Let’s think.
We haven’t had that much to drink –
At least, I haven’t had: have you?”
My answer was, I’d had a few
But not enough to make me see
A full-size replica of me.
No explanation could we find
So both of me said “Never mind”,
And had a rather stilted chat
About old friends, and this and that,
Until we parted in the lane.
I hope I don’t see me again…
I TO I (II)
As I walked out the other day
I met myself upon the way.
‘Good grief, I’ve met myself!’ I cried.
‘Then change your trousers’, I replied.
NE POMEM NATAMUS
Little gooseturds in the pond
With the apples floating O
Of their likeness mighty fond
On the apples doting O
‘Pretty apples all are we
None can reach or harm us
Apples in the swim are we
Ne pomem natamus’
MEGALOSAURUS*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Don’t be surprised if he pays it no heed
From the toe to the brain of the megalosaurus
Messages travel at very slow speed
He will bid you good morning, the megalosaurus,
Lifting his hat and attempting to bow
He’ll make a long speech in megalosauran
Till a discovery wrinkles his brow:
Then as you leave
You may hear him say
‘Ow’
THE BIRTHDAY JUMPER*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
“Here’s your birthday jumper, darling,”
Tender mother said,
But tiny toddler Thomas, 2,
Looked grave and shook his head.
“Inexpert, mother, I’m afraid”
The honest infant sighed,
“This crochet stitch is badly done
And cobbled up inside.
“Here you should have cast, not purled,
And there the pattern’s wrong.
This type of wool should not be used:
That green is far too strong.
“You really must ensure the sleeves
Are both of equal length…
Stick to flower-arranging, mother,
It’s your greatest strength.”
“You ungrateful little monster!”
Tender mother cried,
And she stuck her needles in him,
After which, he died.
The moral of this story?
Do not criticize.
Always say your please and thankyou’s:
Life is full of little lies.
JACK AND JILL
1.
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown
Slaughter, always slaughter
2.
Jack and Jill came off the hill
And went to shop in town
Amazing what a lot they got
And all for half a crown
YOU’VE CHOSEN THIS MOMENT*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
You’ve chosen this moment to tell me
You think that my company’s fine
Your parents agree and
They say that they’ll see and
The future looks simply divine
You’ve chosen this moment to tell me
The hand you’ve selected is mine
You’ve told the whole street and
The boy’s down for Eton and
Let’s do the kitchen in pine
You’ve chosen this moment to tell me
But darling I have to decline
The phrase I’ve been dreading
Is let’s have a wedding
For I am a sweetie and you are a
Swine
THAI TIE
My tie is Thai
To tie it I
Say ‘Tie, Thai tie’
And then
In time my tie,
My Thai tie, ties
And won’t untie again
‘Untie, Thai tie’
I say, I sigh
But it won’t come undone
To tie my tie
Next time I might
Buy an elastic one
WILD BILL HICKOK
Wild Bill Hickok won the day
I did not
Wild Bill Hickok walked away
I did not
He got praise and he got pay
I got shot
Who I am you’ve guessed of course
His horse
MURDRED
When Murdred was a little child
Of six or seven, meek and mild,
She visited a nearby farm
And caused her parents great alarm
By chancing on a poisoned well
Into which, alas, she fell.
But when they pulled her out again,
Surprise, surprise! As right as rain.
Not only did the girl survive,
She actually appeared to thrive
On substances that other folk
Would take one tipple of, and croak.
Belladonna, atropine,
Curare and of course strychnine
Were much to infant Murdred’s taste:
Indeed, she gobbled them in haste
And given bleach for tea at four
Would straight away come back for more.
Her parents did not have a clue
Of what on earth they ought to do
With such a firm toxicophile
Who shook her head at camomile
But liked to turn the dustbins out
To see what poisons were about;
Who loved to lie upon the grass
And munch contentedly on glass.
Doctors came to have their say,
But shook their heads, and went away,
While Murdred’s temperature declined
To help each one make up his mind:
It stayed at barely thirty-three
(She’d eaten all the mercury).
At last her parents had enough
Of tempting her with healthy stuff
And catered to her every whim
For poisons venomous and grim.
She grew: she reached outrageous size
On grains designed to fertilise
Until one day she gave a belch
And sundered with a horrid squelch,
And still today her canned remains
Are used for cleaning out the drains.
The moral of this story’s clear
But none too decorous, I fear:
Don’t mess with poisons, red or blue,
In case those poisons mess with you.
STOCK EXCHANGE
Eeny-meeny
Miney millions
Made by meanie money men
Eeny-meeny
Miney minions
Of the mighty buck and yen
ON A CROWDED TRAIN FROM VICTORIA
Large man, come from Clapham:
Please do not from further be.
Leave this train at Clapham, large man,
Leave some space for me.
Small man, I’m from Horsham.
That’s a long way down the line.
When I don’t take to folks, I squash ’em:
You look like you’re squashing fine.
Large man, I’m from Merstham,
Where I run a needle shop.
When I don’t take to folks, I burst ’em:
Large man, you’re a weasel. Pop!
TWO-HANDER
It’s the sight of her hairs
On the side of the bath
It’s the drawers of rolled-up tights
It’s the smell of his scalp
In the pit of the bed
On the don’t-start-snoring nights
It’s the sound of her voice
When she’s scolding the kids
Like a whiplash bringing up welts
It’s the feel of his gut
When he’s stoking the fire
(At least till his poker melts)
It’s the taste of her lips
After thirty a day
And before the evening starts
It’s his eyes
It’s her knees
It’s his nose
It’s her toes
It’s the way he’s so proud of his farts
It’s the thought of a life
That had none of all this
All the farts and the tights and the hair
(BOTH:) Though it may seem strange
It’s the thought of a change
That fills us both with despair
So it may seem grim
But I’m stuck with him
Or if you prefer
I’m stuck with her.
BILLIONAIRE
I wish I were
A billionaire
I’d buy up every
Stock and share
And just to show
That I was nice
I’d sell them all
At half the price
There’s lots of folks
Who think like me
But when they land
A legacy
Or win some
Unexpected bet
It’s funny how
They all forget
LIMERICKS
1.
There was an old judge from Polperro
Who went for a ride in a berrow
He shouted “Egad!
What fun’s to be had!
Me life’s been incredibly nerrow!”
2.
I know a young fellow named Prescott
Who’s frightfully fond of his wescott
Not the wescott he had
When he was a lad
But the wescott that Prescott has jescott
AS SEEN BY THE PLATYPUS
I knew this dreadful human being while I was up at Trinity
Who fancied we’d developed a remarkable affinity,
And all because I’d had to lodge with him and ‘Picknose’ Purvis.
They both, of course, pursued me to the Diplomatic Service,
But here I fear I must record that they showed scant ability
And failed, where I succeeded with extraordinary facility.
The Purvis, with a final delve, agreed that I’d been clever
And confessed that he had doubted I stood any chance whatever.
Thenceforth, I blush to say, the public record tells the story
Of my brilliant young career and swift ascension unto glory
As the diplomat whose talent for proceeding non-committally
Was murmured of in morning-rooms from India to Italy;
And potentates whose slightest frown unleashed assault and battery
Succumbed before my flawless flair for flummery and flattery.
But then, upon that fateful day of Greek emancipation,
Alas! I laid an egg in the Bulgarian legation.
That this event should represent an end to my career O,
The sad and premature apocopation of a hero,
Did not of course go unobserved by ‘friends’ like Picknose Purvis,
Who rang to ask if he could have my opening in the Service,
Nor by our dreadful college mate – I now refuse to know him –
Who wrote at once to Punch and told my story in a poem.
Of all infernal occupations, his is the infernalest:
At least I never stooped so low as to become a journalist.
SHINY FISH*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Once there was a shiny fish
And a spiny fish was he
Once there was a tiny fish
Inside the briny sea
Once there was a gliding bird
And a riding bird was she
Once there was a sliding bird
Inside the hiding sea
Once there was a shiny fish
And a riding bird at sea
Now there’s just an oil slick
So much for poetry
WHILE SHAVING*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Glacial, spatial,
Facial object,
Am I really you?
Yes, you formless,
Gormless gobject,
Yes you are: it’s true.
But you’re a wobbly,
Nobbly blobject:
You’re a horror, sirrah!
Cease your raving,
Shaving slobject:
Kindly leave the mirror.
A KNOTTER
A knotter is a strange machine
That takes two ends of rope
And where taut destiny has been
Creates a loop of hope
But then it slowly pulls the ends
And be you pope or potter
Soon you’ll know the moral, friends:
Life is but a
Knotter
CORRESPONDENCE
I am a long thin envelope
You are a short fat card
We shall never lie together
In the sorting office yard
For an ear-ringed youth named Brian
To notice us and say
“This one looks a cash job, Kev,
Let’s have this one away”
And later, on discovering
That love is all we have,
To curse, and flush our prospects
Down the sorting office lav
Let us then be grateful
That we are so mismatched
Our lack of correspondence
Means we’ll never be dispatched
For marriages made in heaven
May be from heaven sent
But later leave you wondering
Where the hell they went
THREE LITTLE GOBLINS*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Three little goblins were sitting in a row
And one to the other said, “Ho ho ho!”
“See?” said the second one to a third,
“Isn’t this goblin a predictable bird.
“‘Ho ho ho!'” he goes, all day long,
Mister Supergoblin, coming on strong.
Well I’ve had enough of this hearty prat:
Ho ho ho, indeed. Take that!”
With these words he felled the first,
And the goblin race was immediately cursed,
For the first had friends, who swore revenge
And gathered one night besides Stonehenge
To wave their pointed chins at the moon
And snarl themselves to a murderous swoon.
The battle was ruthless: brutal and strong,
Goblin swords hacked goblin throng
And every goblin that there was
Perished that dreadful night because
Three little goblins were sitting in a row
And one to the other said, “Ho ho ho!”
ENG. LIT.*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Right then class, don’t fool around.
Shakespeare, put that bacon down.
And Eliot, don’t play the clown –
Milton! Do you mind?
Right then, this is English Lit,
As in get the fires ‘lit’
Beneath the cauldrons of your wit –
Milton! Do you mind?
Dickens, boy, I don’t suppose
Your fingers could divorce your nose
For long enough to hear me say –
See me later, Thackeray!
Milton! Do you mind?
Eliot, that isn’t clever.
Zip up, please, and do endeavour –
Oh, I’m sick of this.
Hop it, you lot: Class dismissed.
Milton! Are you blind?
REGRESSION
If only time went backwards,
They’d dig your coffin out,
And stand around in sombre clothes
Until you stirred about.
They’d watch you beat some beastliness
That freed you quick or slow,
And soon you’d be a man again
To gather strength and grow.
In middle years a tragedy
Would strike your adult life:
Your children would get smaller
And preoccupy your wife.
The same grim fate, alas, awaits
All shrinking girls and boys:
You say farewell at parties
And soon you play with toys.
By nappy time your wits have gone;
You turn and crawl to Mum.
A cry, a smack, a silence, kicks…
Creation, here I come.
LOVE-MAKING IN THE HOME
In my home town, when I was young,
A corner junkshop lay
Beneath a hill, beside a park
Where people strolled all day.
The people sometimes wandered in
To see what they could see:
Old comics, records, bayonets
And ashtrays from Capri.
Their eyes would roam from bric to brac
And notice, as they’d roam,
That on the counter lay a book
Called ‘Love-Making in the Home’.
Although a label on the spine
Said firmly ‘Not for Sale’,
The people always found themselves
Sooner or later, without fail,
Just chancing on this old red book ;
And, casually turning to one side,
They’d glance around the shop and then
Peer voraciously inside.
What’s this ? No heaving hearthrugs
Would meet their narrowed eyes :
Just hands, splayed out, with diagrams
Of thumb and finger size.
The puzzled readers, with a shrug,
Would put the volume down,
Then leave; and as their footsteps
Took them off to town,
The junkshop owner, whistling
‘Hands Across the Sea’,
Would check the label on the spine
Still covered up the G.
SOLOMON BINDING*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Ladies and gentlemen, be cautioned
By the sanguinary scenes
You are about to behold
Concerning one Solomon Binding,
Solicitor
And Commissioner for Oaths
Too oathsome to be told,
Who, while proceeding to his chambers
In Finsbury Circus
One dark morning in January,
Nineteen hundred and three,
Bumped into a tramp; and acquired,
By association,
One, an imparted odour,
And two, a flea.
The flea (who had worked on Ruskin)
Found a certain
Classical rigour about Solomon,
Which the Romantic lushness of the tramp
Signally had not had. It settled
As biter-in-residence, just far enough
Under the collar to be out of range
Of Solomon’s anguished finger;
And when it bit, it bit bad.
Now the fate of several million pounds,
Two orphanages
And a widow’s reputation lay at this time
In Binding’s hand,
Together with the probate work: several
Large estates, including
The Earl of Chelsea’s diplomatic land.
How happy for all these stringly
Vested interests
The outcome might have been
(Might yet still be)
Had it not been for the unkindly ministrations
Visited upon Binding by his obedient servant:
Me.
For yes, I confess, it was I
That pursued him. I bit him
by the pigeonholes, I bit him in his chair,
I bit him in the stacks
Between the files,
I bit him lunching lawyers
In his leather-seated Club,
I even caught the train and bit him
In Chalfont St Giles.
His word suffered gravely. The funds he managed,
Plunged. The widow was abandoned
In her eighties by her peers.
A minor war broke out in Ruritania, causing
Extensive small-arms damage to chimneypots,
And all because the Earl of Chelsea’s tenants
Were in arrears.
The orphanage became a glue factory. Times
Were hard. And still he scratched, with anything
To hand: a toasting-fork, the mantelpiece,
The widow’s ear trumpet, the number eleven
Bus stop on the Strand. Eventually
He was arrested, for availing himself in a frenzy
Of a constable’s truncheon,
And was never heard of again.
Thus can a thing as small
And as insignificant as a flea
Make a difference, when visited upon things
As large and as important
As men.
THENS FILLED WITH PASTNESS
Tonight for supper
There’s today
Poached in endless vastness
Tomorrow we’ll have
Yesterday
And thens filled with pastness
PUNCTURE
(To The House of the Rising Sun’)
A condom is a useful tool
For useful tools, my friend
But even condoms can get holes
And not in the right end
A tadpole swims right through that hole
He’s heading for some fun
Not least the look on his parents’ face
When they find out what’s gone wrong
Some parents make this error
Lord what have they done
A prophylactic puncture
And God I know
I’m one
So mothers tell your children
Not to do what my folks have done
And live your lives in pain and misery
In the house of the surprising son
RICKETY-TICKETY-TIN*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
As I went out one evening
To have a glass of gin
A nun stood by the alehouse door
Ans she barred my passage in.
“Drink is the Devil’s blood, my son”
She said as she seized my arm.
“It drags your mind to the lower depths
And it sucks your soul into harm”
“Abjure the Demon alcohol!
Sherry and whisky and gin:
Forswear the Devil’s brew, my son!
Sing rickety-tickety-tin.”
I did not like my passage barred
So I replied ”And you?
“If you don’t drink, how come you know
That drink is the Devil’s brew?”
“Instead of accosting folk like me
About whisky and sherry and gin,
You should try it yourself, old mother, and see,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin.”
“Your words are Devil’s words, my son”
Said the ranting nun, said she,
“If people saw a nun with a glass
What would they think of me?”
“A nun with a glass of crème de menthe:
I wouldn’t know where to begin.
What a scandal such a thing would cause,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin.”
“Sure, I’ll fetch you a drink myself ”, said I,
“A crème de menthe’s worth of sin.
They can put it in your collecting tin,
In your rickety-tickety-tin.”
I went in the pub and asked for a pint
And a crème de menthe in the tin,
And the landlord said ‘Hey lads, look sharp!
The drunken nun’s rolled up again
With her rickety-tickety-tin!”
GEOFF SMITH*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
‘How nice to sit on a train
With Geoff Smith!
How fond of his mobile phone
Is Geoff Smith!
How clear and loud is the voice
Of Geoff Smith!
He’s spoken to John
About e-mails to Paul
And he’s left word for Simon
To give him a call
(Straight away would be best,
For the good of us all,
For we’re all au fait
With the world of Geoff Smith,
And what is okay
In the world of Geoff Smith
Is perforce okay with us)
But Geoff Smith,
Who is audibly
A complete worm,
Is anxious to stress
That his long-term view
Is just for the Board
A privileged few
Plus the 262
Passengers within earshot
Of Geoff Smith
Whose intimate acquaintance
With the affairs
Of Geoff Smith
Has led them to form
A collective timescale
For the continued existence
Of Geoff Smith
That is
PREFERABLY
SHORT
TERM
THE WARM-UP
A nice man met a nasty man
To play a game of darts.
The nice man said “Nice man!
“Before the contest starts,
“Why don’t we have a warm-up?
A round of practice throws
To help us get our eye in
And set us on our toes?”
The nasty man said “Nasty man!
“I’ve met your type before.
Let them have a warm-up
And they only ask for more.
“If you can throw, then you can throw.
There’s nothing more to say
Practice favours underdogs
And favours never pay.
“Besides, it’s me that knows the board
Like where the wire is thin,
Like where the darts will all bounce out
And where they’ll wriggle in.
“So why should I give you this chance?
I’ve got you on the run.
And this is dog eat dog, my friend:
We are not here for fun.
“If you can throw, then you can throw.
There’s nothing more to say.
Practice is for lesser men
So middle up, and play.”
They duly played; and which one won
Was never known to me.
Which one wins in daily life
Is all too clear to see.
Yet life is short; and maybe ‘wins’
Is nowhere near the mark.
Though trophies may reflect the light,
They do not light the dark.
NIGHT NIGHT*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
(To the adagio cantabile from Beethoven’s piano sonata No 8 in C minor op.13, the ‘Pathétique’)
Night
Night
Sleep
Tight
Don’t let
The bed bugs bite
And when your toes
And your nose glow
Sleep
Sleep will come to fetch you
Night
Night
Sleep
Tight
It’s off to sleep you go
Away you fly
Through your mind’s eye
Go
Counting sheep will help you
One two three four five six sheep
One two three four five six sheep
One two three four five
Blasted sheep
And you’re still
Not asleep
Oh no
One two three four sheep in a car
One two three four sheep
In a bar
Bar bar
Night
Night
Sleep
Tight
It’s off to sleep you go
Yes it’s nice to know
You’ve enjoyed the show
So
I will just wish you good night
Night
FRED THE FELON*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Fred the Felon
Stole a melon
Colin Copper caught him
Jasper Judge
Refused to budge
A lesson must be taught him
Jailer Jed
Took charge of Fred
And in the chokey chucked him
Where the mates
Of Burglar Bates
Were happy to instruct him
Nick the Knife
And Len the Life
Have worked on Fred the Felon
Now he drugs
And maims and mugs
But seldom steals a melon
FAMOUS LAST WORDS*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance. test
Said the snowman to the sun
“Can’t stop now, I’ve got to – “
Said the mayfly to the moon
“Must you really rise so – “
Said the hedgehog in the night
“That looks like a car headl – “
WORDS
Lfe: Ephemeral
But eternal.
Ephemerally Eternal, or
Eternally Ephemeral?
Etermerally Phemonal, or
Phemonally Etermeral?
Emerpherally Terminal, or
Rentally Telephonal?
Or are these Just
Words?
MOTH
Moth against the window
Blindly beat
Your wings
Your wings
Your wings
For this heat
Moth against the window
Vainly fight
Your soul
Your soul
Your soul
For this light
Moth against the window
Why
Why
Why
Don’t ask me moth
Excuse the curtain
Bye
THE HUNGRY BEASTIE
I am a hungry beastie
I like my beans on toast
The problem is, it’s human beans
I like to eat the most
I chase them round the garden
Till they’re hot and sweaty
Then I pull their hats off
Mmm, spaghetti
I chase them round the garden
On their little legs
Then I pull their glasses off
Mmm, boiled eggs
I chase them round the garden
Till a fat one slips
Then I pull his socks off
Mmm, chips
I chase them round the garden
Till their legs are achin’
Then I pull their ears off
Mmm, bacon
I chase them round the garden
Till their clothes are torn
Then I pull their teeth out
Mmm, sweetcorn
I chase them round the garden
Cos I’m such a meanie
Then I pull their gloves off
Mmm, grissini
I chase them to the oven
While I cook the greens
And half an hour later
Mmm, baked beans
POSTCARD
How dark were your eyes
In the light of the fire
How hot the heat
Of my heart’s desire
How flickered the flames
Against your knees
Send answers on a postcard please
How hard was my mouth
And how fierce my tongue
How you were the air
And I was the lung
How tumbled down we
Beneath the trees
Send answers on a postcard please
How turned up the bears
As we intertwined
How our food and drink
And clothes did they find
How we had to thirst
And starve and freeze
Send answers on a postcard please
LA COIFFEUSE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Je rince, je coupe, je coiffe,
Je coiffe, je coupe, je rince.
Le soir je passe l’aspirateur
Et la nuit j’attends mon prince.
Il est venu un jour d’été :
Je travaillais toute seule.
Son sourire m’a emportée
Loin de Massy-les-Mauvaises-Gueules.
Il a crié, ‘Viens vite, chérie,’
‘Laisse tomber; abandonne.
‘Car c’est une seule fois dans la vie
‘Que toutes les cloches sonnent.’
‘Viens! Je t’attends dehors.
‘Quitte cette triste salle.
‘Saisis cette opportunité et sors!
‘Viens vite sur mon cheval!’
‘Mais un instant, Monsieur, quand même,’
Ai-je dit, toute affolée,
‘Ce matin j’ai un baptême,
‘Ce soir je reçois ma paie…’
‘Trop tard!’ J’ai entendu sa voix
S’éloigner sur le vent :
‘Trop tard! Tu es toute seule
A jamais, dorénavant!’
Il y a déjà quarante ans
Que je coiffe, je coupe, je rince.
Le soir je passe l’aspirateur
Et la nuit j’attends mon prince.
THE SCHARTZ-METTERKLUME METHOD*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
A year ago last Tuesday, I was travelling on the train
When it stopped at somewhere picturesquely louche,
Like Compton-under-Wychwood, or Dunsinane
Or something of the sort. Ashby-de-la-Zouch?
Anyway, I’d stepped down on the platform to give my legs a stretch
When I saw a carter with a big stick beating a horse.
Well I wasn’t standing for that, so I belaboured the wretch
With my best bombazine brolly. And of course,
By the time I had impressed him with the error of his ways,
The guard had blown the whistle and the train had gone.
It was evening. No other train would pass for hours, probably days.
I had nothing; knew no-one. Excellent. This should be fun.
‘You must be Miss Hope,’ a voice said suddenly, nearby,
In a tone that admitted of no possible dissent:
‘You must be Miss Hope, the new governess. I am Mrs Quabarl.
My friends call me Lucy. You may call me Mrs Quabarl.
Can you kindly inform me where your luggage went?’
Well, by habit I am Lady Carlotta de Vrie
Saxe-Devonshire, of 13 Saxe-Devonshire Mews,
But if I must now be Miss Hope, Miss Hope I must be:
It would have been churlish, and dreadfully boring, to refuse.
‘My luggage has gone astray,’ I informed my new patron.
‘No doubt tomorrow it will return ferroviariously to my sight.’ ‘
‘So provoking! How careless they are,’ said the matron,
‘Never mind, my maid can lend you things for the night.’
As we drove to their house I was privileged to learn
That my charges were delicate, sensitive souls
‘Who must relive history, not learn it. In return
For your pittance, inspire them! Make them play roles.
‘We wish them to be accomplished and cultivated:
Both in what they know, and in the way they speak.
French, of course, we shall expect to be integrated
Into mealtime conversation several days a week.
‘I shall talk French for four days and Russian for three.’
I announced, with the air of an Orthodox priest.
‘Russian? But no-one speaks Russian.’ ‘I see.
Have no fear: that will not embarrass me in the least.’
‘I perceive however that some problems will have to be faced
And some allowances made for families like you
In matters of taste. Your car, for example, has long been replaced
By a newer model; and is this your house? Oh dear. ‘Quabarl View’.’
At dinner that evening, over some indifferent wine
(Big châteaux, bad years, I told them what to avoid,
And gave them the name of an old firm, good friends of mine)
Their pleasure at getting to know me seemed not unalloyed.
‘We received satisfactory references for you from Canon Teep…’
The lady said, as if that somehow made up for my views on life.
‘Good man, Teep,’ I said, ‘but not the same since the business with the sheep
And all that fuss about him drinking and beating his wife.’
‘My dear Miss Hope! You exaggerate, please!’
Cried both the Quabarls in the same strangled tone,
So I added, ‘Mind you, the way that Denise
Plays bridge does constitute provocation, that I will own.
But to souse her with soda, the last in the fridge,
When no further soda could thenceforth be found
Showed a brutal contempt for both whisky and bridge,
And human rights too. The man cannot be sound.’
‘My dear Miss Hope! This is most disconcerting!’
The Quabarlian chorus took up the refrain
So I said ‘You are right. Who knows who I am hurting.
I shall never allude to this matter again.’
‘In the meantime, however, my classes shall be
Conducted according to rules I presume
You have heard of: and of all, you’ll agree,
The best is the method of Schartz-Metterklume.’
‘Oh really?’ they say. ‘Oh yes. Yes indeed.
Well, you should know best, one imagines, Miss Hope!’
I added: ‘The usual implements, I’ll need:
Some bundles of birch twigs, a mop for the blood, some rope,
A pitchfork and a pair of stout leggings.
Lots of gin and Vermouth, it’s thirsty work all right.
Oh, and some music to drown out the shrieking and begging.
Wagner’s usually best. Well, thank you for dinner. Good night!’
The bed was comfortable, and free. Next morning, I do declare,
My contract was abruptly terminated! In vain
Did I protest, I was given more than enough money for the fare
And in a state of some considerable satisfaction
Was driven back To catch
My train.
Adapted from the short story of the same name by Saki
FIRE FIRE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Fire fire in the grate
Paper wood and coal
Take me in your fiery spate
To burn and transsubstantiate
Fire burn me whole
Human human in the chair
Flesh and blood and bone
Don’t sit staring in the fire
Go out dancing join a choir
Learn the saxophone
Fire fire in the grate
Paper coal and wood
Take me in your writhing wreath
To boil and blister underneath
Fire burn me good
Human human on the hearth
Flesh and bone and blood
‘Writhing wreath’? I rest my case
The man’s a fool, m’lud
Fire fire in the grate
Wood and coal and paper
Take me in your harlot heart
To twist and blackly come apart
Lo! I light the taper
Human human in the chimney
You are sad and plastered
Go out dancing, join a choir
– Here, get off, you bastard!
RUB-A-DUB-DUB*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Rub-a-dub-dub
Nine men in a tub
The butcher
The baker
The candlestick maker
The bone burner
The fish skin dresser
The breeder of maggots from putrescible animal matter
The chitterling or nettlings boiler
The tripe scraper
The maker of feeding stuff for animals or poultry from any
meat, fish, blood, bone, feathers, fat or animal offal, either in
an offensive condition or subjected to any process causing
noxious or injurious effluvia
Rub-a-dub-dub
What a pong in that tub
LONDON TO GLASGOW*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Into train at Euston
Steps engaging youth
Sits down next to Scotsman
Longer in the tooth
Says young fellow cheerfully
Conversationally
“Can you kindly tell me please
What time it might be?”
“No sir, that I cannae”
Comes the blunt reply
Youngster is discouraged
Lets the hours go by
So is most astonished
As the train pulls in
When the old boy checks a
Fob watch on a pin
“Laddie” says the Scotsman
Seeing his surprise
“You’ll no doubt be thinking
Here’s a man who lies
“Yet there is a reason
Let me please explain
Why I’ve shunned your company
Aboard this northbound train
“At home in Invergordon
I’ve a wife and only child
The apple of her parents’ eye
So fine and fair and mild
“I’ve no doubt if we’d fallen
Into talking, you and me
I would soon have fallen
For your cheery repartee
“I’m sure I’d have invited you
To come and stay at home
To see my prize-winning beehives
And to try my honeyc
“At night beside the roaring fire
We’d swop appalling jokes
You’d tell us your ambitions
And show photos of your folks
“No doubt you’d soon have won the heart
Of all my women, son
And one fine pair of bashful eyes
Would leave your own heart won
“Before the year was out you’d come
And ask me for her hand
We’d book a tent and caterers
(Discreet, mind, nothing too grand)
“The service would be wonderful,
My wife would weep, and I
Would also just occasionally
Have to wipe my eye
“Your honeymoon unsullied
By a single cloud or frown
You’d come back home and buy
A house and settle down
“Alas, I’m sorry your young hopes
So brutally to scotch
But frankly, my boy,
There’s no earthly way my daughter could
ever marry a man with no watch!”
EPITAPH
Here lies
Richard DOCK
Clocksmith
Stopped
And Went to Heaven
On the Fourth of March
Eighteen hundred and
Seventy-three
At a Quarter to Eleven
Of the Clock
R.I.P
Dick Dock
CEMENT MIXER
Swivel swivel evil gravel
In your evil gravel hovel
Swivel swivel evil gravel
As your servants grunt and grovel
Swivel swivel evil gravel
Soupy gloopy suck and shove’ll
Feed the appetite of evil
Slurpous on a purple shovel
Swivel swivel evil gravel
Vainly may the feeble snivel
Right and left your traces travel
In the porridge of the Devil
SEE ATHENS BY HORSE-DRAWN CAB
Near the ancient stones they stand
Ready to show you the metropolis
Whips and reins and caps in hand
The four horsemen of the Acropolis
OLD MOTHER HUBBARD
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to her cupboard
To make her dog Rover some stew
But when she got there
The cupboard was bare
So she gave poor old Rover a chew
LIMERICKS*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I.
There was a young fellow who said,
‘I wish I could sit on my head!
But try as I might
I just can’t get it right,
So I’ll stand on my bottom instead.’
II.
There was an old man from Dundee
Who strangely resembled a flea.
He would leap through the air
And land in your hair:
Scarcely the norm, you’ll agree.
LITTLE MONSTER*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I love the way your eyes point in
While all your teeth point out
I love the way you grunt and snort
And rootle with your snout
I love the way your ears protrude
And gently fan the breeze
I love the way your feet exude
A smell of ripened cheese
I love the way your eyebrows meet
And fondly intertwine
I love you little monster
Cos you’re mine mine mine
POTATOES
One potato
Two potato
Three potato
Four
Five potato
Six potato
Spuds are such a bore
Seven potato
Eight potato
Nine potato
Ten
Nine potato
Eight potato
Back to seven
Again
Six potato
Five potato
Spuds are seldom fun
Four potato
Three potato
Two potato
One
Two potato
Three potato
Here we go again
Four potato
Five potato
Rally round me, men
Six potato
Seven potato
What about a treat
Instead of these
******* potatoes
Let us have some meat!
TO HIS NOT-SO-COY MISTRESS*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Had I but Peace enough, and Time,
This limpness Lady were no crime.
We could a moment while away
With resting, or with breathing, say.
Instead of all this grunt and screech,
We might perhaps exchange some speech.
But no: the awful thought of Dust
Has spurred your metaphysic lust
And at your back you always hear
Time’s winged Menopause hurrying near.
Since the Grave is not much fun
You’ve got to get your Gasping done.
One thought alone relieves my toil:
At least you’ve got a Mortal Coil
INTENDING SENDING
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Note from H.M. Ambassador on the phrase ‘intending sending’ in a draft despatch
‘Intending sending’
Needs amending
Might I recommend
That pending sending
You change ending
One intends to send
MIDNIGHT EVEN DURING WEEKENDS
Yes, I am aware that there is
Currently a construction boom here
In this city, and that a certain amount
Of noise disturbance is inevitable;
Yes, I understand you have been
Advised by the contractor working
On the site next to the hotel that due to
Construction delay he is
Obliged to work through until
Midnight even during weekends;
But I consider that the level of
Noise disturbance caused by the contractor,
Particularly in the area next to my window,
Is unacceptable;
And until my room is changed to the
Other side of the building or my
Money refunded in full, I have to advise you
That with the management of this hotel
I shall
Not
Be
Friends.
A TRUE STORY*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
At Oxford once I went to see
A friend come out of Schools
Corks were popping everywhere
And champagne ran in pools
I went up to a constable
Who lingered largely near
And asked, ‘Excuse me, how far should
I park my bike from here?”
He tumed; his eye took in
My young and hopeful head,
My subfusc and my clinking bag.
“Try Abingdon,” he said.
WILTSHIRE SUMMER*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Dry
July
Sky
The
Sun
Stalks
On
Yellow
Stilts
The
Close
Is
Close
The
Spire
Perspires
Salisbury
Wilts
SLIDDEN
In December it have snowed
So to the sky resort I goed
And up the sky-lift rided
Snow she falled and wind he blowed
How I maked it no-one knowed
But down the slopes I slided
Many money have it costed
But it were not money losted
It were very please
One thing only I’m decided
Next time I no slide like I did
Next time I use skis
PERSON FROM PORLOCK
Went to see Mr Coleridge
Banged on his window
Rattled the doorlock
Nobody in, so
Left him a note, and
Returned to Porlock
INTRODUCTION
“Allow me
To introduce myself”
Was my
Opening bid
“Allow me
To introduce myself”
But she never did
SHERBET LEMON
Life is like a
Sherbet lemon
Don’t be frugal
Don’t be pukka
Bite and chew your
Way to heaven
Don’t be just
Another sucker
THE AMBASSADOR AND THE SEA
The sea is restless, restless
Is the sea upon the shore
The waves have come to parley
But the whisper is of war
The gulls are strident, strident
Are the gulls that wheel and screech
But then an Ambassador comes down
To occupy the beach
The clouds are sullen, sullen
Are the clouds beneath the sky
They scowl at the Ambassador
As he unties his tie
The trunks are ample, ample
Are the trunks upon the haunch
And equally substantial
Is the diplomatic paunch
The waves are waiting, waiting
And the tide is running free
As the Ambassador goes down
To parley with the sea
R.I.P.*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
There are you
Here am I
Who is who
Why is why
What is you
What is me
What are we
What is me
What is you
Why is why
Who is who
Here am I
There are you
R.I.P.
PSYCHOPATHY
My Uncle Hamish used to claim
That he could always tell
When those he phoned were not at home
From one ring of the bell
“It only takes one ring for me
To know they’re out,” he’d say
“I feel it in the frequency
I’m psychopathic that way”
We had our doubts, because we knew
That psychopath or no
Old Hamish was a stingy bloke
As stingy blokes go
So when the phone rang just the once
And then the line went slack
We’d say “That must be Hamish!”
And guess what? We’d call him back.
UN TRAIN PEUT EN CACHER UN AUTRE
If you think that your boss
Should be given the slipper
Remember the next one
Might well be worse
He doesn’t grip problems?
The next one’s Agrippa
He beats Doctor Crippen?
Meet Jack the Ripper
If you think that your boss
Should be dumped on a tipper
Remember the next one
Might well be worse
And then you would think back
To this one and curse
HABITAT*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I keep a goldfish
In a hutch
He doesn’t seem
To like it much
Nor do I get
A word of thanks
From all my rabbits
In their tanks
THICK WALLER T OF MERSEY
A cricketer a cricketer
A cricketer I am
Although I come from Merseyside
I play for Nottingham
And Thomas Waller is my name
Though most folks think of me
As Waller T: for Ben my twin
Is known as Waller B
We both went to Australia
To play the winter game
They grabbed him quick but called me thick
So back to Notts I came
I did not shout or curse at them
My conduct was restrained
For after all, thick Waller T
Of Mersey is Notts-trained
THE CELLAR DOOR*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
When I was just a tiny tot
Of two, or three, or four,
My parents told me never to
Go near the cellar door.
‘Approach it not, our kid!’, they cried
‘Don’t touch it! Keep away!’
And this I did; until at last
There came the fateful day
When someone left it not quite shut:
A crack, I thought I saw.
So with a pale and trembling hand
I grasped that cellar door,
I inched it slowly open wide
And stood for what seemed hours,
Gazing at the world outside:
The sun! The trees! The flowers!
TINKLE TINKLE LITTLE DOG*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Tinkle tinkle
Little dog
Use my doorstep
As your bog
Tinkle on my
Porch and sills
Tinkle on my
Daffodils
Tinkle tinkle
While you choose
Where to do your
Number twos
Tinkle tinkle
Let me guess
Where would make the
Nicest mess?
On my path
Or on my mat?
In my shoes
Or on my cat?
Well you evil
Little runt
I am on the
Doo-doo hunt
When you’ve left your
Souvenir
It goes in this
Paper here
I shall put it
On your porch
Light it so it
Starts to scorch
And when it is
Burning well
I shall ring your
Master’s bell
Laughing till I
Get the cramps
As he comes
And sees
And
Stamps
MISCARRIAGE
Sit in train by lovely lady
Think of her and me in marriage
Sad when lady leaves the train
And gets back in another carriage
LYING*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Here I lie
Remembered long
Did no wrong
Adored was I
As I sleep
Women weep
For my deep
And tender eye
Gorgeous birds
Roam in herds
Wailing “Why?
“Why? Why? Why? Why?”
(Here, I lie)
WHY DOGS HATE CROQUET
Moon bt Murchison (26:0)
Murchison bt wife
Wife bt child
Child bt dog
Dog bt retreat
CALL ME A BUS*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Two old judges in their club.
Port all gone, cigars a stub:
Time to wander to the pub.
One judge sees a bus go by:
‘Ever been on one? Nor I…
What say we have a try?’
Out into St James they go:
A bus is inching past them, so
On they totter, robes in flow.
‘I say, Bunty, there’s a stair!’
‘Here’s the chappie. Hello there.
‘Sixty-seven Eaton Square…’
WRITING RIGHT
I wish I had
A tin of tin
To put my paper
Papers in
And rubber rubbers
Soft and white
For righting writing
Writing right
HERE’S A SHORT LIFE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Here’s a short life
To the man I hate
May his actuarial prospects
Be on the dire side
May the frozen contents
Of aeroplane toilets
Plummeting earthwards
Have his number on them
When he is rushed
Off to hospital
May there be a sign saying
‘Nearest casualty department: France’
And when I hear the news
Of his grave condition
May I resist the urge
To caper with contrition
And send him
A Get Worse Soon card
A GENTLEMAN
A gentleman has made his digs
In one of Aunt Elvira’s figs
He’s burrowed in and settled down
And hopes to make it quite a town
But not long now will come the day
When Auntie’s finger strays his way
And soon he’ll hear this mighty mastodon
Getting ready to pour the custard on
For Nature is a mean old mother
And though she might have spared another
Forks this gentleman askant
Between the dentures of the Aunt
A victim in his tragic plight
Of Aunt Augusta’s failing sight
Since the news of this was mustered
I’ve never really trusted custard
UP TO THE NOSE
Sunday morning
Village green
Van
Salesman
Washing machine
“Ladies ladies gather round
Tell your best friends what you’ve found
Bring your laundry stained with mud
Grease grass ink blood
See how Marvo’s mighty might
Will wash them white as whitest white
Thank you Madam for this nappy
Yes it really is quite…
Sappy
But with Marvo’s mighty might
We will wash it white as white
Into the hot
Into the cold
Up to the light
Bright as bright
Up to the nose
Sweet as a rose
Thank you
And you dear lady? This one? Yes,
Your husband’s overalls are a mess
But with Marvo’s mighty might
We will wash them white as white
Into the hot
Into the cold
Up to the light
Bright as bright
Up to the nose
Sweet as a rose
Thank you
Yes miss? What, these satin knickers?
‘Known to all the local vicars?’
You don’t say
Ugh
Well, with Marvo’s mighty might
We hope to wash them white as white
Into the hot
Into the cold
Up to the light
Bright as bright
Up to the nose –
Into the hot
Into the cold…”
AWAKING
Awaking one night
At a quarter past two
I heard a bird sing
In a neighbouring tree
‘Good morning!
‘Good morning!
‘Good morning to you!
‘And that looks a jolly nice
‘Rifle to – ‘
REHORDERER LEEDER
Rehorderer leederun
Teelerder trehooth Rehooth
Strehooth Rehooth
Teelerder trehooth
Rehorderer leederun
Lerheevairder lerhoize gerhoize
Lerhoizer loik flerhoize gerhoize
Theegitn yeroize
Rehorderer leederun
Givvider strerhoid merhoid
Strerhoidiz jist grerhoid merhoid
Givvider strerhoid
Exercise in Australian pronunciation: Write her a letter and tell her the truth
TEAR DEAR AND FREER DEAR
F: Tear dear!
T: Freer dear!
F: Geng reng?
T: Yah.
F: Juray strake?
T: Nay. By. Juray?
F: Nay. Nay bate.
T: Wart?
F: Bate went dine.
T: Dine?
F: Ya. Senk. Glog-glog.
T: Nay! High?
F: Cox. Coxed it up.
T: Hay curd Lord.
F: Well, eye morph.
T: Geng ite?
F: Ya.
T: Fence yer point later?
F: Ay kay. Lay trawn. Boy tear dear!
T: Boy freer dear.
BOTH: Boy!
Exercise in Oxbridge pronunciation: Teddy and Freddy
ADMIRALS
At lunch today in Birdcage Walk
I heard two admirals, Hogg and Finnis,
Deep in acrimonious talk
Of which one had the longer pinnace
SONG TO THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
I write your tax returns
On my computer
(My computer)
And to store them I create
A working file
(Working file)
I could call this ‘Tax Returns’
But it’s astuter
(It’s astuter)
To select a name that stands out
From the pile
(From the pile)
The name that I have chosen
For this mission
(For this mission)
With a little inspiration
You will guess
(You will guess)
It did not occur to me
To ask permission
(Ask permission)
But the name I’ve chosen, Sir,
Is your address (Is his address)
For when the file is ready
For destruction
(For destruction)
The enjoyment makes me
Positively squirm
(Tively squirm)
As I’m called upon to give
This last instruction
(Last instruction)
‘Do you really want to delete
Number Eleven
Downing Street?’
With what feeling do I
Double-click ‘Confirm’!
NOT A SONNET
She knelt on my chest
With her hands round my throat
And her face was panting
And red with congestion
‘Do you love me, you bastard?’
She screamed, and I sensed
There was a right and wrong
Answer to this question
‘Of course, my darling’
I gurgled beseechingly
Not unlike a man
Whose life depended upon it
So she let me breathe, just this once,
Provided I wrote her a sonnet
YOU MADE THE BRIGHT FORCEPS
You made the bright forceps
That pulled me to the world
You made the dark vehicle
That will remove me from it
You have filled me with chemicals
Whose names I could not repeat
You have saved me from the diseases
That claimed my forefathers
You have given me knowledge
And the use to put it to
You have supplied the shirt for my back
The food for my hunger
You have granted me the freedom
To choose my masters
You have provided the weapons
With which to protect that freedom
You have removed the people
Who were needed to run me
And replaced them with machines
Which are easier for me
You have granted me life
And allowed me to keep it
For all this I am grateful
But you have walked
On my moon
For all this I could forgive you
But you have walked
On my moon
For all this I would not kill you
But you have walked
On my moon
TEN GOOD REASONS
There are ten good reasons
For picking your nose
And one has just entered
My head
NOT TRUE ALAS
I would like to deny rumours that
I have survived a crime passionnel
At the hands of a Bolshoi ballerina
I would also like to refute categorically
Any allegation that
I have been awarded an OBE
On the Secret List
For services in training the SAS
And should my lawyers be notified
Of an ungrounded assertion that
I have the biggest tickle-tackle in Putney
They would be in touch
But by then of course
The damage would be done
ADVERTS
I. (Bottled stout)
Stopnav
Botlov
MAXON
II. (Oxford Street Store)
Sofa
Cheese
Soil
NEAR
III. (Anti-diarrhoea medicine)
Take
Commodium
And
Fart without Fear
MR AND MRS
I.
She married
Mr Right
And he always was
II.
He married
Miss Prim
More fool him
THE NOBLE SAVAGE
Crashing one day in the jungle
A pilot stepped out of his plane
And found himself facing a savage
Who sported a silver-topped cane.
‘I say mate, do you speak some English?’
The pilot excitedly cried;
And was taken aback when the savage
With haughty demeanour replied:
‘Of course my dear fellow I doowee
Yow wee yow wee yow wee yow woo
Of course I speak English:
I speak perfect English;
Or certainly better than you
Wee yow wee yow wee yow wee yoo.’
‘Then how can I leave this here jungle?’
Cried the pilot, forgetting his grammar;
The savage just said, with a bow of his head,
And a pitying tone to his stammer:
‘You take the first right from the clearing
And follow the path you see there
Where you wee yow wee yow wee yow weeyow
Where the edge of the jungle’s quite near.’
‘Thanks mate; but tell me, your English:
How did you master it so?’
And with pride in his eyes
The savage replies:
‘Short wave ray dee oh wee yow wee yoh!’
PIGSTONE
Lord, this is Pigstone, room one-eleven.
Sorry to bother you, Lord,
But it’s about Heaven.
When we last spoke – you’ll recall
The conversation –
I forgot to check my onward reservation.
Could you just confirm, Lord,
When you’ve got a mo,
That at the crucial moment,
I will upward go?
Pigstone, you’re a sinner
And a hoochy-coochy man.
I shall send you downwards
As fast as I can.
So don’t you give me all that bilge,
You nasty little tyke:
Onward reservation? On your bike.
Lord, this is Pigstone.
Sorry, lost you there.
Look, I think I’ll leave it.
Some other time. Take care!
MY SON, MY SON, MY SON
My son, my son, my son, my baby son,
Grow firm: grow tall, grow straight,
Grow free.
Know facts, and fates, and fears;
But most of all, know fun,
And under no circumstances
A complete plonker be.
Grow not to wave your whatnot
Out the window, son:
Don’t pick your nose
And flick it in the stew.
When people meet you,
May they like you, every one.
When you depart, may they not
Look at each other and go ‘Phew!’
May you have a light
But hide it, darling boy:
May you never grow up smug,
Or falsely glad:
And may you never write
Sententious little poems, either,
Like this one,
From that complete plonker,
Dad
LOVED YOU BUT
(To the Rondo: allegretto moderato from Beethoven’s
Piano Sonata No.53 in C, Op.53, the “Waldstein”)
(She finds him unconscious and thinks him dead)
SOPRANO. I thought I loved you loved you
I thought I loved you but
I thought I loved you but I
Never knew how much I loved you
Loved you loved you loved you
Loved you loved you loved you love
(Kills herself, falls into coffin)
TENOR, awaking. I thought I loved you loved you
I thought I loved you but
I thought I loved you but I
Never knew how much I loved you
Loved you loved you loved you
Loved you love
(Kills himself, falls into coffin)
(BOTH:)
I thought I loved you loved you
I thought I loved you but
(Cut to 2:00 – Church bells. Bearers lift coffins. Reprise as above, from coffins)
SOPRANO. I thought, etc.
TENOR. I thought, etc.
BOTH. I thought, etc.
(Tempo speeds up. Strobe lights. Chase each other with coffins on their back like carapaces)
I only really loved your butt
Only really loved your butt
I loved your butt, I loved your butt
I loved your butt, your butt your butt
I loved your butt, I loved your butt
I loved your butt, loved your butt
Your butt your butt
Bum bum
Bum bum
Etc
GRADIENT
Everything is going wrong
My head is on a tilt
Objects slither downward
On a gradient of guilt
Escaping into doggerel
I hum a brave refrain
And incy-mincy spider
Climbs up the spout again
ERROR REGRETTED
Error regretted
Wrong button pressed
Yorkshire’s splatted
God I’m depressed
Error regretted
Wrong missile sent
I’m devastated
So is Kent
Error regretted
Wrong gene tweaked
Now we’re all two-headed
I’m totally freaked
Error regretted
Human race gone
Awfully terribly
Sorry everyone
THE CHUNKY MONKEY*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
A monkey was a flunkey
In the palace of a lord:
A lion, with a horde
Of jackal knights
The monkey was a chunky chap
And had a little sword
And one day thought he’d stand up
For his rights
‘Excuse me, lion
(Please),’ he cried
‘I really have to say
‘I think it is a fraud
‘That monkeys are the flunkeys
‘While a lion is always lord!’
The lion listened carefully
And then he simply
ROARED
And the monkey said
“Of course, sir!
Straight away! “
TUXEDO CONJUNCTION
L – I – N – G – U – I – S – T
I – C – S – yes
That’s right you’ve guessed
Linguistics is all the news
It beats the hokey, the cokey
The bop and the blues
The mamba the samba and all of the rest
Linguistics is the best
It’s got phonemes
It’s got morphemes
It’s got lexemes
It’ll take you further
Than your wildest dreams
Disambiguation, deagglutination
Even transformation
Baby this is a sensation
It’s explicit, predictive, potential, syntactic
Systemic, phonemic and real morphotactic
Embedding, conjoining in minimal pairs
Gives you furiously sleeping green ideas
L – I – N – G – U – I – S – T
I – C – S – yes
It’s general! lin-guis-tics
And it’s para! lin-guis-tics
And it’s meta! lin-guis-tics
So take our advice
And tonight after dinner
Sit down and read all about
Chomsky and Skinner
L – I – N – G – U – I – S – T
I – C – S – yes
That’s right you’ve guessed
It’s socio! Lin-guis-tics
And it’s ethno! Lin-guis-tics
And it’s psycho! Lin-guis-tics
Come down from your trip
All you weirdos and mystics
Get hip take a trip
And get into the world of
LINGUISTICS!
BOAST CARD
Here we are at
Somewhere delightful
Under the palm trees
Drinking a beer
You’re stuck at home
Ha ha ha ha ha ha
Isn’t it frightful
How is the ring road
At this time of year?
So here’s a nice post card
Of somewhere delightful
Bet you don’t half
Wish you were here
I KNOW A YOUNG LADY
I know a young lady
Who swallowed a fly
Button
MARQUIS DE SAD
The Marquis de Sad
Tried hard not to be
But in the end sadly
Was
THE MANHOLE
A nice man saw a nasty man
About to cross the street
The nice man said ‘Nice man! ‘
Mind where you put your feet!’
The nasty man said ‘Nasty man!
Don’t you tell me what to do.
You mind your own damn business,
Or I’ll put my foot in you!’
The nice man sighed to hear it
And lifting up his eyes
Fell straightway down a manhole
Silence is often wise
NICE GIRLS LIKE NASTY MEN
A nice girl met a nasty man
Who treated her like dirt
He liked hurting
And she got hurt
When I tried to intervene
My chances were slim
Sure enough I copped a clout
And not from him
‘Nice girls like nasty men’
I heard the nice girl say
Over his shoulder
As he carried her away
‘Next time they tell you
It pays to be meek
Sock ‘em in the kisser!
Oh yes, Vlad! Eek!’
Since I got this insight
Into how things are
I’ve stuck to nuclear physics
It’s simpler by far
PESCADOS
Pescados
Desesperados:
Inundados!
Ahogados!
Rescatados
Secados
Asados
Disfrutados
Tirados
Olvidados
Fishes/Desperate/Flooded/Drowned/Rescued/Dried/Roasted/ Enjoyed/Discarded/Forgotten
MIRROR PALINDROME
Face, my face,
That years untold,
The base and temporal behold,
View the glaze and cry not.
Do
Reflect:
Do not cry and glaze the view.
Behold, temporal and base,
The untold years that
Face my face
PLEASE MR REAPER
Please Mr Reaper
Don’t reap today
I’m not at home
I’ve gone away
Please Mr Reaper
Don’t visit here
My friend Jim
Lives quite near
I’m off reapers
Specially grim
Why not go to Jim’s house
And reap him?
Please Mr Reaper
Don’t come today
They’re tough on reapists
Down our way
And me I’m nothing
To do with it see
So please Mr Reaper
Don’t reap –
PARADISE
A log fire in a library
A letter from the lottery
Someone’s Trumpet Voluntary
And England beating Germany
Film rights for my biography
A fellowship at Trinity
A strumpet with a crumpet
And a nice cup of tea
THE SLOW SLOPE
Hope and memory
The slow slope
From hopes of memories
To memories of hope
PROUD OF THE CROWD
That brilliant Parliamentarian
Sir Dingleby McLeod
Distinguished for his socialism
Proud of the crowd
GRANDMAMA
When Grandmama fell off the boat
And failed, shortsightedly, to float
The captain of the vessel roared
‘All hands on deck! Man overboard!’
No sooner had this come to pass
Than twenty spinsters from First Class
Threw down their crocheting, and ran
To save their prospects, and a man
Alas! Enraged at what they found
They had the hapless captain bound
And for his carelessness of gender
Hanged him as a sex offender
BEFORE 1955
Before nineteen fifty-five
There was no me
So how did people stay alive
Without me?
And after nineteen ninety-nine
Or twenty-oh-oh-three
How will people still be fine
Without me?
Lucky those who were around
From fifty-five to three
Escaping from that dreadful fate
That unimaginable state
Me-free
INGTON THE DICKWIT*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I was at school
With Richard Ington
What a blockhead
What a thickwit
Later of course,
He became Lord Mayor
Lord!
Mayor!
Who’d have believed it
Of Ington the Dickwit
WHEN SHE KISSED HIM
He made a living as a shoveller
Following parade horses
She worked in the Post Office
Licking envelopes
They went out but
It was no good
He insisted on walking behind her
And when she kissed him he bled
TWO MEN MEETING
A: We meet and we
Greet and we
Parley and part
B: We ‘How… ?’ and we
Bow and we
Vow it’s a shame
A: Not to see
B: Ourselves more
A: Face to face
B: Heart to heart
A, B: (But the truth is
We can’t for the
Life of us
Think of his name)
SEAMUS
Heard a busker in a crowd
Play a tune called Seamus
Stole his tune to make my name
Now I’m rich and famous
Crowds besiege our house all day
To pester and acclaim us
And sometimes at the back I hear
The busker playing Seamus
NOVEMBER*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
And the wind blows, and the sun shines
On the yellowing beech trees
And the green grass shimmers
Under a sudden hand
And the wind blows, and the seagulls
Reel from the sea
Forsaking the beaches
For the brown ploughed land
And the wind blows, and the leaves
Fly from their perches, and night
Waits on the corner, moon in hand
And the wind blows, and the dark
Falls swiftly, for it is November
And this is a cold wet Northern land
THE JACKET
In the old oak upstairs wardrobe
Of my old-oak-upstairs brother
Where the serge hangs sergely
And the mothballs smother
There is one single garment
That bespeaks discrimination
A masterpiece of modern style
Of such sophistication
That when I think about it
This jacket so exquisite
I curse myself for leaving it
Behind on my last visit
OH PURLEEZE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe
No there wasn’t!
Frogs and snails
And puppy-dogs’ tails
That’s what little boys are made of
No they’re not!
Their heads are green
And their hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve
No they didn’t!
Half a pound of tuppenny rice
And pop goes the weasel
Who writes this stuff?
SHIVERITE*
In the north
Freezing mist
And widespread drizzle
Will persist
In the west
The wind will blow
And plague your Aunty
Ethel so
In the east
The cold will smite
Through double layers
Of Shivverite
But in the south
The sun will shine
And old men with mistresses
Will eat olives
And savour their wine
LEGGETT
All I recall
Of the case
In the courts
In nineteen sixty-three
Was the haul
Was immense
They were shopped
By the fence
And the getaway
Driver’s name
Was Leggett
Not inappropriately
SECOND-CLASS PEOPLE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Second-class people
Are all very well
But second-class people
Have such a lived-in smell
Second-class people
Are fine in their place
Some of my best friends
Know
Second-class people
It’s not a disgrace
Second-class people
Have to be there
Of course, my dear
But preferably there
And not here
I was thinking of this
Just the other day
When something failed
On the railway
We were far from thrilled
It was not a joke
When the carriage filled
At Basingstoke
With second-class people
My dear, the noise!
The clothes they wear!
The furry toys!
And I asked myself
How it came to pass
That there are some people
Of first class standing
And some who are just
Standing in first class
SOHO*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
When walking
With friends
Through Soho
Tell your girl
If she speaks
At all
Not to point
At the things
In the photos
And say
‘Ooh how big!’
But ‘How small!’
AN HISTORIAN
An historian
Lost an hat
In an hotel
The maid
Lent him an hand
And all was well
But an half an hour later
The poor soul met his creator
When it slipped
And sent him falling in
An hole
POETRY WON
Poet coughs
Falls ill
Doctor comes
Writes bill
Prose one
Poetry nil
Poet goes
To hospital
Taut tights
Nice nurse
Poet writes
Vice verse
Nurse reads
Nurse likes
They go out
Ride bikes
Get hitched
Have fun
Prose nil
Poetry won
THE PITCHER PLANT MOSQUITO
(Wyeomia smithii)
I spy with my little eye
Something beginning with M
In the deep dark pool
Of digestive drool
In the purple pitcher plant’s stem
The purple pitcher plant grows in the soil
Of sphagnum bogs in the States
For the poor little creature
That lands on the pitcher
A nutritive fate awaits
For the hairs on the purple pitcher plant’s throat
Point uniformly down
To the deep dark pool
Of digestive drool
Where the visitors slither and drown
Now the purple pitcher plant may be strange
But strangely even stranger
Is the thing I spy beginning with M
That feeds on the guests
In the pitcher plant’s stem
For danger is a manger
And down in the dark inhospitable heart
Of the plant’s desire to survive
Where the bugs and the frogs
Say farewell to the bogs
Mosquito larvae thrive
The larvae lunch on the bits of the guests
That the pitcher plant disdains
With the food they need
They are ready to breed
But one ordeal remains
When winter comes to the heart of the plant
It freezes the drool and the larvae too
So their life is lost
Until they defrost
In spring, and fly into the blue
So readers: learn this lesson last
‘Look further’ is the plain gist
For when you see the strangest thing
It may not be the strangest
II.
Purple pitcher plant so grand
In the sphagnum bog you stand
Against the soil so poor and terrible
Pitcher plant so proudly perriple
I am just a little fly
Happening to hover by
Might I if I asked politely
Linger on your tonsils lightly?
Linger linger please your Highness
Feel free your furry Flyness
Look my throat is soft and beckoning
Rest your legs and meet your reckoning
Purple pitcher plant so kind
I think I’ve left my wits behind
If it’s all the same to you
I’ll go and fetch them. Toodeloo!
III.
One must suffer
That another may eat
The pilot’s crash
Is the cannibal’s treat
IV.
We are but briefly neath the sky
And then one day we aren’t
Like wyeomia smithii
Inside a purple pitcher plant
The larvae, left there by their mums
Who know the place to lay,
Grow fat until the winter comes
And freezes them till May
It cannot frankly be too nice
To have to wait for spring
To free you from a block of ice
Before you take to wing
No doubt the luckless larvae who
Must hang suspended frozen
Wonder for a month or two
Why it is they’re chosen
“Why this life of pain and sorrow?
“Cold today and cold tomorrow!”
“Why oh why oh why oh why
“Wyeomia smithii?”
* (Pronounced ‘Why am I a smithy-eye’)
A SHILLING LIFE
A shilling life will give you all the facts;
That is, such facts as shilling lives include.
The birth, the school, the holidays at Bude,
The first great speeches and the last great acts.
What makes us individual is not seen
Nor noted in obituaries. The mind
May leave more subtle vestiges behind.
Somewhere in a life there will have been
A toy that terrified, a secret place,
A way of rocking that would bring on sleep,
A hand whose touch was absolute and deep,
A certain angle of a certain face,
A fear of car headlights and sudden trains
A sense of rebirth, at night, when it rain
HOW TO HUG
I have always been
A bit of a shy dog
Less of a sexual predator
More of a sexual panicker
So I bought a book
Called ‘How to Hug’
But it was volume seven
Of the Encyclopaedia Britannica
GORDON*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
There is a square in old Khartoum
Where, on massive horseback, sits
Great General Gordon, carved
In imperial stone.
Towards this statue every day
An army officer makes his way
Taking his little son.
They halt; they turn about,
And at the pedestal they stand.
‘Salute Gordon!’ is the father’s shout.
‘Gordon saluted sir!’ Up goes the hand.
‘Salute Gordon!’ ‘Gordon saluted sir!’
‘Salute Gordon!’ Until one day
The boy says ‘Pardon
Dad?….’ ‘Permission to speak, son.’
‘Dad, who is that sitting on Gordon?’
THE LITTLE DEAR (TWO-HANDER)
A: Froufrou, Mimi and Giselle
Are the nicest girls round here
I’ve always gone for Froufrou
For she is a little dear
B: Froufrou, Mimi and Giselle
Are the nicest girls round here
I’ve always gone for Mimi
For Froufrou’s a little dear
LE MOI D’OCTOBRE
October me
Is sober me
Not madly gay
Like me in May
Le moi d’octobre
Est sage et sobre
Il n’est pas gai
Comme le moi de mai
SOMETHING SOMETHING
By the something of my thumbs
Something something this way comes
Something something something he
To something something somethingly
And somethings in the moonlit grasses
Something as the something passes
Something somethinging from his jaws
He pads on something something paws
A something something something bright
In the somethings of the night
I DO NOT DREAM*
HE:
I do not dream
Of laughing girls
Loving girls
Living girls
Laving
In life’s bright streams
I only dream
Of you my love
Cooking stew my love
In a canoe my love
SHE:
I do not dream
Of romping men
Ramping men
Rumping men
Scrumming
In scrummy teams
I only dream
Of you my love
At the zoo my love
With a kangaroo my love
Ooh my love
BOTH:
So will you please
P*** off out of my dreams
DON’T CARE
Don’t Care was made to care
Don’t Care was hung
Don’t Care’s child was born
With problems of the lung
Don’t Care was made to care
Don’t Care drowned
In the flood from the smoke
From the factory
On Don’t Care’s ground
Don’t Care was made to care
Don’t care curled
And writhed and died
In the plague that struck
Don’t Care’s world
MEAN WITH A TROWEL
A nice man hired a nasty man
To dig a swimming-pool.
The nasty man took all the cash
Then said ‘I’m off, you fool!’
‘A little of your money, though,
Has bought this shiny spade.
You take it! Here! That’s it!
Now get your own pool laid!’
The nice man took the shiny spade
And in a tiny trice
Did certain things which I’m afraid
Were not entirely nice
If spade is what the nice man used
To reinforce his claim
Then spayed is also in effect
What the nasty man became
So cheat us not you nasty men
We fair folk can be foul
It’s all that gardening we do
That makes us mean with a trowel
EVES
Fallen from grace?
Call the Apple Marketing Board
On 0207 767 767
(Eves)
TO MY ENEMY
I thought of you the other day
When I was out on Hampstead Heath
For lunch I’d had some beef filet
And a bit had stuck between my teeth
You wouldn’t believe the trouble I had
Getting it out was annoyingly hard
So I searched my pockets and was so glad
That you’d given me your business card
THE BISHOP OF BATH AND WELLS
The Bishop of Bath and Wells
Gets out of his bath and tells
From a sniff at the bits
On which he sits
That flesh is no longer a sin
The Bishop of Bath and Wells
Gets out of his bath and smells
Much nicer than when he got in
FIRST AID POEM
Assess the situation: try to size it.
Identify any danger and minimize it.
Talk to the casualty, get info while you can,
History, pills, how conscious is the man.
Clear his mouth and tilt his head back:
He must breathe to live.
Get someone to call one-twelve and give
Location, Age, Sex and State of consciousness,
Updating you when it is done: LASSU. Now
Pinch his nose, give two firm breaths and check
For pulse, level with his Adam’s Apple
And the side of his neck. If there is no pulse,
Trace his ribline to the front,
Come up two inches and
Commence cardio-pulmonary resuscitation by hand.
Two breaths, fifteen thrusts, using your weight.
Take it easy. Check him each minute.
The ambulance is always late.
TITHONUS THE TROJAN
Tithonus the Trojan
Pleasing to behold
Was snatched by Aurora
From his mother’s fold
Tithonus the Trojan
Begged never to die
Aurora granted this
But by and by
Tithonus the Trojan
Less pleasing to behold
Thought perhaps
He should have asked
Not to grow old
TWO CAT POEMS
I.
Cats
On
Beds
Is
Bads
II
Cats
That
Lie
In
Road
End
Up
Lying
In
Road
THE BARK OF CHICAGO
The bark of Chicago disturbs the siesta;
So do the buzz and the dring and the bleep
Of the faxes from Frankfurt, the phone calls from Chester,
Whining and warbling, pocketa-queep.
The berk in Chicago disturbs the siesta:
‘Sell at three-seventy; buy while it’s cheap.’
Then there’s that halfwit, the Leicester investor:
‘What should I sell, Rodney? What should I keep?’
The buck from Chicago disturbs the siesta:
Pass it on quick to some other poor creep.
Why should my desk be the one that they pester?
Why can’t they let a poor stockbroker sleep?
SUDDENLY TAKEN WITH SUNLIGHT
At a meeting about budgets
I am suddenly taken with
sunlight
flooding in
from the porch
on summer evenings
the snip of your secateurs
the smell of stems
MY AUNT VIC
My Aunt Vic
Visited the sick
She didn’t mind
Reading to the blind
Who all loved her dearly
Well, nearly
For when she began
With one old man
He turned to the wall
And wouldn’t speak at all
She didn’t get wild
She simply smiled
And kept on going
Raining or snowing
On Thursdays at four
She knocked on his door
And to her glory eternal
Read the Salisbury Journal
Until one day
She stayed away
With a nasty cold
Bad for the old
When next she went
Heaven-sent
Into the gloom
Of his old man’s room
Through the dust and grime
For the first ever time
She heard him speak:
‘You didn’t come last week’
HALF A WORM*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
On eating an apple
And finding a worm
And throwing the apple
Aside with a curse
A moment’s reflection
Will serve to confirm
That finding half a worm
Would be worse
THE PROUDLY SNIFFERS
Many o many are the things you do
When you think that no-one’s
Looking at you
Many o many are the noses plumbed
And plucked and fingered
And sometimes thumbed
Many o many are the flossings of teeth
And the checking of certain
Arrangements beneath
Many o many is the noxious niff
But worst of all
Is the proudly sniff
For the proudly sniff is a mortal sin
You let it out
We breathe it in
The government’s ordered a tight clamp-down
And that’s why I
Rode into town
For I, my friends, am a man who differs
I can always tell
The proudly sniffers
THE THREE-LEGGED PIG*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I was driving one day in the country:
My petrol was down to the dregs,
So I stopped at a farm, where I noticed
A pig with only three legs.
The farmer was filling my tank up.
I remarked, ‘Pray tell me, I beg,
Why does that splendid young porker
Have a stump instead of a leg?’
The farmer clutched at his heart.
‘That pig, sir? Why, that pig.
That pig, sir, he’s a national hero.
Ain’t you heard what that pig’s gone and did?
‘The farmhouse here caught fire sir.
My young’uns, they nearly died.
But that pig, he plunged through the flames, sir,
And dragged them all outside.
‘He calls straight away for the ambulance.
He gives them the kiss of life.
And in the middle of all the rumpus
He makes a pot of tea for my wife.
She ain’t never forgotten that tea, sir.
Nor for that matter have I.
That pig sir, he’s here sir, inside me sir,
Right till the day that I die.’
‘How splendid,’ said I, ‘But tell me,
The fact is I still don’t see
Why, when most of the porcine species
Has four legs, this one has three.’
The farmer clutched at my elbow.
‘That pig sir? Why that pig!
That pig, sir, he’s Superporker,
Though he may not look that big,
My wife drove into the river, sir.
She’d not have survived at all
If that pig hadn’t leapt in the water
And doing the Olympic crawl,
Snatched her from the jaws of death, sir.
Saved her life, he did.
Why that pig, sir, he’s immortal.
He’s the pig of pigs, is that pig.’
‘No doubt,’ I answered politely,
‘But my question remains as before:
Why does this pig have three legs
When most of the others have four?’
The farmer clutched at my shoulder.
‘That pig sir? Why, that pig.
That pig, he could break someone’s leg, sir,
Easy as snapping a twig.
We had burglars one night in the office.
That pig, he hunted them down
And got signed confessions from all of them
Before he ran the whole lot out of town.
Then he threw an all-night party.
You should see how he dances a jig!
Why that pig, he’s like a brother,
A brother to me, is that pig.’
‘Yes, you told me’, I said with impatience,
‘But sure as eggs is eggs,
You still haven’t given the reason
Why that pig has only three legs!’
The farmer lowered his arms.
‘I can see, sir, you be a dunce.
The reason is plain as a pikestaff.
You can’t eat it all at once!’
BATHROOM NOTICE
Do we wash hands?
We do wash hands
Do wee – wash hands
THE OPEN VERDICT*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
The body of a middle-aged man
Is found in a hotel room
He carries only a note that reads
‘Why am I here? What am I doing?’
The inquest fails to resolve these questions
And an open verdict is recorded
AU BAL INTERNATIONAL
“From France,
Monsieur et Madame O’Jardin
And their daughter,
Ondine…”
“From the UK,
Mr and Mrs Tears
And their son,
Piers…”
“From the UK
Mr and Mrs InterestingDiseasesLately?
And their daughter,
Courtney…”
“From Germany,
Herr und Frau In Ordnung
And their daughter,
Alice…”
“From Australia,
Mr and Mrs Ditch
And their daughter,
Dinah…”
“From Romania,
Domnul si Doamna Esirescu
And their daughter,
Emergency…”
“From Spain,
Señor y Señora de Instrucciones
And their son,
Manuel…”
“From Italy,
Signor e Signora Serà-Serà
And their daughter.
Kay…”
“From Greece,
Mr and Mrs Youfeelifyoulookedlikethis
And their son,
Howard…”
“From Russia,
His Excellency Prince Anzovmi
And his beautiful daughter,
Gretcha…”
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
Poems with words
Upjumbled are
Tothebin
Quickestin
By far
FRAMED REFLECTING SURFACE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Framed reflecting surface,
Framed reflecting surface,
Mounted on a vertical brick erection,
Identify if you will
The fortunate individual
Whose features, upon close inspection,
Are likely to stir feelings
Of a positive nature in
The greatest number of observers.
What’s that? Snow White, you say?
Hirelings,
Hie you to her hovel, stake it out,
And render her lifeless with your life preservers!
As for you, framed reflecting surface,
Framed reflecting surface,
If I might venture a small suggestion,
Should you be desirous
Of remaining framed and reflecting,
Remember there is a right and wrong answer
To every question
PAW PRINTS
A wood
A bear
A prince
Paw prints
THE ANTS’ LAMENT
TOBY (a bee): Now listen. If you ants all agree that we’ve got to help these two young children instead of handing them over to the weevils, then first of all, we’ve got to find somebody who knows the way out of the jungle. Do any of you know the way? (Silence) Llantidnod, what about you?
LLANTIDNOD (a Welsh ant. Uncomfortably): Well, see, it’s like this…
TOBY: Antique?
ANTIQUE (an elderly ant) Eh? What’s that?
TOBY: AntiMacassar?
ANTIMACASSAR (a Scottish ant): Me? No, I cannae help. I’ve got no idea of the paths round here.
TOBY: Antrim? Anti Maevis? What’s the matter with you all? Don’t any of you know the way to get out?
ANTWERP (a stupid ant): Could you hum us the tune?
ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM (a clever ant):
Look, Toby, the situation is as follows. We’d all like to be of
assistance, but just at the moment we can’t leave the camp.
TOBY: Why not?
ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM: Because – because
of the aardvaark. (Cries of terror from the other ants)
TOBY: The aardvaark? What on earth’s an aardvaark?
LANTIDNOD: It’s aard!
ANTWERP: And it vaarks!
ANTIMACASSAR: It’s a monster. ANTI MAEVIS: A fiend!
ANTIQUE: A devil!
ANTRIM (An Irish ant): Worse than a hobgoblin!
LLANTIDNOD: Bigger than a giant!
ANTIMACASSAR: Stronger than an ogre!
ANTI MAEVIS: And its eyes are as large as moons!
ANTIQUE: And its nose is as long as a snake!
ANTRIM: And it comes in the night when you’re asleep!
LLANTIDNOD: And its whiskers wave in the wind!
ANTIMACASSAR: And it howls and wails and makes unchristian noises!
ANTI MAEVIS: And it comes in the night if you’ve sinned…
ANTIQUE: And it sighs and it cries and it groans…
ANTRIM: And it whines and whistles and moans…
LLANTIDNOD: And it seeks you out with its nose –
CHORUS: Its nose!
LLANTIDNOD: And it snuffles about with its nose –
CHORUS: Its nose!
LLANTIDNOD: And it turns you inside out with its nose –
CHORUS: Its nose! Its nose!
Its terrible nose!
LLANTIDNOD: And it sharpens its teeth on your bones!
(Great chorus of terrified cries. The ANTS all fall in a heap)
WATERLOO, 4.VII.76
Caught at the end of middle age:
Too old for combat, not yet old enough
For the embarrassed offer of a seat.
The perfect Englishman, perhaps,
Lined and heavy jowled, with proud white hair,
Keeping apart in a baggy overcoat.
Home on the next train
To the sadness of a garden still dry,
To Yew Tree cottage and the wasp-jar.
Shostakovich suddenly loud
On the stereo, Picking out the bills,
So comforting a soft carpet yes. It is
Easy and dangerous to typify. His
Quiet separateness, so much more valuable
Than our uncertain scorn.
I AM THE LIMP MAN THE HANGING MAN
I am the limp man the hanging man
Breasting the impervious door
My feet wait they assume poses
There is no purpose in them
I am the flat man the folded man
Meek in the embryo drawer
My eyes stare they are put aside
Tomorrow I must polish them
LOVE LOVE IS
Love love is
What is left
From the loaves and
The fishes
Hate hate is what is left
In the rags and
The dishes God God is
What is left
When the swine hit
The sea you you are
You and
What is left
Is me
OUT OF LUCK
To my friend Chuck
Who was out of luck
I dedicate this ode
He was hit on the forehead
By a nuclear warhead
That failed to explode
When he died
I’m sad to say
The folks all cried
‘Hip, hip! Hooray!’
TINY TODDLER TOMMY
For tiny toddler Tommy, two,
Life is full of ooh and coo
But also full of poo and boo
Life’s like that
For fearsome fighter Philip, four,
Life is full of wor and cor
But also full of aw and naw
Life’s like that
For tasty Tarquin, twenty-three Life is full of glee and me
But also full of she and we
(Holds baby) Wee?
Life’s like that
For aged Amy, eighty-eight,
Life is full of grate and plate
But also full of sit and wait
Life’s like that
DEATH OF A PERFORMANCE POET
My recent shows had been so bad
That to get an audience I had
To tell my uncles and my aunts
That I had tickets for a dance
They came; and in a rueful row they sat
Aunt Murdred in her peacock hat
And Uncle Amos with his rifle
Just in case some man should trifle
With his shapely daughter Sue
(Who, it was said, could trifle too)
Beside them slobbered untold dozens
Of equally repulsive cousins
After I had said some stuff
Amos shouted ‘Right! Enough!’
‘So that we can all get plastered
Let’s draw to see who shoots the bastard!’
They drew; Sue slew; and that, my friend
Is the tale of how I met my end
The tale that would all scholars baffle
The rueful rowful rifle raffle
THE TIDDLY POM
I am a pom
A pom
A pom
A pom pom tiddly tiddly tiddly tiddly pom
I am a pom
A pom
A pom
A pom pom tiddly tiddly tiddly tiddly pom
I am a pom A pom
A pom
A pom pom tiddly tiddly tiddly tiddly pom
A pom pom tiddly tiddly tiddly tiddly
Tiddly tiddly tiddly tiddly
Tiddly widdly biddly middly
Widdly diddly shiddly squiddly pom
* To the allegro di molto e con brio from Beethoven’s piano sonata in C minor, Op.13 (the Pathétique), from bar 41 (around 2:36)
ONE-MINUTE ROCK POEM
Hey, I’m alive and I am three
Everybody look at me
Things are goin’ mighty fine
Before you know it I am nine
And soon I try a cigarette
I’m gonna live forever yet
Oh I look good and I look mean
On a pack a day when I’m nineteen
And it’s so great to be alive
Smokin’ hard at twenty-five
Smoke smoke smoke I know it’s dirty
But smokin’s cool when you are thirty
And it’s so great to be alive
Smokin’ hard at thirty-five
(COUGHING STARTS AND GETS PROGRESSIVELY WORSE)
I shouldn’t smoke, I know it’s naughty
But I’m in charge ‘cause I am forty
And it’s so good to be alive
Smokin’ hard at forty-five
But I am coughin’ fit to burst
By the time I reach my fifty-first
I wish I hadn’t smoked at all
Cancer hurts kids, hear my call
Quit smokin’
(DIES)
* To be read to one sweep of a second hand around a clock face
CROCKERY*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Love is a language
That knows no bounds
Of time and tide
It makes a mockery
With my wife
We too have a bond
I do the shouting
And she throws the crockery
SREDNI VASHTAR
I’m a child of ten
And I live with my aunt
Her only words
Are ‘No’ and ‘Can’t’
She says I’ll die
If I don’t take pills
And I mustn’t eat toast
‘For toast, boy, kills’
And I mustn’t have fun
And I shan’t have a cat
And I have to do this
And I mustn’t do that
Her only pleasure
Is thwarting me
She’d like me to die
And then she’d be free
So she locks me away
In this musty place
‘No toast today
You’re in disgrace’
But she can’t stop me
From thinking things
When I’m alone
My spirit sings
Through distant skies
Which the Woman won’t know
My spirit flies
Where the Woman can’t go
No pleasure there
In making me howl
For there it is pure
And the Woman is foul
There goes my spirit
Flying free
And wondrous are
The things I see
But I veil my eyes
I must not show
How I despise
And hate her so
I keep my secrets
Hidden from her
Two are my secrets
Feather and fur
In her sombre yard
With its dismal trees
Where I sometimes escape
To do as I please
There’s a broken shed
With a rickety door
Where my secrets wait
On the brown dirt floor
A scraggy old hen
With plumes on her neck
Will come to give me
A kindly peck
She’s my only friend
My sister in need
My ship my boatswain
My trusty steed
And at the rear
In a padlocked room
Seething and twisting
In the gloom
There lives a god
Whose power is real
With his snarling face
And his claws of steel
A giant ferret
Bought in a cage
Prowling proud
In boundless rage
O Sredni Vashtar
Ferret of death
Breathe on me
With your hot sharp breath
O Sredni Vashtar
Ferret of life
You are the edge
On the blade of the knife
O Sredni Vashtar
Ferret of all
On your wisdom
Do I call
To thank you for giving
The Woman tooth-ache
This sacrifice
To you I make
This stolen nutmeg
Strewn on the floor
O Sredni Vashtar
Ferret of war
Sredni Vashtar
Hear my prayer
Let the Woman
Not find you there
Today she heard
About my hen
‘Well you’ll never see
That pest again’
My hen, my friend
We played each day
The gardener came
And took her away
I said not a word
But my face went white
So as a treat
There’s toast tonight
But she thinks there’s more
And she’s found the key
To your temple door
Listen to me
O Sredni Vashtar
Ferret of might
When she comes, lord, touch her
With your light
And I will watch
From the dining room
As she penetrates
Your temple of doom
The clock will tick
Behind the glass
And the evening fade
And the moments pass
And in my life
Of slow despair
A flicker of hope
Will briefly flare
And kindle and catch
As I hold my breath
Then Sredni Vashtar
Ferret of death
Will appear at the door
And slip quick out
With blood on his claw
And his teeth and snout
Pausing briefly
To scent the breeze
He passes for ever
Between the trees
And I stand and listen
Awaking from sleep
As footsteps clatter
And servants weep
Their voices whisper
Outside the door ‘
‘Who’ll tell the child?
Not me, for sure’
But the child can wait
Calm at his post
He sits by the grate
And he butters his toast
Adapted from the story of the same name by Saki (H. H. Munro)
NURSEMAID
Nurse takes toddler by the hand
To where in Harrods’ sales
Grecian statues armless stand
‘Now that’s what comes of biting your nails’
LUNGE-LIKE AND JERKY
My swing is all jerky and lunge-like
Lunge-like and jerky, my swing
But really the fact is
I’m too good to practise
And practising’s not my thing
My swing is all jerky and lunge-like
Lunge-like and jerky, my swing
I need a new mallet
The old one, I’ll sell it
This new mallet’s the thing
My swing is all jerky and lunge-like
Lunge-like and jerky, my swing
This mallet won’t roquet
I’m giving up croquet
Golf! Now that is the thing!
LA ESCOPETA
Por la madrugada
A eso de las tres
Un pájaro cantaba
En un árbol una vez
“¡Despiértese amigo!
¡Levántese ya!
¡Hay que sembrar trigo!
¡El día ya está!”
“¡Cada minuto vale dinero!
¡Cada segundo es una peseta!
Arriba caballero!
Ay qué bonita escop-”
HAMMER AND SCREW
You assault me and
I obstruct you
We go together like
Hammer and screw
But at least we do not
Totally fail
Like that sad couple
Screwdriver and nail
POOR MRS WIDDLESTON
Poor Mrs Widdleston
Was not at her best,
So Mr Widdleston took her
To the doctor’s for a test.
The doctor examined her
And peered inside her head,
Then after a moment
He bowed and gravely said:
‘The treatment, twice weekly,
‘Is – may I, Madam ? – this.’
And with those words he gave her
A great big kiss.
‘There you are, she’s smiling
‘Instead of looking vexed.
‘Apply on Tuesdays and Fridays.
‘That’s fifty guineas. Next!’
‘I see,’ said Mr Widdleston.
‘Tuesdays and Fridays. Okay:
‘I can bring her on Tuesdays,
‘But on Fridays I play croquet…’
WHEN*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
When, in the reluctant mornings
Loud with street-noises, vehicles passing
On some unknowable errand, through
The clamour and spatter of rain
When, in the tiresome afternoons
Chafing and peevish, the short-tethered time
When children balk and old men want their tea
And the clock ticks slow above the workbench
When, in the unenchanted evenings
Neon flick-flickering, shrill and hard
The laughter at closing-time, snatches of song
The clatter of dustbins in a yard
When, in the unremitting night
Rampant with cats and distant trains
The creak and moan of restless coition
And the soft thud of moths upon the lamp
POETRY
Words are like birds
They flock in a tree
But the sun in the summer
Shines on the sea
Words are like birds
They fly and are free
And the wind in the winter
Whispers ‘Poor tree’
THE LORD’S TEARS
The Lord looked down upon the earth
Two hundred years ago.
At what He saw, His eyes grew moist
And tears began to flow.
A tear for all that men had lost,
A tear for all they’d made,
A tear for how they lived their lives
In poverty or trade,
A tear for harlots’ hopes, He shed,
A tear for landlords’ guile,
A tear for how a poor man’s cry
Begat a rich man’s smile,
A tear for Bishop Becker’s ring
And Sergeant Schmidt’s array,
A tear for pain and fear of death
He shed upon that day.
Nine tears in all fell down to earth,
And falling, froze to glass,
And thus were found by children
As they scampered home from class,
Were snatched by parents eagerly
And sold for copper coins
For two men in a boarded room
With aprons round their loins
To take and twist and break to bits
With hammers and with hands.
One kneels to strike, while by the door
The other squarely stands,
And yet, upon their downcast eyes,
Their faces strangely hidden,
Light beyond the window shines:
So may we be forgiven.
THE LIGHTHOUSE-KEEPER’S HORSE
I was the lighthouse-keeper’s horse
He didn’t ride me much of course
How eagerly I waited for
The lighthouse-keeper’s leave ashore
Up on the cliff behind my gate
I’d stand and swish my tail and wait
And watch him running unawares
Up and down his spiral stairs
Until the joyful moment came
When I would hear him call my name
And he would ride me proud and strong
In tiny circles all day long
QUAND VOUS SEREZ BIEN VIEILLE
Quand vous serez bien vieille,
Au soir à la chandelle,
When you are old and toothless,
Sitting by the fire
Assise auprès du feu,
Dévidant et filant
With candle close
And wheel spinning free
Direz, chantant mes vers,
En vous émerveillant,
You’ll quote my lines
And say ‘Ronsard! Ronsard!’
Ronsard me célébrait
Du temps que j’étais belle
‘Ronsard the poet!
‘Ah, how he sang to me!’
Et tout le monde dira
‘Ronsard? C’était qui, Ronsard?’
And everyone will say
‘Ronsard the poet? ‘
Who the hell was he?’
WEIGHING THE ISSUE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
To stay looking young
I went to see
A plastic surgeon
Who worked on me
When I came out
I felt just fine
And I went to the bank
To stand in line
I asked the teller
‘How old am I?’
‘Twenty?’ said she.
‘Twenty, my eye –
‘I’m thirty-two!’
I replied with pride
And off I went
With a spring in my stride
And a smile on my face
As fellows do
When they look like twenty
Not thirty-two
I was at the tram stop
Later that day
When an elderly lady
Came my way
As we stood and waited
For the tram
I asked her ‘How old
‘Do you think I am?’
‘How old you are,
‘Indeed…’ said she
‘How old you are…
‘Well now, let’s see:’
‘I have a method
‘That’s as sure as houses’
And she put her hand
Down the front of my trousers
There was little I could do
She had me caught
And for a while
She gave it thought
A tram came by
Some heads were turned
I tried to look Unconcerned
And in the end
She concluded, ‘Yes…
‘Thirty-two
‘Would be my guess.’
‘But what a skill!’
‘That’s amazing, ma’am!’
‘Nonsense, young fellow,’
Said she with calm
‘It’s not my skill
‘That you have to thank:
‘I was at the next till
‘Today at the bank!’
THREE FAT EXECUTIVES*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Three fat executives
Sitting in a cab
‘Tacit understanding’
Is the name for it
One fat executive
Picks up the tab
And all three executives
Claim for it
CHECKMATE
A Russian Grand Master was reading a book
At a café one day in the sun,
When a stranger sat near him and took
Out a chessboard. ‘Fancy a game, anyone?’
With a nod the Grand Master put down his book
And the other man set up the board.
‘Take this,’ said the Master, removing his rook.
‘Take what?’ cried the stranger, ‘Good Lord,
‘We’ve never once met and you give me a rook? ‘
Your arrogance, man, is most odd.
‘You don’t even know me! What are you, a crook?
‘How can you afford it, by God?’
The Master said ‘Sir, I don’t know you.
But look: As I fear our encounter will tell,
If I couldn’t afford to give you a rook,
I would certainly know you quite well…’
GREAT GRANDMAMA
When Grandmama became a Great
The babe was brought before her,
And splendid in his nakedness
Was dandled proudly for her.
“Is it a boy or girl?” she asked.
“Why Granny, this is Emery:
Can’t you see?” “It’s not my eyesight,
Child: it’s my memory…”
LOVE IN A LEAVE
You may be
A bald-headed, pot-bellied,
Bibulous, gluttonous,
Smoke-sucking beast
With gout, blood-pressure,
Arthritis, cystitis
And a wife
Who’s a paint-bedizened,
Cocktailing, bridge-playing,
Smoking shapeless flounder,
Disfiguring race meetings
And the front row of the stalls,
But in croquet,
That noble sport,
When you’re out there
At Hurlingham and she’s left you
A rush to your hoop with a cross-wire
On the opponents’ balls,
How you do love her,
You bounder,
As she comes off court
ANOTHER ME
I want another me
To be an us with
To walk beside
And hold with pride
And catch a bus with
I want another me
To get along with
To think about
And mope without
And feel strong with
I want another me
To have a fight with
To break it up
And make it up
And share the night with
I want another me
To be an us with
To hear me out
And pull me through
The me I want
Is you
FOLK SONG
How many folk singers
Does it take
To change the bulb
On the light
The answer
My friend
Is blowing in the wind
The answer
Is blowing
In the –
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Sh*te!
WEAKLINGS’ WEEKLY
I was sitting on the beach
Minding my own business
Cleaning my gun
Under cover of a copy
Of Weaklings’ Weekly
And meekly observing the scene
When this big guy came by
And kicked sand in my face
He said ‘What are you reading?
‘Give me that, kid!’
So I did
I gave him the whole magazine
TODAY’S RAIL TRAGEDY
Carnage on the trains today
The 8:08 from Haywards Heath
Leapt from the rails at London Bridge
And plunged to the street beneath
Narrowly missing another train
The late departure 5:09
That had also leapt from the rails again
But today had plunged from a different line
Onto the twisted and mangled remains
Of yesterday’s sensibly privatised trains
None of this meant much to me
I was stuck all day on the M23
THE ORIGAMI GARDEN
In the origami garden
Where the paper flowers grow
And paper rain rains paper rain
And folded fountains flow
A lover and his lady fair
Escape in paper flight
From the father who pursues them
And such pursuit is right
For never must their passion
Spark and flare and catch
In an origami garden
You do not want a match
‘HOW DO YOU DO’ SONG
VILLAIN (to reflection in mirror):
How do you do
How do you do
How damnably distinguished do you do
How dashing and how flashing
And how coming out in rashing do you do
(To HEROINE):
How do you do
How do you do
How delicately dainty do you do
How twinkle little toesy
And how freshness of a posy do you do
HEROINE
(To reflection in mirror):
How do you do
How do you do
How sensibly politely do you do
How rightly and how brightly
And how lightly and how quitely do you do
VILLAIN:
How do you do
How do you do
How strongly and how steeply do you do
How dangerously deeply
And how madly Meryl Streeply do you do
HEROINE:
How do you do
How do you do
How kind but uninspiredly do you do
How seldom now requiredly
So how not tonight I’m tiredly do you do
VILLAIN:
Quick, someone’s coming. Take off your
clothes and we’ll pretend we’re making love!
(Enter HERO on balcony, in HEROINE’s thoughts)
HEROINE (To HERO):
How do you do
How do you do
How dearly and sincerely do you do
How clearly and how sheerly
And how really really really do you do
(HERO blows a raspberry at VILLAIN before disappearing.)
VILLAIN (To HEROINE):
How do you do
How do you do
How don’t you dare deny it
You’re just desperate to try it
In the shadows where it’s quiet
Do you do
What lovely music. Will you join me on the floor ?
HEROINE:
How do you do
How do you do
How dare you dirty dog you do you do
How do you do
How do you do
How damn you damn you damn you do you do
You say you venerate
But you really really hate
You do you do
VILLAIN : Come, be genital with me!
HEROINE:
How dare you do
How dare you do
VILLAIN:
How do you do
How do you do
So how about it, popsy ?
HEROINE: No I’d rather die of dropsy!
VILLAIN, HEROINE:
Do you do you do you don’t you
Do you do!
URUGUAY*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Grant me Lord
That when I die
Heaven will be like
Uruguay
Sunshine lemons
Pears and peaches
Miles and miles
And miles of beaches
Laughing chicas
In bikinis
Luscious cream cakes
Called Massinis
Steak-smoke heavy
In the street
Such meat
Such meat
Parrots gliding
On the breeze
The scent of
Eucalyptus trees
Sunsets on a
Silver sea
Turning pink
And gold for me
But best of all
O utter joy!
Several girls
To every boy
Grant me Lord
That when I die
Heaven will be like
Uruguay
WEST AND EAST
Man from West see man from East
Leave noodles next to grave
Man from West say ‘Man from East
Your efforts you should save
For person dead is person dead
Him never stir no how
Him six foot deep, him soundly sleep
Him never need no chow’
But man from East him smile, him say
‘And you, with all your powers,
From Western grave does person dead
Come out to see your flowers?’
UN-DEUX-TROIS*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
There once was a cat
Called One-Two-Three
Who went for a swim
In the salty sea
Il y avait un chat
Nommé Un-Deux-Trois
Qui savait nager
Comme un roi
The cat swam out
To the middle of the Channel
(Car c’était avant
L’arrivée du Tunnel)
And there in the middle
By Casquette Bank
The Un-Deux-Trois Cat
Sank
NOT BAD
Here lie the remnants
Of Dynamite Dan
Who was a quite good
Bomb disposal man
Here lie the bits
Of Billy McGuire
Who had his moments
On the high wire
Here lie the limbs
Of Hannibal Hans
One of gladiating’s
Also-rans
Fight the good fight
Be happy not sad
For some to be angels
Many must be not bad
COOKERS AND EATERS*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Some folks is kindly
And some folks is cheaters
Folks is like apples:
There’s cookers and eaters
AVOID YOUNG PEOPLE
Avoid young people
They don’t think straight
They fall in love
Without the slightest consideration
For the mortgage rate
Avoid young people
They misjudge risk
They buy cinema tickets
And pink fluffy slippers
Instead of a stainless steel egg whisk
Avoid young people
They’re a great disappointment
One minute they’re sweet little angels
The next they’ve got studs through their eyelids
And they’re drinking the haemorrhoid ointment
Avoid young people
They tend to be late
And when young people are outdoors
They sometimes do not go indoors
To urinate
Avoid young people
Is my advice
You save yourself
So much argy and bargy
And lice
Avoid young people
They’re best avoided
And avoid being young yourself
I should know
I did
THE STABBING OF VERNON GUBBAGE
I knew a man called Vernon Gubbage
Who grew the most enormous cabbage
He played a lot of five-card cribbage
In the snug at the Richard Burbage
When one evening Vernon Gubbage
Lost his shirt at five-card cribbage
He auctioned his enormous cabbage
From the bar of the Richard Burbage
‘What am I bid for this champion cabbage?’
‘Twenty shillings?’ said Vernon Gubbage
A voice from the back of the Richard Burbage
Said ‘Twenty shillings? Load of garbage!’
Now this was too much for Vernon Gubbage
He bashed the chap with his enormous cabbage
Causing a riot in the Richard Burbage
And a lifelong ban on five-card cribbage
So learn from the fate of Vernon Gubbage
Stabbed in a fight at the Richard Burbage
Don’t lose your shirt at five-card cribbage
And never choose to fight with cabbage
NO WAY OF KNOWING
Where it is to which I go
And wherefore am I going
How I know the what I know
I have no way of knowing
FOUR POEMS WITH NOSES
I. LEANY-HEADS
Leany-heads have leany heads
That lean this way or that
And neither type of leany-head
Likes to wear a hat
A left-leaning leany-head
Will tend to fall in love
With a left-leaning leany-head:
When push comes to shove
If you’re a left-leaning leany-head
And you fall for Mr Right
When you try to kiss his leany head
Your noses clash all night
II. DESIGN
Proof if proof were needed that
The good Lord knows
He made us so our feet are at
The far end from our nose
III. IF YOUR NOSE
If your nose
Tends to run
And your feet
Tend to smell
If your hair
Stands on end
And your tie
Does as well
If your frown
Is a smile
And your smile
Is a frown
If your friends
Look like knees
Then you might be
Upside-down
IV. THOSE TWO NOSES
We see what we choose to see
Not thorns but roses
To look we have to overlook
Those two noses
MEOW
Why do birds
Sit down to dine
Tweet
Where do sheep
Go to drink wine
Baah
When dogs wet trees
Is it good for the
Bark
Said the cat to the dog
Don’t hurt
Meow
OH HELL*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Hello clouds
Hello breeze
Hello field
Hello trees
Hello book
Hello verse
Hello bull
Hello nurse
SUIT CASE
‘Trecerea prin viața ca un geamantan prin gara’ (To go through life like
a suitcase through a station)
– Romanian saying
You sit on a train
And the train is your life
Off steps a parent
And on steps a wife
You start by learning
To tie your laces
And you end in a suit
Like the other suit cases
Milk rusk steak rusk
From the trolley
Devonshire blooms
To Hampshire holly
By the time the guard
Gives you the unction
Maybe you’ll make it
To Clapham Junction
Will you be one
Of the fortunate few
Who fell with honours
At Waterloo
Or was your compartment
Labelled ‘smoking’
In which case, suit case,
Welcome to Woking
MRS COOLLY-SMOOTH AND MRS SMOOTHLY-COOL*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Mrs Coolly-Smooth is Society. She throws
The right parties, knows the right people,
Supports the right charities, and sends…um…
– Those small people who live here?
That’s it, the children –
To the right school. Mrs Coolly-Smooth lives
In Kensington Church Street, where she runs
The roster for dusting the steeple. Meet and right
And right and proper, she is nobody’s fool.
But the one thing that turns Mrs Coolly-Smooth
As white with fury as an Egyptian cotton sheet
Is her fellow Society hostess, Mrs Smoothly-Cool.
‘Ah, Mrs Coolly-Smooth,’ says this gargoyle
One evening, at the door of her irritatingly
Well-situated Chelsea abode,‘How nice
To have you with us for the fun.
I do believe You’ve lost weight! Hasn’t she, Cyril?
Hasn’t she, everyone? Good for you, Mrs C-S!’
And before Mrs C-S knows it, some demon in her
Replies: ‘I like your dress. Most…original.
Lucky the previous owner was your size.’
Mrs Smoothly-Cool ignores this.
‘Now do take that stole off and come inside.
Fake fur is so stifling, I find.
There won’t be any spirits, I’m afraid:
Just a precaution – I’m sure you don’t mind.
We do all love and adore you dearly, and we’ve
Warned the maid. It’s in your own interest,
Really! So have a nice glass of lemonade,
Or try this Fürtwängler non-alcoholic wine.’
Mrs Coolly-Smooth gives a tinkly laugh,
And drinks, while her spleen heaves with bile.
‘I’ll get you for that, I’ll get you,’
She thinks, ‘I’ll get you, you low-tide rat.
This stuff is quite vile, it’s frightful’.
But outwardly she says ‘Delightful.
Real champagne is terribly old hat.
And how are all your retarded relatives?
Are they happy in their secure home?
How comforting for you, darling,
To know that the poor folk
Have a nice cosy cell of their own.
And so distant! I did think Pitlochry
Was a master stroke. No doubt you
Reverse the charges when you telephone?’
There is enough truth in this salvo
To strike a hit: for Mrs Coolly-Smooth
Has received intelligence of aunts in care.
Guests at the soirée are impressed,
And watch her adversary with interest
To see what countervenom she’ll prepare.
But not a bit: what happens next just can’t
Be believed, for Mrs Smoothly-Cool,
(Who unbeknownst to all has just received
A crippling bill from the home in question
For the hot pursuit and reincarceration
Of an escaping aunt), finally loses her rag.
With a short hiss of infuriation, she seizes
A glass of Fürtwängler non-alcoholic,
And hurls it at the enemy. Then, snarling
‘Your mother swims out to the troopships,
Darling!’, she knocks Mrs Coolly-Smooth
To the carpet and attempts to bites her ear
While throttling her with the strap of her Prada
Handbag. The butler intervenes, the guests all
Gasp and squawk with horror at the fun
(‘I knew She was unbalanced’ says one prattler),
And after some Poor-Poor-Dearing, Go-And-Lie-Down
(She-Must-Have-Had-An-Attack–It’s-
All-Right-I’ll-Be-Fine-But-She-May-Have-Swallowed-
My-Earring-There’s-A-Place-In-
Fulham-Where-They-Do-Straitjackets),
Mrs Coolly-Smooth, victorious battler,
Sails out to Cheyne Walk, in glorious
Satisfaction at a job well done, and delectable
Anticipation of the photos in the Tatler.
PATRICIA
Though she loved a starving artist
Who painted her in many sittings
Patricia thought it might be smartest
If she married Sir Henry Gittings
He named a toilet in her honour
For he was big in bathroom fittings
So fame and fortune came upon her
Through some rather different sittings
THE DIFFERENCE
What’s the difference
Between a duck?
The answer is
A little lame
Here’s the difference
Between a duck
One of its legs
Is both the same
WEADIN AND WITIN
Why in is a weedy fing
Dirt whirryeeds dough
Dirt whirryeeds dough
Earn weadin is a weedy fing
Fir whirryeeds toe
Fir whirryeeds toe
Wordy witers witing whitely
Wight into the dead of nightly
Weedy weaders
Weadin wanly
In a lightbulb’s dimly shonely
Wooftuz wenkuz wituz weaduz
Woorless gowan bider bleeduz
Juskers akin weaden wite
Smashdair spexun servem WOI
Wot yoo lookin at?
Exercise in Cockney pronunciation. ‘Writing is a weedy thing/That weeds do/ That weeds do/And reading is a weedy thing/For weeds too/For weeds too’
COLLECTING FOR THE POOR
(ONE OR TWO-HANDER)
CALLER: Good afternoon, madam. Please forgive
My knocking at your door –
OLD CRONE: Eh?
CALLER: Good afternoon, dear lady.
I’m collecting for the poor.
OLD CRONE: Eh?
CALLER: GOOD AFTERNOON, MADAM.
I’M COLLECTING FOR THE POOR!
OLD CRONE: Eh?
CALLER: GOOD AFTERNOON, you deaf old bat. I’M COLLECTING –
OLD CRONE: Half past four!
CALLER: Oh never mind. I’m off. What do I do this for?
OLD CRONE: And close the gate!
CALLER: (Aside) Ah, to hell with the blasted gate…
OLD CRONE: And to hell with the blasted poor!
MANAGEMENT POEM
A nice man met a nasty man
To get some business done.
The nice man said, “Nice man!
To make this business fun,
“Let’s start by sharing what we know
And where we want to be:
What could best be done by you
And what should be done by me.”
But the nasty man said “Nasty man!
Don’t you tell me what to do.
I’m not sharing what I know
With a nasty man like you.
“Information’s power, see:
It’s there to serve my ends.
I hoard it avariciously
And slip it to my friends.
“I’m much too busy, anyway.
For years it’s been the same.
It’s not my fault I can’t help you.
I’ll tell you what’s to blame:
“My boss is bad, my staff are fools,
I just can’t get the proper tools,
My pencil’s blunt, my pot plant’s died,
I’ve got this ulcer here inside
From all the moaning that I do;
So don’t ask me to work with you.
It’s not my job, I need more staff,
And ‘make it fun’? Don’t make me laugh…”
In such a vein the nasty man
Moaned on for all his life:
Meanwhile the nice man, job well done,
Went home to kiss his wife.
LEARNING CURVES
Unconsciously incompetent
He doesn’t know you’re there
Consciously incompetent
He knows but can only stare
Consciously competent
He’s managed to make you care
Unconsciously competent
He fancies the au pair
OOBLIE
Splendiferously
Drupey
Yet
Simultaneously
Vestal
Flubberjubberously
Floopy
Melonsmellanously
Breastal
That’s
It:
A
Tit
RANDY JR
My father was Randy
Therefore
I am
SALISBURY PLAIN
The guns are thumping
Out on Salisbury Plain tonight
Deep as heartbeats
Deep as thunder
Deep as a gust
In the wind
Of our customary silence
The guns are thumping
Out on Salisbury Plain tonight
In Winchester Street
A man lifts his head
And listens
In Love Lane
A child stirs in his sleep
And cries like his father before him
At the implacable sound
The guns are thumping
Out on Salisbury Plain tonight
Deep as heartbeats
Deep as thunder
Deep as a gust In the wind
Of our customary silence
DO IT
See to it
Said the owl
Glaring
Out of the branches
Cold as night
See to it
Get it done
Go about your orders
Don’t run
See to it
See to it
See to it
Oh yes we will
Said the fieldmice
Cowering
All of a tremble
For the sky had claws
Oh yes we will
It’s as good as done
Oh yes we will
Wise one
On all paws
Good
Do it
Said the owl
Eyeing the darkness
Just do it
Do it
Do it
STIFF
Here I lie
Stiff and still
That’s what comes
Of being ill
WINDOW ON THE UNIVERSE
I am a window on the universe
Come stand by me
Abandon what you must rehearse
Behold
Be free
I am the only true rebirth
I am the spiral of the stairs
Slip the surly bonds of earth
Also the surly stocks and shares
Renounce this world and all its trash
Shake off the burden of your cash
Unload your shackles onto me
That’ll do
Nicely
DRAB DRIVELLERS OF THE COMMON CLOT
Drab drivellers of the common clot
Snout out the word and lick it hot
For critics from their spindles rolled
To finger and declare it bold
The word flies by such nets as these
To catch it is to sieve the breeze
To throw great warps around the day
And sternly tow the sense away
To wait its turn in breakers’ yards
Where clauses lie around in shards
And unsuspecting earwigs drown
In burping vats of liquid noun
The word is not for breakers’ chisel
Nor the blowlamp’s fretful fizzle
Let it coruscate on high
To see our drivelled drabness by
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Do not use washable colour
Paint except that which
Comes with this toy it may
Stain and permanently disfigure
Use toy only under the supervision
Of an adult avoid contact with
Carpet clothing walls and
Furniture while playing protect
Play area before use train all
Supervisors in first aid have
Emergency services on standby
Clear surrounding streets scramble
Fighters over major cities sound
Civil defence sirens take to
Emergency stations you have been
Warned
PHOTOGRAPHS
Still
Time
Slides
Into
Stills
Onto
Slides
AFTER PALACH
And he closed the book
And walked out into the dull city
Trailing his footsteps behind him
Under a modern canopy
Of ancient rain
He walked
Unhurriedly
Avoiding the cracks
Picking his way between curses
And apologies
Shouldering the greyness
Like a consumptive burden
The city’s sickness was his
He had grown accustomed to catcalls
In his pocket
There was an answer to it all
As he walked he toyed with it
Between long fingers
And let the rain
Find its way to the hollows in his cheek
Unprotesting
When he reached a certain place
He set down the can and blew
On his fingers
Coughing
With one hand
He took the answer from his pocket
And without staring at it
Or acknowledging the watchers
He made amends for the world
And you close the book
And walk out into the dull city
Again
SNOUD AND RUFY*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Torommow
And torommow and torommow
Preecs in this petty pace
From ayd to ayd
To the last slybbalel
Of recroded mite
And all our yesteryads
Have lighted loofs
The way to dutsy dathe
Out, out, frieb dancle!
Life’s but a walking shodaw
A poor prayel
That sturts and ferts
His hour upon the steag A
nd then
Is hared no more
It is a teal
Told by a ditio
Full of snoud and rufy
Snigifying
Nothing
HOW NOW
How now
Is now
When one
Is young
How brown
The cow
How huge
Its tongue
How strange
The flies
Around
Its eyes
How rough
Its tail
And caked
With dung
How now
Is now
When one
Is young
LOS SUSPIROS SON AIRE
A sigh is made of air
And to the air it rises
Sighs are made of air
No matter what their size is
Tears are made of water
Such as sits in hoses
Water is what tears are
To the sea it floses
Love is made of wishful words
Wanted into verses
Vows are made of wishful words
But then, so are curses
POST COITUM OMNE ANIMAL TRISTE EST*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Rumpy
Pumpy
Slumpy
Grumpy
THE DESERTIONARY FORCE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Old King Cole was a cowardly soul
And a cowardly soul was he
He cried to his wife
In the middle of the night
‘This fighting’s not for me’
‘The Duke of York is grand in a fight
‘He’s brave all right’ said he
‘He marches men to the tops of hills
‘And he makes them do all sorts of drills
‘But I like my fiddlers three’
Then his wife said ‘Pooh!
I’ve no time for you
Go and beat the enemee
Go and biff ‘em and bash ‘em
And stiff ‘em and smash ‘em
And do your royal dutee’
‘It’s the sales next week
And the coffers look bleak
And I’ve nothing to wear’ said she
‘Go and get some more
Of the spoils of war
I want some nice bootee’
So Old King Cole was a miserable soul
And a miserable soul was he
He crept right up to the enemy’s guns
But the enemy’s guns gave him the runs
And he legged it squelchilee
He went to his wife
In the middle of the night
But his wife was busy
With another kind of knight
‘Get out of here’ said she
‘If you don’t come back
‘With the booty in a sack
‘You’ll feel my own bootee’
Now Old King Cole was in a bit of a hole
‘Oh, bother all this’ said he
So he called for some porridge
And a barrel of Courage
And he had a pint or three
And
THEN
Old King Cole was a merry old soul
And he took ten thousand men
And he marched them up to the top of a hill
And he stopped for a minute
For a diarrhoea pill
And he made a speech about into the breach
(Or it might have been breeches)
And fight them on the beaches
And the lessons life teaches
And the beauty of duty
And the glory of warring
And the men shouted ‘Boring!
‘We don’t give a spit
‘About the beauty of duty!
Get to the bit about sharing out the booty!’
So the King said ‘Okay’
And the men cheered ‘Hooray’
And THEN
The enemy’s guns
Went ‘boom’ and ‘bang’
And the enemy’s mines
Went ‘whoosh’ and ‘clang’
And the enemy’s shells
Went ‘whee’ and ‘hiss’
And Old King Cole said ‘Bother all this!’
‘A robe and a crown don’t stop the slaughter!
‘Where is the enemy?
‘Advance to any other quarter!’
And with these words fate took its course
Old King Cole’s desertionary force
Was seized by desire to escape from the fire
So they biffed and bashed
And stiffed and smashed
And gibbered in total abject, squelchy fear,
To get to the back, to get to the rear,
To get anywhere for heaven’s sake
As long as it’s out of here,
Shouting ‘Help! We give up! Don’t hurt us!
We’re just an elite corps of deserters!
Pax! Mummy! We don’t want to play!
We’re off! Must run! Can’t stay!
Get out of the way, you so-and-so,
Get out of the blasted way!’
And with this, fate continued its course.
Old King Cole’s desertionary force,
Mindless and manic, were seized by panic:
They sloshed and slashed and minced and mashed
And sliced and diced and downed and ground and
Found
When the light came up the following day
That they had been retreating
The wrong
Way
And had in fact, as if on a mission,
Overrun the enemy’s position,
Securing his surrender, capitulation,
Cigarettes, matches, mentions in dispatches
And mucho bootio in reparation.
EPILOGUE
Now Old King Cole is a very old soul
And a very old soul is he
A legendary soul is Old King Cole
(That’s Old King Cole, VC)
Yet his hair is white
And he wakes in a fright
He calls for his wife
In the middle of the night
And she goes ‘There, there, dear
‘History won’t care, dear’’
And she musses his hair
And she makes him a cup of tea
And if you think that ‘wife’
Doesn’t rhyme with ‘night’,
I know
But don’t blame me
MY GRAN’S BOTTOM
My Gran’s bottom
Farts a lottom
When she sits
And reads the Sun
It sounds like
World War One
And things get worse
If she is boozy
When Gran has a bath
It’s a jacuzzi
THE WIND GOT UP
The wind got up
And brushed its teeth
And used some trees
To comb its hair
Then rushed to school
To learn about
The sun and earth
And sea and air
The teacher talked
And talked and talked
And soon the wind
Just couldn’t care
So whoosh! it blew her
Clean away
Now all you teachers
Please beware
TICKLING TROUT*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
River fish
River fish
Fast against
The stream
River fish
Sliver fish
Darting like
A gleam
River fish
Quiver fish
Drift into
My hand
River fish
River fish
River
River
River
Land
THE HEDGEROW TO THE OAK TREE
You are tall, but rooted
Where you stand, you tower:
I am short, yet all this shouldered land
Is in my power.
You are proud,
You rise up, defy the weather,
I lie low, extend and separate
And bring together.
You are old, your bark gets soft,
Turns green and festers,
I am old too, in me
Are my ancestors,
Yew trees: new hearts, old edges,
Sometimes a thousand years in all,
That’s what a hedge is.
You are tall, but rooted
Where you stand, you tower:
I am short, yet all this shouldered land
Is in my power.
To run long, low, like a hedgerow,
That is to be stronger.
You are high and mighty,
But you will not be so
Much longer
WHEN NEWS REACHED THE BOARD
When news reached the Board
Of Cain killing Abel
A Mexican wave of raised eyebrows
Ran round the table
The Secretary was asked
For a note to file
And the Board decided
To tread water on this one
For a while
When news reached the Board
Of the deaths on the Somme
When news reached the Board
Of the atom bomb
When news reached the Board
Of the smallpox scare
The Board took note one week
But the next week
Wasn’t there
INBOX*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Inbox inbox
Sinbox binbox
Too much inbox
Where’s the ginbox
Grinbox grinbox
Delete inbox
ROSES, ROSES*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Young she was, and fair withal
Riding past our garden wall
With its roses, roses
Young was I, and every day
Praying she would ride our way
Past our roses, roses
I would stand before the gate
Listen for her horse, and wait
By the roses, roses
Till my parents, seeing my place
Gave me a shovel, just in case
For the roses, roses
DEPARTMENT
The Minister would like it known
That even flexitime has certain core hours.
Slinking off in mid-afternoon
To tend one’s herbacious border, Jenkins,
Or indeed to one’s croquet practice,
As Mr Mulliner will be able to confirm,
Is not flexitime. As for sick leave,
A wee cough is something one suffers from,
Not something one tries to obtain.
Work is a rare privilege. The first question
Should be ‘How soon can I win promotion?’,
Not ‘How soon can I get home?’
A sense of duty, the Minister feels
He must remind you, comes from the heart.
We were not made members of this Department
Merely in order to depart.
FIVE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
The doctor sighed, and shook his head.
‘You’re doomed. I’ll give you five’, said he.
‘What, five years? Five months?
‘Five weeks?’ I said.
‘No,’ he answered. ‘Five, four, three….’
TO A FELLOW SUFFERER
I sneezed and sneezed;
You snoze and snoze.
I offered you a tissue.
Your eyes were pleased;
You blew your nose
And said ‘Thankyouatishoo’.
That’s how we met:
We shared our woes
And loved a while, though briefly…
I miss you yet.
It’s for your nose
That I still hanker, chiefly.
CANNIBALS
Two cannibals were having their stew:
Braised leg of stand-up comedian. “Too
Bad for the lad,” said one brother.
“Not much of a comedian,” said the other.
“Does this taste funny to you?”
WHEEEEEE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I was waiting for my boy friend
At the bus stop
When a small green man
Stepped really close to me
And suddenly I felt it, here,
A finger sticking in my ear
And a small green voice
Going ‘Wheeeeeee!’
‘I’ll thank you not to do that’ I exclaimed.
‘I’m sorry’ said the Martian, for it was he.
But no sooner did I turn away
Than I felt the finger in my ear
And a small green voice said ‘Wheeeeee!’
‘If you do that once more, you worm’
I said, ‘I’ll kick you in
The family jewels, believe you me.’
‘Aha!’ said the Martian,
With a little squirm.
‘On my planet that’s not how
We make love, tee hee.’
I said, ‘You’re kidding.
How do you make love then?
He said, ‘Like this, you see:’
And he put his finger in my ear
And went ‘Wheeeeee!’
LEX IN EXCELSIS
On every wall at work
This precept should be pasted
For it is lex in excelsis
The only thing worse
Than having your time wasted
Is wasting someone else’s
OH SPIT (A TRUE STORY)
Driving one night through the forest
With a terrible hacking cough
I brought up phlegm and had
No handkerchief.
There was nothing else for it.
Eyes on the road, I felt
For the electric button, lowered
The window and gobbed massively
Into the darkness; finding
In the process that I had in fact
Lowered the rear window
SHOCK TREATMENT
A madman named Hannibal Holtz
Escaped from his 200 volts,
Jumped a laundress and fled,
At which the news read:
‘A nut screws a washer and bolts’
CHOOSING THE CHEESE
Always choose the cheese
That there’s the least of
That’s the cheese that’s
To be made a feast of
Always choose the cheese
That has been chosen
Choosy choosers choose
No cheese that’s frozen
Choosy choosers use
Their leedle nosen
To find a cheese that’s
To be made a feast of
Always choose the cheese
That there’s the least of
NICELY ON THE PINK
I was nicely on the pink
With the pack well spread
When the other fellow said,
‘I’ll tell you what:
I’ll give you twenty pounds down
And five hundred pounds
For every colour you pot,
If you bet me all your worldly
Possessions, your house, your
Wife, your family, your funeral plot.
Oh, and I’ll have your libido too
Into the bargain. Fancy a shot?’
The problem was, I never could
Resist a gamble, and he knew it.
I bet him all that I had.
I went for the pink, to screw it
Back on the centre red: and
What do you know, I blew it.
Too bad.
I can still hear his laughter
As he made off with my wife and kids
And my beach pictures of Sri Lanka.
It has to be said, the wife didn’t seem
To mind much, and the kids
Kept blowing me raspberries
And shouting ‘W*nker!’
But I tried to look
As if I didn’t care
And now for want of anything
Better to do,
I just stand by the table
And adjust my hair
And occasionally
Chalk my cue
THE EXPLORER*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I did not want to be
A customs officer
I saw myself exploring
Distant oceans
But here I am at
Terminal Three
With my gloves on
Going through the motions
THE LAZY SON
I said to my son, ‘Look, you hippy,
You’re so bloody lazy
You ought to be shot. You lie round all day
Going “Crazy, Dad. Sure, okay”
And smoking heaven knows what.
Your bed’s never made, it’s a flea-pit,
You never go out; you never get up.
Your head’s full of daydreams and tics.
So why don’t you stir your stumps a bit?
Get up, get a life, get ahead,
Get a house, get a car, get a garden shed,
Get a wife, get a kid: no, get six!’
And he said ‘Crazy, Dad. Sure, okay.
Do you know any pregnant chicks?’
THE CLEVER CHAP
What a clever
Chap I are
I have got a
Great big car
Yours is just a
Pilc-hard tin
Good for putting Pilc-hards in
I muse what lesser
Chap you am
As we sit here
In this traffic jam
PERVERTS ON THE NUDIST BEACH
Perverts on the nudist beach
Safe in the Emperor’s disguise
Braving the sandcrab and the leech
Perverts on the nudist beach
Dressing the ladies with their eyes
CLASS SYSTEM*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Whether you break things
Or broker things
Depends on the classroom
You sat in
Was there lino and peeling paint
Or ivy and Latin?
Were you one of thirty
Or one of three?
Was there Pottery?
Did you get there in a bus
Or did you board it?
After all; it’s a free country
If you can afford it
EFFICIENCY*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
You hoover t’ sea
And you suck up fish
Efficiency
That’s your trawlerman’s wish
But there’s bugger all left
By the time they’re done
A fish in t’ sea?
Not a single one
JUST AS THEY FEARED*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
—Papa, Papa, why’s the world full of rats?
—Hush dear, it’s only Mr Browning.
—Papa, Papa, what’s wrong with all those cats?
—That’s just Mr Eliot, dear, clowning.
—Papa, Papa, what’s a sad shire?
—That’s Mr Owen, dear, being shot at.
—Papa, Papa, why’s that tiger on fire?
—It’s Mr Blake, dear: he’s been got at.
—Papa, Papa, what was Kubla Khan?
—Why dear, just Mr Coleridge, raving.
—Papa, Papa, won’t that person drown?
—That’s Miss Smith, dear. Oh look, she’s waving!
—Papa, Papa, why are all these people weird?
—They’re poets, dear; You get things in your beard.
CONSOMMATION
Je suis con
Car je consomme
Je suis con
Comme tous les hommes
Nous consommons
Quels cons nous sommes
J’ai soif
Je bois
N’importe quoi
Les fabricants
Se foutent de moi
Je réfléchis
A tout ceci
En lisant
Sur le jus de fruits
Que je consomme
Cette petite phrase:
Jus de pommes
A base
De jus de pommes
POTTER’S BAR*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
“I’m on the train
I’m in the car
I’m on a trip
To Potter’s Bar
Goodbye my love!”
Hello, you minx:
Now where is Potter
With the drinks?
ON AIR
Birds are on uppers
They fly in the sky high
Cows are on downers
They stand and they stare
Tramps are on ciders
And horses on backers
Con-men on fronters
And vicars on prayer
Shots are on inners
And gays are on outers
Flies are on melon
And wasps are on pear
But the worst is your sinister
Junior minister
For he only breathes
When he is on air
THE FOGHERTY FOGH
I once knew a bricklayer
Called Daniel Fogherty
Nice enough bloke
But he was a bit thick
I said to him once,
“And you, Fogherty,
Given the chance,
Who would you marry?”
And he looked at me and said,
“A brick.”
So we set him up
With this girl called Deborah
Who had a reputation
For being a bit of a brick
We gave her a sleeping bag
And a bottle of Bailey’s
And the key to the site cabin
One Saturday night
And Fogherty found
That there were other types
Of bricklaying
And that they were
All right
So Fogherty and Deborah
Were in the site cabin
With Fogherty desperately
Trying to make up for lost time
When burglars broke in
And disturbed them
Except that the witnesses
Didn’t notice the crime
The sleeping bag went humping
And moaning out of the door
Like a demented caterpillar
And Bill from security said “Whoor!
“Bejasus, that’s Fogherty in there!
He goes like a two-ton truck!
Hey lads; look at this, that’s something,
Did you see that Fogherty fogh?”
But the sleeping bag was moving
And writhing along the ground
When it made a side-slither
Into a loch and drowned
And Fogherty’s final words
As the sleeping-bag sank in the loch
Were “Oh! Oh, yes, I’m coming!
Oh I’m coming! Oh I’m coming! Oh f-!”
(Burble burble burble)
And on sites from Walsall to Wigan
Like the tale of the beast in the loch,
The lads tell the brickie’s legend
The tale of the Fogherty Fogh
OR AILSA
Ailsa was the girl next door
From Glasgow, red
In tooth and claw
That is what I love you for
It was marry you
Or Ailsa
THE CHARGING TELEPHONE
Back in the days
When mobile phones
Were as big as building bricks
My uncle
Charging up his own
Left the room for a couple of ticks
And his wife put the charger
Upon on a shelf
With the lead hanging loose by the door
He came in
It fell down
So did he himself
And by nightfall he was no more
The only man
I have ever known
To be knocked down and killed
By a charging telephone
THANK YOU FOR HAVING ME
Lord, if I am but your thought
And thinking me is saving me
Lord, if I am but your thought
Thank you for having me
DEATH OF A SALESMAN
A sketch for one or two speakers and six singers
SINGERS: Hmm (hold under)
SPEAKER: As we lowered the body
Into the grave
A voice came out
From beneath our feet
SINGERS: Hmm
SPEAKER: It said ‘For a wide range
Of attractive yet discreet
Funeral items
Such as urns and containers
Visit Foley’s
At Number 11 Moncaster Street.
Foley’s, for all your funeral needs.
SINGERS: Hmm
SPEAKER: There’s no better thing
To get sent off in
SINGERS: Than a Foley coffin
Hmm
SPEAKER: As we picked up our spades
And bent to the task
The voice said,
‘Gardenware? Keep your tools
In tip-top condition
With a maintenance contract
From Binghams the Ironmongers.
Bingham’s,
The ironmonger’s ironmonger.
If you need iron, we’ll mong it. Our motto is:
‘We’re in the High Street,
Opposite the cinema!’
SINGERS: We’re in the High Street
Opposite the cinema!
Hmm
SPEAKER: As the earth thudded in
And sod fell on sod
The voice said ‘Worms4us.
Fishing supplies for those
Who really know something ‘a-bait’ it.
To be sure of a worm
That’ll wriggle and squirm,
Call us at the number given
Or look up ‘Worms4us’
In your yellow pages.
Or drop in at Lot Fifteen,
Daltringham Industrial Estate
You can find it
By the smell.
SINGERS: Worms4us
Oh yeah
SPEAKER: As we turfed the plot over
And levelled the ground
We could still just hear,
Faintly, this sound:
‘Satin linings.
Does your lining need refining?
For all your buttons and bows
And a free quote on upholstery,
Visit Spiller’s Soft Furnishing.
Spiller’s, Number 11, Sackville St.
In the world of soft furnishing,
Spillers are comfortably ahead.’
SINGERS: Hmmm
SPEAKER: As we got on our bikes
And rode to the pub
For a well-earned pint
And a plate of grub,
A voice from somewhere
Came to me: ‘Light fittings.
When up is where you’re going,
You need the best in lighting.
For the best in lighting, visit
Stan Best’s on Marlton Street.
Best’s. It’s the best. In lighting.
For easier rural access,
Try our out-of-town store
On the southern bypass
Just off Exit Three.
SINGERS: Exit three (Exit three singers)
Hmm
SPEAKER: You can also get to us
By taking the Grawley sign
At Exit Two –
SINGERS: Exit two (Exit two singers)
Hmm
SPEAKER: Or the Pongbourne turnoff
Shortly after Exit One.
SINGERS: Exit one (Exit one singer)
SPEAKER: Goodbye.
(Blackout)
EARL GREY
My dear Earl Grey!
Come in, I pray,
And have a cup of tea
Darjeeling, yes…
A lucky guess?
My own estate, you see.
A pound a sip:
Each tender tip
Plucked from the bush by hand.
That Muscat taste
Can’t be replaced.
So subtle, yet so grand.
The Kashmir dawns:
The hills, the lawns,
The land, the leaf, the liquid
And the light…
Fine tea, fine wine:
Or such is mine.
Yours is a little different,
Am I right?
So look, I tell you what,
Now the pot is hot,
In honour of Earl Grey,
I’ll add in just a tot
Of oil of Bergamot:
Such a lovely taste of…
Hair-cream,
Wouldn’t you say?
Good. Then here’s a larger shot
Of oil of Bergamot
So the flavour of the tea
Doesn’t get in the way.
Another cup?
No, don’t get up.
I’ll just strap you to the chair
If you don’t mind…
Now, I’ll tip in quite a lot
Of oil of Bergamot.
Mmm: smells like a brothel in Trieste,
I always find.
You see, I thought I’d have you shot
For your oil of Bergamot
But shooting is
Too good for you, I fear
So I’m really frightfully sorry
But I’ve ordered up a lorry
Which is parked just
Out there at the rear.
And it’s loaded with…guess what?
Yes, oil of Bergamot!
You have your firm to thank
For the
Eleven thousand gallons in the tank
And the nozzle comes in
Just up through the window here.
I’ve blocked up all the floors
And put tape around the doors
For we mustn’t lose a spot
Of your oil of Bergamot,
Must we, my dear?
Anyway, that’s enough from me:
I’m off upstairs for some tea.
On second thoughts, perhaps I’ll have a gin.
Right lads: pump it in!
BEANSTALK
Down in a deep dark well
Sat an old cow
Munching a beanstalk
‘Ow’ said the beanstalk ‘Wow’
Said the old cow
‘Since when did greens talk?’
‘Ow’ said the beanstalk ‘Now’
Said the old cow
‘This baby means talk’
‘Ow’ said the beanstalk ‘How’
Said the old cow
‘Dare you you green stalk’
(Munch munch)
Down in a deep dark well
Sits an old cow
What beanstalk?
GET THE LOVE MADE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Get the kids up
Get the beds made
Get the bus caught
Get the bills paid
Get the house cleaned
Get the fish fried
Get the shopping in
Get the Mother’s Pride
Get the kids to bed
Get the dinner laid
Get the husband fed
Get the love made
MR NOW
Mr Now is at the door
‘One moment please’
You say
But by the time
You’ve crossed the floor
Mr Now has gone away
GENITAL HAIRPIECE
While at the gym the other day,
Towelling off a certain area,
I noticed my friends were, shall we say,
Somewhere somehow somewhat hairier.
Concerned by this unmanly trait,
And keen to cover up my bare piece,
I bought ‘Trichology Today’
And sent off for a pubic hairpiece.
Alas! It slipped; and would not stay:
I had to sew it on with stitches.
Now why do ladies run away
When I tell them that my hairpiece itches?
DISCOURSE
Some couples bill in Portuguese
And others coo in Dutch
My wife and I speak Crockery
And like it very much
Some couples go for strangling
And others simply yell
My wife and I speak Crockery
Which suits us very well
For instance at the table
When I have some point to make
About the softness of the toast
Perhaps, or hardness of the cake,
I could make lengthy speeches
But find it pithier instead
To seize my cup and saucer
And hurl them at her head.
She in turn reciprocates
By flinging salad bowls
I go for her with dinner plates
And she heaves casseroles
Some fly out the window
In a tinkling china spray
‘That’s next door talking Crockery’
The neighbours all say
But my wife’s taking lessons
With a knife-throwing squaddy
If Cutlery’s to be spoken in this house
It’ll be over my dead body
BREAKFAST*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Porridge
Is horridge
Boiled eggs
Is spoiled eggs
Kippers
Taste like slippers
And muesli
Was meant for a gerbil
As for herbal tea
It is indeed
Quite herbal
So bang me
No breakfast gongs
Tell me
No clock tales
The day shouldn’t start
Till it’s time
For cocktails
SAFE KEY SAFE
Get key safe
To keep
Safe key in
Keep safe key
In safe key safe
Get key safe
To keep
Safe key in
Keep key safe
In safe
key Safe
MASTERS AND SERVANTS
If you want to know
What makes a man so
You can seek his master’s view
But while you’re there
I’ll buy his servant a beer
And I bet I learn more than you
COCKROACH
Cockroach
Cockroach
Cockroach
Ape
Ape with rock
Ape with bow and arrow
Ape with gun
Ape with atom bomb
Ape with virus
Cockroach
FOR HANNAH
I went to church the other day
And sat behind a baby
She had no hair and had no beard
Unlike my friend John Swabey
But she had just been down below
For some in-flight refuelling
And on her mother’s shoulder now
She did a little drooling
Her mother patted her and smiled
And at that tender glancing
All the saints in Heaven filed
Through the window, dancing
I went to church the other day
And sat behind a baby
The priest above said ‘God is love’
And I thought ‘Yes, maybe’
WELL-DONE WILKINS*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I was at school with Well-Done Wilkins.
Well-Done Wilkins, the golden one.
‘Well done, Wilkins!’ ‘Top marks, Wilkins!’
‘Good work, Wilkins!’ ‘Wilkins, well done!’
‘Well played, Wilkins!’ ‘Great shot, Wilkins!’
‘Good old Wilkins: the winning run!’
‘Well bowled, Wilkins!’ ‘Well caught, Wilkins!’
‘Well done, Wilkins!’ ‘Wilkins, well done!’
Well-Done Wilkins made it to Brussels,
Global Controller, top man bar none.
European of the Year – no, Decade:
‘Très bien, Weelquinze.’ ‘Vilkins, vell done!’
Well-Done Wilkins went on holiday.
Out in the jungle, under the sun,
Alas, one day he was caught by cannibals:
And on the menu was Wilkins, well done.
THE OOTACOCK
Ornage and pruple
Of pulmage divine
The ootacock sits
On a gunjle vine
Wolley its eyeball
And crinsom its claw
‘Ootacock ootacock’
Grugles its craw
As it sings to its love
On a neighbouring vine
‘Ootacock ootacock
Please be mine’
’Let gost norom’
Answers the brid
‘You’re frack to bunt
Your speech is absrid’
Now ornage and pruple
But far from divine
The ootacock sits
On a gunjle vine
‘Ootacock, ootacock’
Grugles its craw
As its teardrops fall
To the gunjle floor
ERN*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Here lies Ern
Who didn’t, much
Not for him
Oak, brass and such
“No box, just matches –
It’s cheaper to burn”
So ashes to ashes
Ern to urn
LE CAPOT NOIR
On holiday in the Loire
An Englishman enters a bar
‘Je suis distraught:
Ma femme est morte.
The funeral is ce soir.
I need a capot noir.”
“Un capot noir, vous dites?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Mais Monsieur: quelle délicatesse!”
Chapeau = hat; Capot = condom
MR E*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
A letter came
Addressed to me.
It bore no name,
Just ‘Mr E’.
‘I am your man:
Be mine! Be free!’
The letter ran.
‘Signed, Mr E’.
Do you know who
This man might be?
Or is it to you,
As it was to me,
A Mr E?
MR ME
I share a bond
With Mr Me
We never part
Together we
I know his heart
It’s brave and true
And he’s ever so fond
Of Mrs You
MORE OR £E$$
In £ondon,
When December comes,
Kids write £etters
To their mums.
‘£ovely Mummy,
Mummy dear,
I’d £ike a £ot
Of £oot this year…’
While in the $tate$ They do the $ame:
$ack$ of greenback$ I$ their aim.
In
€urop€, too,
€ach infant h€ckl€s
For a bag
Of €urosh€k€ls.
But alas,
Their mums are poor,
And may have read
Such notes before.
They take their pens
And answer so:
‘Thank you, dear –
‘That’s nice to kNOw’.
THE TRUE STORY OF MONTY SPENCER ELL
Monty Spencer Ell
Played croquet very well
Between the two World Wars.
His manner always charmed
And his courtesy disarmed,
Quite literally, because
He’d lost both arms at Loos.
And so, to beat his foes,
He’d have his man attach
His mallet to the stumps,
And thus did rolls and jumps
To play the game off scratch.
Now you may well suppose
That all those beaten foes
Admired this plucky player:
But no, they moaned like hell
At Monty Spencer Ell
And said
It wasn’t
Fair
A MAN THAT LOOKS ON GLASS
A man that looks on glass
On it may stay his eye
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass
And then the heaven espy
These words, though very clever,
Aren’t always on the nail
Clearly their author never
Travelled by British Rail
BEGETTERS
Prenatal
Parental
Paternal
If you don’t want
To be begetters
Prenatal
Parental
Paternal
Don’t reuse
Your letters
TWO WEEKS TO LIVE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I’ve been told I’ve got two weeks to live.
Two weeks, if I heard the report right.
But don’t fear for my life:
It’s just that my wife
Is going away for a fortnight.
THE FISHERMAN*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I spied a man beside the road
Beside the roadside sitting
By the roadside sat the man
And in the road was fishing
With a stick and string and hook
And all the day long lasting
By the roadside sat the man
Casting, hauling, casting
Strolling past this fisherman
To humour him I reckoned.
“Caught any yet?” I asked. He said
“You’re the twenty-second.”
THE PAINTBRUSH
I had lent a neighbour a paintbrush,
And went round to ask for it back.
When I got there the curtains were drawn,
And all of the windows were black.
I knocked on the door. No answer.
I waited, and rang on the bell.
It was clear that someone was in there,
Sobbing, and wailing like hell.
After a while I heard footsteps
Dragging their way to the door.
It opened: the face in the darkness
Had eyes that were swollen and raw.
‘Yes?’ the face slowly faltered.
“I was looking for Brian,” I said.
The face said tragically,
“Brian is… Brian is… Brian is….”
But clearly the effort was too much.
Someone else appeared in the hall.
“Brian’s…dead,” they said. “Oh”, I said,
“Right. Did he mention a paintbrush at all?”
ANDROCLES AND THE LION
Androcles
Never fought the lion
Preferring instead
To stay longer in bed
In being retold
The story got misunderstood
Besides
‘Androcles and the lie-in’
Wouldn’t have sounded so good
SHE HAD HIS NUMBER
He bought her as a love token
A portable telephone that was programmed
To call only him. The plan backfired.
She balked at first, but then warmed to it
And called him a lot. The problem was, since
She had no access to numbers other than his,
She kept asking him to make calls for her,
To chase the clinic for results
Or call the dry cleaners and find out
What day it is. Eventually, of course,
She slipped his chains and was gone,
Promising to call him.
After all, she had his number.
EXPAT
Here lies Pat
Beneath the sward
All his life
He lived abroad
Here lies Pat
It’s apt, somehow
An expat then
And an expat now
THE THREE GRIPES
One of the first things
To learn in croquet
Is the right gripe.
There are three basic gripes.
The Irish gripe is where,
Holding the manager by the neck
As if tossing a pancake,
You shout
“Why isn’t there a bar
At this God-forsaken venue,
You useless bozo?”
The Solomon gripe is straightforward,
Both hands around the neck
As if throttling the cat.
You shout “Lawn three
is a complete disaster!
The refereeing
Is a disgrace to the game!
This is the worst managed tournament
Since the battle of Crecy!”
The Standard gripe
Is a mixture of the two.
Ideally you need to be
On top of your opponent
With one knee on his chest:
Effective once mastered.
In trying to wrench his head off,
You shout
“I won on aggregate points
And the trophy’s mine!
Give me the cup, you officious bastard!”
FOOTPRINTS ON THE SEA
Todo pasa y toda queda
Y lo nuestro es pasar
Pasar haciendo caminos
Caminos sobre la mar*
All must pass and yet remain
Ours is briefly but to be
Tracing pathways in the main
Leaving footprints on the sea
Todo queda y todo pasa
La tumba del poeta se cierra
Si quieres evitar su destino
Mi hija, trata de caminar por tierra
All must stay and all must pass
Should you wish to stay, my daughter
Never go to poetry class
And do not try to walk on water
Original by Antonio Machado, 19th Century Spanish poet
DOPEMOL®
I went to see my doctor
With a tingling in my tum:
I sat for hours and waited
For my ninety seconds to come.
‘Patients’ said an instruction
Mounted on the wall,
And underneath, in smaller print,
‘Sponsored by Dopemol®’.
So I sat on my Dopemol®-sponsored chair
With a Dopemol® magazine
And drank some instant coffee
From the Dopemol® drinks machine,
Till at last the doctor saw me.
When he heard what I described,
With his Dopemol® pen on his Dopemol® pad,
Guess what he prescribed?
TO THE BANK MANAGER
Dear Mr Groat,
I write to inform you that in view
Of my recent Pools win of several squillion,
I have decided to reconsider your employment
As manager of my finances. To be frank, Groat
(And perhaps, indeed, you are Frank Groat),
Your performance has left much to be desired.
The initial air of chumminess was ill-advised.
The one glass of supermarket sherry
Was a mistake. More recently, the penny-pinching
Over my overdraft left an equally unpleasant taste
And the talk of ‘belt-tightening’
Was unfortunate, to say the least.
One small practical point, if I may:
Should you aspire to earn as much in a year
As I shall from the interest on the interest
On my win, then you will need to take
A tad more care with your personal hygiene.
The clothes-iron, Groat, is a wondrous thing.
I cannot say therefore that it is with regret
That I am dispensing with you.
My account will be moving somewhere
Professional.
Of your own future, no doubt
You have bright visions
And I dare say there is a niche
For you somewhere, though perhaps not
In meeting people or taking decisions.
So farewell, Groat. I shall think of you
Often.
SECOND OPINION
The doctor said, ‘Sir, you are through.
That is my diagnosis of you.’
I said, ‘Silence, you minion.
I want a second opinion.’
He said, ‘All right. You’re ugly, too.’
MRS BLAKE WAKES HER HUSBAND
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
On the hearthrug in the night
Flying sparks set it alight
William Blake, you’re snoring flat out
Nip down, love, and put the cat out
DO YOU STILL WORK?*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Yes, I still work
More or less
Though there are moments
In the early morning
When frankly I sometimes doubt it
But on the whole
I still work, yes
Parts of me better than
Others, maybe, but it’s my body
And I wouldn’t be without it
MAUREEN AND DOREEN
Maureen and Doreen and Noreen and me
Went to kick heads in
Down by the sea
‘Oy, mush! Get out of it!’
That’s what we’d say
Barging the locals out of the way
‘Oy, mush! Get out of it!’
Yeah it was fun
‘Oy, mush! Get out of it!’
Look at ’em run
When Maureen and Doreen and Noreen and me
Went to kick heads in
Down by the sea
Now if you go out
On a head-kicking spree
With Maureen and Doreen
And Noreen, you’ll see:
When everyone scarpers –
‘Cowardly swine!’ –
Don’t be the last head
Left in the line
Cos Maureen and Doreen and Noreen
Kicked mine
OUT OF SCHNAUZERS*
or How We Got a Spaniel
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I went to get some photos done.
The assistant said ‘Yes?’
I said, ‘I’ve got these photos…’
He said, ‘Standard, or LMNOPQRS?’
I said ‘LMNO what?’ He said, ‘Hmm. Standard…
Printed on paper, was it, or discs?’
I said ‘Paper’. He said, ‘Twenty-four
Exposures, or thirty-six?’
I said ‘Thirty-six’. He said, ‘Thank you…
Flash photography or exterior?
I said, ‘Exterior’. He said, ‘City, beach?
Woodland. Mm-hmm. Bavaria…’
‘Family photos, is it? Size of family?
Parents…twins…dog…that’s four.
Camping holiday? Tent or caravan?
Caravan? Flange style or sliding door?
‘Roadjammer – Elite – beige. Yes, that’s OK…
Now about the dog you mentioned before:
Small dog or large dog?
Schnauzer. White mark on paw.’
‘I’ll just check on Schnauzers…no,
We’re out of those’, he said.
I can do you two Chows or a spaniel.’
So we’ve got a spaniel instead.
ESKIMO SNOW
In Eskimo land
There are no drains
For in Eskimo land
It never rains
Never a spit
Never a spot
Never a drizzle
Never a mizzle
Never a shower
Never a downpour
Never a cloudburst
Never a rainstorm
And the quaintest thing
About Eskimo
Is all the words
It has for snow
SPEECHES
SPEECHWRITER, young
WRITER’S WIFE, young
POLITICIAN, older
WRITER:
This is the story
Of a politician’s private secretary,
A young man
Who one day starts submitting drafts
That are
POLITICIAN (IMPRESSED, READING):
Out of the ordinary.
WIFE:
At first the politician
Resists the drafts, but at some point
He is stuck for a speech, and uses one.
It makes
POLITICIAN:
A terrific impact. People congratulate him.
His star rises. His name starts
To be heard of. Still
Against his better judgment, he uses
More of his speechwriter’s material,
Gaining a reputation as a brilliant orator
And a great man.
WRITER:
The speech-writer, meanwhile, is sinking
Into depression, alcohol, marital strife.
The sound of his own speeches
Seems to exhaust him most of all.
His wife in frustration
WIFE:
Is drawn, like everyone, to the rising
Politician.
POLITICIAN:
They have an affaire. The politician
Has to be careful,
As his success now depends on a supply
Of golden eggs, and he must preserve
The goose. What he does not know, however,
WRITER:
Is that the speechwriter, the husband,
Sees all that goes on.
The writer hates the politician.
Yet the more he hates,
The better the politician’s speeches sound,
The more wonder and admiration they draw
From swelling crowds.
(CROWD NOISE. WIFE SHOWS PLACARD: ‘SWELLING’)
POLITICIAN:
The politician’s star becomes so bright
It is effulgent.
WRITER:
Curiously, the fact of knowing
The lovers’ secret
Has a mellowing effect
On the speechwriter. He starts
To watch his wife’s antics almost
With fondness, and to overlook
His consuming hatred for the politician.
POLITICIAN:
The speeches lose their edge. Questions
Are asked in parliamentary columns.
There is talk of broken reeds
And busted flushes. On one occasion the politician
WIFE:
Makes a serious lapse
Of taste.
WRITER:
Meanwhile the speechwriter is relaxing,
Unblocking. His wife returns to him,
Drawn back in rediscovery.
As they grow close again,
The politician
Flounders: bankruptcy, divorce,
Electoral failure. At the last
POLITICIAN:
He takes a gun and goes to the wife
To shoot himself.
Seeing how near the brink he is,
WIFE:
Her heart softens
And she consoles him. The husband
WRITER:
Sees this embrace.
WIFE:
A little later the politician, disengaging himself,
Rushes off
POLITICIAN:
To make a speech in the House.
On rising
To speak, he is astonished by three things:
The sight of his private secretary
In the officials’ box near him,
The feel of his pistol in his pocket,
And the gradual discovery
WRITER:
That his speech is leading him to madness,
Starting normally but then, with great skill,
Taking him to dizzy heights of rhetoric,
Impassioned and nobly ineluctable,
Until finally, honourable Members,
In electric silence, with every eye upon him,
The speech has him draw the pistol, and shoot
The speechwriter.
(BANG. CLANG OF PRISON DOOR. CAWING OF CROWS)
WIFE:
January, one morning at dawn. The politician
Is in prison. He is taken to the scaffold
And blindfolded. Asked if he has anything
To say, he reaches instinctively
Into his pocket for a speech, only
WRITER
To find one.
POLITICIAN:
It is the speech that will save his life. In it,
The scriptwriter confesses how he committed
Suicide by using the orator to shoot him.
Salvation! Hosanna! Unfortunately
WRITER:
The politician, being blindfolded, cannot
Read the speech. He stammers a few words
Of his own, but is uninspired.
The guns ring out. He staggers and falls.
ALL THREE:
At last! No more of those bloody speeches!
RIDDLE
A man is in his bedroom.
It is night. He is alone.
Unable to sleep, he reaches
For the telephone.
He dials a certain number.
The phone rings. When
The other person answers,
This man hangs up again.
No word has been spoken:
The silence has been deep,
Yet with one silent phone call
The man regains sleep.
Why should this have happened?
The answer can be found
If, gentle reader,
Your reasoning is sound.
HIPPOBOTTOMOUS*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
To see the truly
Elephantine
Go to Central Park Zoo
And stay in the canteen
PICTURES
I work in textiles. And what do you do?
I’m a poem
You’re a poem!
Yes
What, full-time?
Yes
So what do you do?
I rhyme
You rhyme?
Yes
I can do that. ‘A poet, that’s what I’m.’
Good, eh?
Sublime
And what do you do when you’re not rhyming?
I scan
You scan! What, you mean you look at things?
I follow a certain pattern of stress
Sounds like textiles. Can you invent patterns?
Sometimes I can
Do you make pictures?
Yes
MINKY THE MANKY MONKEY
I am a manky monkey:
Minky is my name.
My fur is old and rubbing thin
And sawdust trickles from my chin
Because my stuffing won’t stay in
And I am deaf and lame.
I am a manky monkey:
Minky is my name.
I’ve lost an ear and half a leg
(And would your pardon humbly beg
For certain stains of boiled egg)
But time alone’s to blame.
I am a manky monkey:
Minky is my name.
In years gone by, I was adored
And dragged about, and chewed and pawed
And if I ever were restored
I wouldn’t be the same.
I am a manky monkey: Minky is my name.
All this wear and tear you see
Was Mum and Grandma loving me.
So get the saucers out for tea
And let us have a game.
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT
The last Nowell
I sang at Yule
Was at my son’s
Primary school
‘THEN LET US ALL
WITH ONE ACCORD
SING PRAISES TO
OUR HEAVENLY LORD
WHO HATH MADE HEAV’N
AND EARTH OF NOUGHT’
This NOUGHT we sang
Or so we thought
But some young hand
I’m sad to say
Had changed the H
Into an A
THE ASS AND THE HORSE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
An ass and a horse were trudging
Out along the road,
Each beast of burden suffering
Beneath a heavy load.
The ass said ‘Horse, please listen,
I’m not as strong as thee:
Indeed I’m almost dead: would you
Not take a sack from me?’
The horse said ‘Ass, you’re joking.
Your load is yours to bear.
The stronger beast lasts longer, beast.
You’re on your own. So there.’
The ass could only weep a tear
And bend his weary head,
Then all at once his legs gave way,
And down he tumbled, dead.
The master came and cursed; but there
Was little else to do
Than move the load onto the horse,
Now carrying for two.
On top of that he had in mind
To sell the ass’s hide:
He threw the corpse upon the horse
And then got on to ride.
This gave the horse some pause for thought.
‘Two loads, one ass, one minder:
Next time I am asked for help,
I’ll be a little kinder.’
EPILOGUE
And there, by rights, the tale should end,
Its moral plain to read,
But what about the stupid man
Who overloads his steed?
The fault is not with either beast
But with us all, of course:
Remember this, next time you see
Two asses on a horse.
* Expanded from the fable by La Fontaine
LE PONT MIRABEAU
Sous le pont Mirabeau coulait la Seine
Du temps d’Apollinaire
‘Autour du pont Mirabeau coule la Seine’
Conviendrait mieux à notre ère
Ou ‘par dessus le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine’
C’est troublant cet effet de serre
THE DEAN AND THE PRIOR
The Prior’s gone out
With the Dean to the Trout
For their thirst required assuagement
The Dean said to say
He’s away for the day
Because of a Prior engagement
PLUM DUFF
I once knew some rich historians
Who ate medieval stuff
Like roast swan and steamed
Puddings, some of which
Were merely doubtful,
While others
Were plum duff
RINGS ON HER FINGERS
Rings on her fingers
Bells on her toes
Studs in her eyebrows
And bolts through her nose
Spikes in a purple
Hairdo that glows
And children run screaming
Wherever she goes
THOUGHTS ON AN EMBASSY
LOO-BRUSH
This instrument exists to serve
A worthy but uncertain aim
The diplomat, one might observe,
Is put to use to do the same
THE TWO WORDS*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I went to visit Oxford once, when younger:
Drawn by all that history and knowledge,
Juded and obscured, I gazed with hunger
Between the gates of every ancient college,
Wondering what lay behind such portals,
Where to find the door into the system,
How the lecturers arose from merest mortals
What might be the secret of their wisdom.
Musings of this sort were what absorbed me
Watching from my extramural station,
When I saw three Dons in gowns proceed towards me,
Deep in academic conversation.
Ha, I thought, I’ll go and linger near them.
I’ll listen as they make their way behind me,
And learn the secret! So I strained to hear them.
As they passed I heard two words: “And ninthly…”
YACHTSMEN
The yachtsmen sit in the yacht club bar
And drink their G & T
As they watch the yachts swing off the trots
And head for the open sea
And when there’s a clot in a brand new yacht
Who can’t tell his luff from his lee
The yachtsmen scoff, take their trousers off
And moon him, one two three
So I’ve studied lots and learnt the knots
And practised endlessly
For let there be no mooning at the bar
When I put out to sea
THE CUBE
When you are round about forty-seven,
Roughly equidistant from hell and heaven,
Battered and jostled from tram and tube,
Something up there that plays backgammon
Considerably better than mere Mammon
Leans over the table of your life, says ‘Trouble?’
And offers you
The cube.
Do you keep on at twice the previous wager,
Retaining the sole right to redouble later,
Or resign and pay up now, to start another game?
‘Fortunes can fluctuate’, you think, ‘It’s early,
Knowing I’ve got the cube might make him surly
And lose his judgment. Later I can redouble.
I’m still in the frame.’
‘Take,’ you say, coughing a little weakly,
And your opponent merely smiles bleakly
And offers you a green jujube,
Then proceeds to throw such dice as
Dreams are made of. Twice as nice as
Dreams are made of. Later, in the rubble,
You’re found still clutching
The cube
DOCUMENT SECURITY
There used to be a boarding school,
Or so the story runs,
Where fathers went, and later sent
Their inky-fingered sons.
Thus fils would use the classroom
That père and grand-père sat in,
And the oldest of the teachers
Was the one that taught them Latin.
Now when it came to end of term,
And judgment on each youth,
The parents got polite reports;
The Head was sent the truth.
The truth, of course, is always best,
For truth is perfect purity,
But truth in school reports requires
Document security.
The Latin slips got switched around.
One père was startled, rather,
When he read: ‘An idle hound,
Exactly like his father’.
FURNITURE
For now I make a living
Selling furniture
Some of it hardwood
And some of it pine
For now I make a living
Selling furniture
Which would be
Perfectly fine
If the furniture
In question
Were not mine
TARTS AND SERVANTS
Be nice to tarts and servants
Don’t make them cringe and cower
You’ll find that tarts and servants
Wield considerable power
OH SOD I’VE LOST IT
We dined on a frozen lake
By candlelight
We soared over minarets
To a purple dawn
We stood in the tumbling surf
Proud-hoofed, wind in mane
Like two
Dappled
Bay
Horse-thingies
Oh sod I’ve LOST IT
THE RUN RUN RIVER
Bury me deep
When the sky is grey
And the run run river
Runs running away
Bury me deep
When the sky is black
And a rope of rain
Arraigns the track
Bury me deep
When the sky is white
And clouding clouds
Cloud out the light
Bury me deep
When the sky is blue
Then go down the pub
And good luck to you
XANADON’T
In Xanadon’t, where Kubla Khan’t
Had said no pleasure domes could be,
And Alph the scarèd river ran
Past caverns out of bounds to man
And signs marked ‘SWIMMING-FISHING-BOATING BAN’,
Down to the funless sea,
In twice five miles of fertile ground,
No children were there to be found:
No carefree ramblers through the forest hills,
No climbers into haystack, barn and tree,
No tadpole-hunters in the sinuous rills,
No cowboys, no Indians in the greenery.
At night no child could camp out on the lawn
For fear of maniacs who’d carry them away.
No owls, therefore, no stars, no dusk, no dawn,
Just helmets in case the sky fell in at play,
And, for fear of dreadful grazings of the knee,
Crisps on the couch all day, and murders on TV.
FLOWERS
Mr Hyde’s room is a nice room
There are flowers
Most of the day he lies quiet
Watching the sunlight
And the flowers
Sometimes in the afternoons
Mrs Pape comes by
She brings him shortbread
Or flowers
She looks out of the window
She tells him about the world
The lawns and the gravel
The people walking
And the flowers
Then she has to go
Her husband wants his tea
The sound of her footsteps dies away
A door bangs somewhere
And Mr Hyde lies in his room
With the flowers
THE COOLIBAH TREE
Once a jolly swagman camped by a mineshaft
Under the shade of a coolibah tree
And he sang as he watched
And waited till his billy boiled
‘That looks a deep kind of mineshaft to me’
So he picked up a stone
And he dropped it down the mineshaft
It didn’t go ‘Whee…donk’, it only went ‘Whee’
So he sang as he watched
And waited till his billy boiled
‘That looks a deep kind of mineshaft to me’
Then he rolled up a boulder
And he pushed it down the mineshaft
It didn’t go ‘Whee…thud’, it only went ‘Whee’
So he sang as he watched
And waited till his billy boiled
‘That looks a deep kind of mineshaft to me’
Then he dug up the coolibah
And heaved it down the mineshaft
It didn’t go ‘Whee…crash’, it only went ‘Whee’
So he sang as he watched
And waited till his billy boiled
‘That looks a deep kind of mineshaft to me’
Then all of a sudden this sheep
Comes whizzing past him
And hurtles down the mineshaft: ‘Maaaa…whee!’
And up rides a squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred
‘I’m lookin for my sheep, sport. You seen it?’ says he.
‘Yeah, mate’ says the swagman.
‘It just came whizzing past me
And jumped down the mineshaft: ‘Maaaa…whee!’
‘Nah,’ says the squatter. ‘Can’t be my sheep, sport.
My sheep was tethered to a coolibah tree…’
THE GRINTING STID*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
The stid was grinting.
I knew it would.
Grinting stids,
They’re no good.
‘Your stid was grinting,’
I told Sid.
‘Never!’ ‘It was.’
‘Bet you a quid.’
So we watched for a while
And I lost my bid.
Did that stid grint?
Like hell it did.
I left the shack
Cursing Sid and stid:
And when I looked back
They were sharing my quid.
SOME BODY ELSE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
“Write me!” said the poem
As I made a cup of tea.
“Don’t waste time with teabags!
Write! Write now! Write me!”
“Write me!” said the poem
As I gave my love a kiss.
“Stop doing that!
Ugh! Write this!”
“Write me!” said the poem
As I hurtled in my car.
“Both hands off the steering wheel!
Write! Write now! That’s W, R –“
“Write me!” said the poem
As a doctor felt my pulse.
“Don’t just lie there! Get writing!
Damn, I’ll have to find some body else…”
HOW DO I LOOK?
The front of you is fine, my dear –
You needn’t ask. Albeit
The back of you’s divine, my dear:
One’s always
So glad to see it…
THE MOO-CAT
The moo-cat
Is a lonely beast
Miaowooooooo
Whiskered horned
Clawed fleeced
Miaowooooooo
Glimpsed in forests
Before it flees
Miaowooooooo
Sharpening its hooves
Upon the trees
Miaowooooooo
Different
From other kine
Miaowooooooo
The moo-cat walks
A lonesome line
Miaowooooooo
At night, on snow
Beneath the moon
Miaowooooooo
The moo-cat moves
In silver shoon
Miaowooooooo
Forever doomed
To live alone
Miaowooooooo
And making this
Really strange moan
Miaowooooooo
NOTE FOR THE MILKMAN
‘Gone for two weeks holiday –
Don’t leave anything
Please’
I wrote.
On my return
The place was bare.
‘Thanks – we haven’t’
Said the note.
THREE-WORD POEM ON GREETING FATHER
AND CAT, TOBY*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
Tobeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
(Hi, Dad)
TRAINING FOR TRAINERS
‘Training for Trainers’
Is training trainers
Trainer training
From ‘Training for Trainers’
As featured in Train
And Train Those Trainers!
True trainer training
From ‘Training for Trainers’
For training your trainers
To train other trainers
Trust trainer training
From ‘Training for Trainers’
‘Training for Trainers’
Will train your trainers
To train trainer trains
Try ‘Training for Trainers’
THE TAKE-AWAY SONG OF DINAS VAWR
The mountain sheep were sweeter
But the valley sheep were fatter
We therefore deemed it meeter
To get a seafood platter
The valley sheep were fatter
But the mountain sheep were quicker
We therefore thought it better
To get a chicken tikka
SPOOKY POEM
From my window all is black
When I draw the curtains back
I do not like the face I see
Staring, staring
In at me
Up the stairs I quickly go
But when I reach my bedroom, oh!
I do not like those feet at all
Beneath the curtain
By the wall
Between the sheets I’m safe from harm
But when I turn and stretch my arm
I do not like the hand I find
Cold and clammy
Touching mine
IRRADIATION SICKNESS
The snake slithered up
And said “Sister…
“Try the apple. It’s shiny and green.”
So she reached out and tried it
And found that inside, it
Was wrinkled and brown and obscene.
The snake slithered up
And said “Sister…”
And that was mankind down the chute.
“Oh well, it’s only mythology”,
You think, as you buy more
Shiny
Green
Fruit
THE MEN WHO MAKE THE LIFTS WORK
The man who makes the lifts work in heaven
Knows the man who makes the lifts work
In hell
Old friends since lift school
They share advice
And screwdrivers
And they like talking shop
The man who makes the lifts work in hell
Says one day to the man who makes
The lifts work in heaven
‘Some of these poor devils,
You know, they’re not so bad.
They just didn’t realize
What they were doing.’
‘Sure’, says the man who makes
The lifts work in heaven
To the man who makes the lifts work
In hell
‘And some of these angels are
Right so-and-so’s. What say
We do a swop?’
So one night
There is an unscheduled halt
For the lift for hell going down
And the lift for heaven coming up
And the man who makes the lifts work in heaven
And the man who makes the lifts work
In hell
Exchange a load of self-righteous angels
For one of kindly villains
And the lifts depart again
Chop-chop
No-one is told
No-one protests
True, there is sometimes bad language
On the celestial croquet lawns
And some sermonizing
In certain cauldrons of brimstone
But on the whole
The lifts still work in hell and heaven
They still go down to the bottom
And they still go up to the top
And as for theology
It does not seem
To have come to a stop
AGE
Your brain is running low on memory.
Please close some applications.
Retrieving the names of grandchildren,
Neighbours, barmen, hairdressers,
The date of the battle of Oudenaarde,
How many moons Jupiter has,
The overall equation for photosynthesis
And where you left the car
Is consuming too many squiggabytes.
These programs should be uninstalled
And space freed for important applications
Such as drinking and playing cribbage.
TWO POEMS FOR SOUND ENGINEERS
I.
Testing
Testing
Testing
Mrs Borgia’s bread
Toasting
Toasting
Toasting
With some sandwich spread
Tasting
Tasting
Tasting
Drop
Down –
II.
One two three four five six seven
All good children go to heaven
Seven six five four three two one
But the others have more fun
GNOCCH
The finest gnocchis to be found
Come from Luigi’s on Central Park.
‘You looking for pasta?
You’re in the right town’
Says Luigi.’You want gnocchis?
Come to Gnoc
RASPBERRY
Many o many
Are the things I see
When the one that’s
Doing the things
Is me
Many o many
Are the lives I’ve led
In the halls and the hills
And the hulls
Of my head
Many o many
Are the doings I do
For the doing
Of the doings
As indeed I do
Is a doing indeed
For I do as I dare
And I don’t give a monkey’s
Plppppppp
So there
LAZY CAT
The lazy cat lies
By a pool of sun
The sun
Has moved on
THE MAN OF SIXTY-THREE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
A man there was, a murky man,
A man of sixty-three,
Who had a wife, a winsome wife,
A wife as old as he.
This man it was, this manky man,
This man of sixty-three,
Who found a genie in a lamp
And set the genie free.
‘O master,’ said the genie,
‘Can I grant a wish for thee?
Whatever wish you wish,
O man,
Just wish, and it shall be.’
The man turned round and eyed his wife,
His wife of sixty-three,
And said, ‘I want to have a wife
THIRTY YEARS YOUNGER than me!’
The genie smiled, and bowed his head,
And said, ‘So shall it be…’
And with these words the man became
A man of ninety-three.
LE CAPITAINE FERDINAND
Le capitaine Ferdinand,
Étant âgé de dix-neuf ans,
Capture un jour un éléphant
Dans le jungle du Ceylan.
Pendant des jours il attend,
Poêle en main, sur un banc
Au-dessous de l’éléphant,
Et après un certain temps
Il reçoit un oeuf tout blanc.
<<Pour mon omelette, pourtant,
Il m’en faut deux !>> dit Ferdinand.
L’animal répond froidement :
<< Vous devriez savoir, Monsieur,
Qu’un éléphant ne pond pas deux. >>
SOME ANTICS
The sofa sneezed
Apologetically
The pregnant bachelor
Pathetically
Gave birth
And colourless
Green ideas
Slept furiously
Between a sober crust
Of early mirth
AUTOGREETINGS
Hi there ! Writing to let you know
That Simon, who can’t really be bothered
To send you a hard card, wishes you instead
To spend some of your phone bill
On connecting to a public computer site
Where a gruesomely personalized
Greeting, or GPG, awaits you in some
Damp corner of a webcage, among
The spam bins and the cyberdung.
Hi there ! Writing to let you know
That Simon, who recalls you fondly
But not quite fondly enough
For the cost of a stamp, had in fact
Completely forgotten your birthday
Until it was too late for a proper card.
Hi there ! Writing to let you know
That Simon, who secretly can’t stand you
Since you got off with a girl he fancied,
Has installed in this noxious e-greeting
A Trojan wormspiderbot, the newest
And nastiest dragon’s egg, that soon will grow
To roar and claw through your files
And shrivel your cybergonads
With its hot breath.
Hi there ! Writing to let you know
That Simon ahf;uahgetotbuvbYV
MEN DO JUST EXIST
Do men just exist
Men do just exist
Just men do exist
Men just do exist
Men do exist
Just
SUITOR*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I offered her
My heart and spade
But she wanted
Diamonds and clubs
FOREIGNERS C. 1953
Now foreigners, as like as not,
Will come from places where it’s hot
(This tends to make them sweat a lot)
That’s foreigners
So foreigners that come to tea S
hould not be sat on the settee
(Unless you’ve put down PVC)
For foreigners
And foreigners, I’m sad to say,
Are apt to take your soap away
(It’s best to chain it to the tray
With foreigners)
For foreigners, the simplest thing
Is find a song they all can sing
(They usually know ‘God Save The King’,
Do foreigners)
That’s foreigners: I’ve heard it said
Thay do the strangest things in bed
(It’s all that foreign food they’re fed)
Poor foreigners
THE QUICK BROWN FOX
AND THE LAZY DOG
The quick brown fox
Comes round the hencoop slinking
Eyeing a bird on the roof
In the hope that she falls off
The lazy dog sees the quick brown fox
And lies in the farmyard thinking
‘If he jumps over me again, I’m going to
BITE HIS BALLS OFF!’
THE MOVING FINGER
The Moving Finger rites; and, having rit,
Moves on; nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Spellchecks change a word of it.
BUYING IT
The beautiful princess went upstairs
With the young and handsome prince.
Next day she blamed her yawns on a pea:
A pea! Under dozens of mattresses,
For Heaven’s sake
And we’ve bought it ever since
MY SECOND COUSIN ONCE REMOVED
My second cousin, once removed,
Was apt to reappear.
‘Hello!’ he’d say, ‘It’s Edwin!
Can’t get rid of me that easily!
A tree broke my fall. Quercus quercus,
If I’m not mistaken. Quite foliate
For this time of year. I once wrote
An article on quercus quercus
For the Jeffersonian Guild. Oh look,
I’ve got a spare copy of it here…’
My second cousin, once removed,
Would somehow rise again.
‘Hello!’ he’d say, ‘It’s Edwin!
I needed some new sandals anyway.
The concrete in those boots, you know,
Was far too runny for this time of year. I once wrote
A monograph on concrete setting times
For the Nixonian Trust. Good Lord,
What a coincidence!
I’ve got a dozen copies of it here…. ‘
My second cousin, once removed,
Is living with us now.
‘Hello!’ he says, ‘It’s Edwin!
They’re not available at the moment, I’m afraid.
They’re having their tranquilizers inserted.
Was it about the house? Yes, prices are good
At this time of year. I once wrote
An article on real estate prices for the .
Bush Peace Fellowship. Well, since you ask,.
I do have some details of our property right here… ‘
THE OLD MAN IN A BOAT
There was an old man in a boat
Who did almost nothing of note
Save sit all the day
In his boat in the bay
And uncharismatically float
ELBOW GREASE*
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
The doctor said to the sick man’s wife,
‘There’s only one way to save his life:
With elbow grease” said he.
‘To keep him alive you must rise at five,
You must bathe him in oils and prick his boils
And make him cups of tea,
Get a rasp for his tongue
And some boots for the dung
And a swat for the flies’ said he,
‘Each day without fail you must take a pail
And tub him and rub him and scrub him
And scrub him…then scrub him again” said he,
‘Scrub his neck and his face
And down there, just in case:
Well, you never know’ said he
‘Scrub his scalp and his pores
And the floors and the doors
And the doorstep, of course’ said he
‘With elbow grease from morning to night
From dawn to dusk, you can save him all right.
To keep him alive you must labour and strive –
And don’t forget his tea.’
Then the doctor left and the sick man woke.
‘Will I live?’ he said. And his wife
Sighed and spoke. ‘You’re gonna die’ said she.
SKINTY MCGINTY
Skinty McGinty McGinley McGee
Never has cash for a hot cup of tea
Skinty McGinty McGowan McGoo
Asks for a quid and you tell him to shoo
But Skinty McGinty McGory McGay
Hasn’t for ever been skinty this way
The thing about Skinty McGinty McGrange
Is the way that his name continues to change
Skinty McGinty McGaffy McGurse
Once made a living in volumes of verse
When poets were stuck for a suitable rhyme
Thay’d call for McGinty McGuire McGrime
And they’d give lots of cash to McGinty McGoff
So he’d go to McDonalds to have a McScoff
But then came the day when poetry turned
To free verse
With no rhymes
And McGinty was spurned
That’s why Skinty McGinty McGinley McGee
Never has cash for a hot cup of tea
So when you see Skinty McGinty McGow
Be kind to McGinty, because it’s him now
But one day, instead of old Skinty McGoo
The one without tea may be Skinty McYou
CHRISTMAS PRESENTS
I gave my wife a scrubbing brush,
To clean the electric
Chicken roaster.
She said ‘Oh. Thank you very much.
And for your bathtime,
Here’s a toaster.’
GENTLEMAN FARMER
My husband’s a gentleman farmer.
His farm has a beautiful gate.
He loves to be down there, touching it up,
When he isn’t sailing his bate.
THE SPIKY FEN PALINDROME
This is not me
It is just a thing
That happened when
A hand made free
With a pen
At a desk
In a house
On a day
In fall
When
The east wind
Stirred in
The spiky fen
Stirred in
The east wind
When
In fall
On a day
In a house
At a desk
With a pen
A hand made free
That happened then
It is just a thing
This is not me
NICE AND WARM
Wives are nice
And wives are warm
And wives are soft and steady
My wife likes
To be nice and warm
But I know she is already
BACK AGAINST THE WALL
I’m an apple with no crumble
I’m a bee without a bumble
I’m a hangar that has never once been hung
I’m a pie that can’t be humble
I’m a sale that has no jumble
I’m a singer with a song that won’t be sung
I’m an AC with no DC
I’m a plod without a PC
I’m a socket that is waiting for a plug
I’m a 10 without a VC
I’m a P without a TC
I’m an ugly that has never found its mug
I’m a nut if not a nutter
I’m a snipe without a gutter
I’m a dum without a tweedle to my name
I’m a fly that has no butter
(‘Or a cup,’ I hear you mutter)
And I’d love to have a flutter if I only
Knew the game
But I might as well accept it
If I had it and I kept it
It would do my life no earthly good at all
So I shall smile and not be sceptic
I shan’t fret or be dyspeptic
But just stand here with my back
Against the wall
THE SUCKLING CHILD
A mother was feeding her baby
On top of a Number Twelve bus.
The baby was wailing and flailing
And making no end of a fuss.
The mother, becoming quite livid,
Exclaimed to the babe in despair:
‘Look, if you don’t want it, I’ll give it
To that gentleman over there!’
EXAMS
It is too
Late now
I am supposed
To know
But I am known
To suppose
TAK’I-WAN
Tak’i-Wan is a Mongolian art of self-defence
Whose origins can be traced to the end
Of the Ch’ing Dynasty. Its modern form
Is the creation of Po’kin-Ai (1623-1969).
Tak’i-Wan in Mongol means ‘The Seven-Fold Path
To Heaven Passing Through Peace and Humility
To the Stream Behind the Mountain of Brahma
With beansprouts and fried rice’. Through Tak’i Wan
One may seek to bring about an understanding
Of the oneness of creation, and also
To maim and kill. In the words of Po’kin-Ai:
‘You tly Tak’i Wan, you bling about understanding
Of oneness of cleation, you modify dualistic
Apploach to life, arso sprit heads like coconuts.’
Tak’i Wan is perhaps the most subtle and graceful
Of the martial arts. Based on the principle
Of attacking the assailant while he is still asleep,
Breaking his balance and manipulating arm joints
To achieve control, submission and payment or death,
It may be applied successfully against any manner
Of sleeping attack. The exponent, or Tak’i-Chapi,
Learns that each of us possesses latent inner power
In the form of ‘Tak’. Through Tak’i-Wan we can
Develop this power and achieve states such as
Chu Dea, Tak’i Guli, Piu-kin, Ai-Ai-Ai and so on.
The Tak’i Wan club meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays
At 2 a.m.
THE SALT-POT
Dear Father McPhee: How are you?
How lovely to see you last night.
How kind to invite me to dinner:
How gratefully now do I write.
How splendid the soup and the mutton!
How perfect the one glass of wine.
How memorably poured by your housekeeper:
How comely she is, and how fine!
How loving she was when she served you,
How tender and knowing her smile.
How interesting was the whole evening…
Thanks again! Yours, Father McFoyle.
Dear Father McFoyle, I thank you
For writing so kindly last week.
Your comments, of course, are all taken
As courtesy rather than cheek.
I’m sorry the matter before me
At present is rather less gay.
Someone has taken the salt-pot
That was on the table that day:
A salt-pot of Regency silver.
It’s vanished since that very night.
Now, for me to say that you took it
Would certainly never be right,
But should it appear in the vestry
By this coming Sunday, at three,
I would be eternally grateful…
Yours expectantly, Father McPhee.
Dear Father McPhee, How intriguing!
What was it the good book once said?
By where a man sleeps shall ye know him.
The salt-pot is in your own bed.
LIFESTYLE
A healthy style
Of life is mine
I don’t drink meat
And I don’t eat wine
EXTRA! EXTRA!
“EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!
TWO MEN SWINDLED!
(Thank you sir. That’ll be a pound.)”
“Here you are. What, two pages only?
Why, you hound, this paper’s dwindled!”
“EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!
THREE MEN SWINDLED!”
NOT FAIR
Poor old mouse
In our house
On the mat
GOOD cat
Poor old cat
Up a tree
Rogg rogg rogg
BAD dog
LOVE POEM
Where your life is
There shall mine be also
Where your love burns
I shall be the flame
My joy the reason
For your laughter
My arms the refuge
From your pain
Where your life leads
Mine shall be its journey
On your wingbeats
Shall my spirit soar
Your solitude
The shadow of my company
And when you are gone
Then I shall be no more
ONE MORE GAME
Out of darkness by alarm
Through fear into harm
Through harm into night
And all to feed life’s appetite
For what is life but thrall and pall
Kow and tow and grunt and gabble
Still, before I end it all
I’ll just have one more game of
ONLY YESTERDAY
To hear
Late at night
From behind a door
The sound
Of one thought sound asleep
Crying
To find
In an attic
Sifting through the years
Something put there
Only yesterday
TO W.S.
There was a man that by a churchyard dwelt,
Or near the Globe, in Silver Street perhaps.
But how he lived, or what he thought and felt,
Are lost. The story stops; the records lapse.
From nothing come, and into nothing gone.
Three children and an ear-ring are the sum.
And yet this man of nothing, how he shone:
What miracles he made from nothing come.
For if the stars that now bedeck the night
Went dark a thousand centuries ago,
Then so does he illumine, still, with light
That shines from page to stage, and with its glow
Warms all mankind who gaze upon his scene.
To be, then not to be: but he, thank God, has been.
WAS IT FOR THIS
Was it for this we slept in a tangle of limbs
And moved together in fierce unison
Was it for this you took me in your arms
And granted me your soft warm benison
Was it for this I lay in the steepled dawn
And watched your eyelids fluttering beside me
Wondering what thing I might have done
To make the gods so inexplicably reward me
SOMEONE STOLE MY DRILL TODAY
Someone stole my drill today.
It was a Wolf Sapphire, half-inch chuck,
Blue and white with orange cable
And extension lead.
There were paint marks on it.
I was mending my car.
I went to lunch, I left the drill
In a cupboard. On my return
The cupboard was open.
No drill, no cable, no lead.
So I looked around.
I checked the other cupboards,
Some rubbish bags, a hedge. Then I went
To see if it had been handed in.
It had not been handed in.
I told my friends.
They said, why did I leave it
Unlocked? It was my fault.
I said, well, maybe.
The conversation changed.
I rang my brother.
(It was his drill.)
I said, ‘You remember what you told me
About not leaving the drill
In the car, in case it was stolen?’
‘Well, I left it in a cupboard.
It was stolen.’
He said not to worry, it was
An old drill and maybe
The insurance would cover it.
How was the job getting on?
I said fine, apart from the drill.
He rang off. I called the police.
They wanted the particulars
And if possible the model number.
So I gave them the particulars.
It was a Wolf Sapphire, half inch chuck,
Blue and white with orange cable
And extension lead.
There were paint marks on it.
They said, what, the lead
Or the drill?
I said, both. They said,
Thank you. They would not be sending
Anyone round.
(Works best in Birmingham accent)
CLOCK
Clock on
Clock off
Clock in
Clock out
Clock up
Clock up
Clock forward
Clock back
Clock forward
Clock back
Clock in
Clock out
Clock on
Clock
Off
THE PLAY’S THE THING
Here I lie
Unseen, unseeing
There you stand
For the time being
For the time be
I for a time was
For a time free
Before because
For the time do
And for a time sing
The song is but the singing
The play’s the thing
ALL WAYS
In years to come
It will be possible
To reconstruct time
Every sound leaves
A trace in the paintwork
The passage of even
The smallest boat
Changes the sea
In years to come
It will be possible
To reconstruct time
Every cloud leaves
A trace on the landscape
The falling of even
The smallest acorn
Changes forestry
In years to come
It will be possible
To reconstruct time
Every moment leaves
A trace in other moments
All time will be parallel
Going all ways
Simultaneously
EVEN SEEN THROUGH POEMS
The rain is raining rainingly
Upon the window pane
The wind is wailing wailingly
And flurrying the rain
The fire is burning burningly
Bereft in every flame
Even seen through poems
Things are still the same
ROSENDAAL
He came one day to Rosendaal
And there he stayed
Between the park bench
And the traffic lights
On the Grand Parade
He came one day to Rosendaal
And next was gone
The traffic paused briefly
Then the cars pushed on
He came one day to Rosendaal
This much is known
He came one day to Rosendaal
In summer
Alone
DON’T LET THE DEVIL
Don’t let the Devil
Kiss your hand
His tongue slips
Through your
Fingers and
Explores your
Palm
Your
Wrist
Your
Arm
Your
Neck
Your
Ears
Your
Tears
Your
Fears
Your
Eyes
Your
Sight
Your
Life
Your
Light
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ‘A Shilling Life’, ‘The Bark of Chicago’ and ‘While Shaving’ were first published in The Spectator
- ‘Dopemol®’, ‘Sweetness and Light’, ‘The Fisherman’, ‘Two Weeks to Live’ and ‘Well-Done Wilkins’ were first published in the European Voice
- ‘Shock Treatment’ was first published in The Bulletin
- ‘Thick Waller T of Mersey’ was first published in prose form in the New Statesman
- ‘To the Bank Manager’ was first published in prose form in The Spectator
- ‘The Two Words’ was first published in prose form in The Times
With many thanks to Val Isaacs
To Beatriz
Illustrated by the author, except for p. 222:
Kupferstich aus ‘Schauplatz der Natur und der
Künste’, Wien, Kurzböck, 1774-1783
© 2007, Jonathan Lamb Poor Tree Press
Ediciones Trilce
Durazno 1888, 11200 Montevideo, Uruguay
tel. & fax: (5982) 412 77 22 & 412 76 62
Se terminó de imprimir en el mes de mayo de 2007 en Gráfica Don Bosco,
Agraciada 3086, Montevideo, Uruguay. Depósito Legal Nº 342 072. Comisión del
Papel. Edición amparada al Decreto 218/96
SPEAKY STUFF
Jonathan Lamb
Performance pieces
Illustrated by the author
2022
THE PACK OF PEANUTS*
(Louisiana accent)
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I bought a pack of peanuts
And I stepped on board a train
I sat down near this feller
Who looked a real pain
The peanuts lay between us
As the train went up the track
I was just about to eat one
When this feller grabs the pack
He stares me right here in the eye
And he pulls the pack apart
Then he eats one of my peanuts!
Anger grabbed my heart
I took that pack of peanuts
And with a nasty grin
I said Yum yum yum yum!
And I poured those peanuts in
He didn’t seem to like it much
He took the peanut pack
And ate every last one of them peanuts
Then he threw the packet back
I would have said, Let’s step outside
But we was on a train
Just then it reached my station
So I left that evil pain
And as I went to hail a cab
And raised my arm to shout
I felt something in my pocket
And took
My pack of peanuts out
THE HADDOCK
(Northern accent)
We keep a haddock
In a paddock
My wife gives it cuddles
In puddles
I go to her
The moon shines
Down on the paddock
I say, ‘Hey love!
Give us a kiss!’
She says
‘Not tonight,
I’ve got a haddock’
THE CENTIPEDE*
Accents: Birmingham (narrator); Liverpool (centipede)
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
I said to my centipede
In its box,
‘Shall we go to church?
It’s Sunday.
Go to church
And sing some hymns?
I’ll drive you there
In the Hyundai.’
I said to my centipede
In its box,
‘Shall we go to church?
It’s Sunday.
We could dress up,
Get posh frocks.
Take them back
On Monday.’
I said to my centipede
In its box,
‘Shall we go to church?
It’s Sunday.’
But the centipede
Did not reply,
so 1 said, ‘RSVP,
One day…’
‘I mean, don’t rush
To get back to me,
You antisocial insect!
Just ignore me.
That’s the last time
I give you a plant
With lots of juicy fruits on!’
And the centipede said,
‘I heard you the first time!
Hang on a minute! I’m coming!
I was just getting my boots on! ‘
YOU BLOODY CAT
* Illustrations: Karin Silbert
(Welsh accent)
You bloody cat,
You bloody cat,
You get under my feet
Till I fall flat!
You trip me up,
You bloody animal.
You bloody cat,
You bloody cat,
You won’t eat this,
You won’t eat that…
Bloody fussy
Bloody animal.
You bloody cat,
You bloody cat,
I’ll sell you
To the rag-and-bone man,
Make a hat!
All you’re good for,
You bloody animal.
You bloody cat,
You bloody cat,
You bloody –
Where you gone now, cat?
Where you gone,
You bloody animal?
Reward –
God knows why –
For bloody animal.
Bloody cat…
Found! Come here,
You bloody cat.
You cat, you
Bloody animal!
THE NAPKIN RING
(Posh accent)
‘What is that thing?’ asked the Duke.
‘A napkin ring, my Lord.’
‘A napkin ring?’
‘Yes, a ring, in which a napkin
May be conveniently stored.
They are usually rolled up
But sometimes twisted.’
‘Why?’
‘For re-use.’
‘Re-use a napkin?’ cried the Duke. ‘Good Lord,
‘I had no idea such poverty existed.’
SLEEPING AROUND
(Posh accent)
My husband sleeps
At Glyndebourne
And at the Wigmore Hall
To be told that he sleeps
With prostitutes
Doesn’t surprise me at all
WEE DON
(Scottish accent)
My name’s Wee Donald.
I’ve a dog.
The dog is bigger than me.
We go for walks,
I tag along,
He checks out every tree.
Now here’s a tip
For those with dogs,
At least as tall as mine:
When out for walkies, do not get
Into the firing line.
The weather may turn wet, or worse,
You may get rained upon…
And then, my friend,
You’d be like me
Wee Don
THE GUILTIES
Three-hander, Spanish accents
(Interior, police station, Spain.
BEAUTIFUL DETECTIVEWOMAN and HANDSOME DETECTIVEMAN are drinking coffee.
Romantic violin music)
BEAUTIFUL DETECTIVEWOMAN (She looks at him in the mouth)
Hear, I have to confess you…
HANDSOME DETECTIVEMAN (He looks at her in the mouth) Yes…?
BEAUTIFUL DETECTIVEWOMAN : It is that…
HANDSOME DETECTIVEMAN: Say me.
BEAUTIFUL DETECTIVEWOMAN: I…I…
(Dramatic violin music. Door opens)
NEW WITNESS: A second! I am a new witness!
HANDSOME DETECTIVEMAN: How?
HANDSOME DETECTIVEMAN: Since infancy I have a perfect memory for numbers. I saw the matriculation ofthe auto! It was CB 4012!
BEAUTIFUL DETECTIVEWOMAN: CB 4832?
NEW WITNESS: CB4162.
HANDSOME DETECTIVEMAN: For God.
BEAUTIFUL DETECTIVEWOMAN: This means…
NEW WITNESS: Yes! Not just you singular, and you singular. You plural! We are all…
(Dramatic violin crescendo)
HANDSOME DETECTIVEMAN: I do number two’s in the sea, female pudenda!
BEAUTIFUL DETECTIVEWOMAN: Communion wafer!
NEW WITNESS: We are all…
BDM, BDW, NW (turning to camera): GUILTIES!
A TELEPHONE PRANK: LA GROSSE CAROTTE
As perpetrated by a Parisian friend in the 1970’s
– Allo oui?
– Bonjour Monsieur le greengrocer, do you have carottes?
– Oui Monsieur!
– And do you have a big carotte?
– A big carotte?
– Yes, very very big. Do you have a big one there?
– One moment, I will go and look.„.
– Yes, a big one I have got.
– Then stick it up your derriére!
(Click. 20 minutes later:)
– Allo oui?
– Bonjour Monsieur le greengrocer, this is the gendarmerie. Have you had a phone call recently?
– Mais oui!
– Asking if you had carottes?
– Oui, oui!
– A very big carotte?
– Yes, I went and looked!
– They said to stick it up your derriére?
– Oui!
– Well now it’s time to take it out
Because it must be cooked
ALLOY CUE
(West Country accent)
Alloy cue
Jewel oik me?
Few do
Letters flea
Ann beef ree
Star tun yew
Fuel oik me
Alloy cue
I like you / Do you like me? / If you do / Let us flee
And be free / Start anew / If you like me / I like you
BINGO
(South Asian accent)
– And how was your time in England, my son?
– Very good, father, thank you.
– Did you have fun?
– Yes father, thank you.
– What is their religion in England, my son?
– Religions, father? They have three:
– Church of England, Catholic and Twingo.
No, I’m sorry, Twingo is a car. The church is
Bingo.
– What is this bingo church, my son?
– Well father, the faithful go to the temple
And the priest reads out holy numbers
Which they write on their prayer cards.
– Do they pay to go to church, my son?
– Yes father. But many of them are old,
So it is reasonably priced. The priest
Reads the holy numbers,
Then one of the congregation
Shouts out “Bingo!”
And the others all go, “Jesus CHRIST!“
THREE RAILWAY ANNOUNCEMENT POEMS
1. SALISBURY
(Wiltshire accent)
Salisbury
This is Salisbury
The train now standing
At platform two
Is for Andover
Basingstoke
Woking
and
Waterloo
Change at
Waterloo
For Woking
Basingstoke
Andover
and
Salisbury
This is Salisbury
2. NEWTON ABBOT
(Devon accent)
Newton Abbot
Newton Abbot
And if you don’t like it
You can abbot
3. BRIGHTON
We regret to inform passengers
That Brighton
Has been cancelled
Passengers wishing to travel
By train to Brighton
Must be wrong in the head
We regret to inform passengers
That Brighton
Has been cancelled
Passengers wishing to travel
To Brighton
Should go
Somewhere else instead
ENGLISH ROCKS*
(Accents: RP, Wiltshire, Devon, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Yorkshire, Midlands, Estuary, Posh, RP, Wiltshire. Can be divided between several actors)
* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.
In Britain what you stand on
Affects the way you talk
You start your trip in Wiltshire
Where the land is made of chalk
Then you go to Devon
With its rich red loam
Up to bright black coaly Wales
And Scotland’s gneiss to roam
You nip across to Dublin
On its green and lilting land
But the volcanic tones of Belfast
Are hard to understand
The solid hills of Yorkshire stone
On Ilkley Moor baht’at
And then it’s down through Birmingham
Where the sandstone is flat
You end your trip in London
Where the accent is of clay
(To get there of course you have to learn
Queen’s English on the way)
But you started off in Wiltshire
Where the land is made of chalk
In Britain what you stand on
Affects the way you talk
BAKELITE BLUES
It was not for my
Telephone calls
That your young
Heart
Sang
I was just
An also-rang
EVERY DAY WHILE SHAVING
There are some weirdos out there
Crazier than crazy paving
And I should know
I see one
Every day while shaving
CLOSING TILL TWO
I was at the supermarket checking out
The others in the supermarket queue
When the manager appeared and gave a shout:
“Sorry, we’re now closing till two”.
“But it’s only half past ten!” I said,
“I’ve got all my shopping to do!”
He said, “Just use tills one or three instead.
“Till two’s bust – we’re closing till two”.
THE FAULTY SCREW
I met my end upon the stair
A faulty screw was my undoing.
Which as an end is only fair
Since a faulty screw
Was also my doing
THE TRACTOR
(Irish accent)
Seamus O’Brien was arrested
For molesting a large red item
Of farm machinery.
O’Brien pleaded problems at home
As a mitigating factor.
‘Sure, the wife hasn’t fancied me
For weeks’, he said. ‘So I went
To see the doc. He told me
To do something sexy to a tractor.’
MRS DE’ATH
Mrs De’Ath
Got out of the bath
And found she was covered in spots
So her husband went off
With a bag down the path
To get her some cream from Bo’Ots
A MOTHER’S ADVICE
Find a man who’s strong and tall,
Find a man who is discreet;
Find a man who doesn’t brawl,
Drawl or bawl or swear or cheat.
Find a man who’ll hold your shawl,
Not sprawl with beer cans at his feet.
Find a man you know won’t fall
For someone who is more petite.
Find a man who doesn’t pall,
But stays forever kind and sweet.
Then, my darling, most of all,
Never let the six men meet.
CATS LIKE TOES
Cats like toes
Cats like toes
Rub their nose
Against those toes
Cats like toes
Cats like toes
Cats’ eyes close
Forget their woes
Cats like toes
Cats like toes
Dribble flows
And purring shows
That cats like toes
Cats like toes
DRAWING OF GOD
‘What are you drawing, little girl?’
‘I’m drawing a picture with God in it.´
‘God? But nobody knows what God looks like!’
‘They will in a minute.’
THE AARDVAARK AND THE ZULU
The aardvark
And the Zulu
Were walking
Hand in hand.
The aardvark said,
“Dear Zulu,
You are my
Greatest friend!
But when they
Make a dictionary
They’ll put us
Far apart…
All that space
Between us
Will surely
Break my heart!”
The Zulu
Pondered briefly
And with a smile replied.
¨Then let us buy
Two dictionaries
And put them
Side by side.”
VAUXHALL BRIDGE ROAD
Down from Holborn
To the Strand
Across Aldwych flowed
The London traffic
Grey with grime
Past the bong
Of Big Ben’s chime
Which must be
The only time
That anyone
Has found a rhyme
For Vauxhall Bridge Road
THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
Wives know everything, it makes you curse.
I said to my wife last night,
‘Where is the secret of the universe?’
She said, ‘Third drawer down, on the right’.
LORD OF THE DENSE
MEETING AGENDA
- APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE
- APPROVAL OF MINUTES
- MATTERS ARISING
- CHAIRMAN’S REPORT
- CORRESPONDANCE
Dance, dance, wherever you may be;
But should you then correspond with me,
Dense, dense, dense as I may be,
I know that correspondence
Is spelled with an E
THE OVEN
Excellent parent I may be
But frequent cooker am I not.
Sometimes our children say to me:
‘Why’s the kitchen cupboard hot?”
THE AXOLOTL
I’m an alcoholic
Axolotl
I like my whisky
From the botl
(And not a litl
But rather a lotl)
Slumped at the bar
Of my traveller’s hotl
I write sad poems
In Axolotl
My verse may be worse
Than Aristotl
It may make you curse
And want to throtl
This agonising
Axolotl
But there’ll come a day
When I’m healthy, notl,
And the peasants who say
I should be shotl
Sit in their homes
Of daub and watl
Tapping their clay pipes
Free of dotl
And boast that they once
Had a drink in a hotl
With that famous poet
The Axolotl
He likes his whisky
From the botl
(And not a litl
But rather a lotl)
“That axolotl
Is no teetotl”
WATER BOARD
(Any American accent)
– Hi, what do you do?
– I’m in real estate. And you?
– I’m with the Water Board.
– Water board?
– Yes.
– OMG! Water board!
So tell me…
Do they always confess?
GETTING THE MESSAGE
My partner sent me a message.
‘That’s it – we are finished’, it read.
‘All is over between us,
Your snoring was heinous,
You were a disaster in bed!’
I took a dim view of this message
And tried to find words to express
My displeasure; but then
The phone pinged again.
‘Sorry,’ it said, ‘Please ignore – wrong address.’
THE CHEATING BASTARD’S BALL
It’s hole 18
You’re for the green
And tied at something all
The other guy
Is in the woods
You help hunt
For his ball
He says ‘Play on,
I’ll stay and look´.
You chip: you curse,
You grin…
Then ´Found it!´
Says his voice,
And a ball falls near the pin
So now you’re stuck:
You’re out of luck,
You cannot make your call,
For in the pocket of your slacks
Is the cheating bastard’s ball
ENGE AT PENGE
Welcome to the Engineering Faculty
At the University of Penge. The Faculty
Is divided into five Departments:
Mechanical Engineering, or Mech Eng,
(Pronounced enge as in avenge);
Chemical Engineering, or Chem Eng;
Electrical Engineering, or Elec Eng;
Civil Engineering, or Civ Eng;
And Stone Engineering,
Whose headquarters are in Wiltshire
TWO POEMS ABOUT PET NAMES
1. MEAN OLD THOMAS HARDY
Tess of the d’Urbervilles was appalling;
Jude the Obscure was even grimmer than that.
But what can you expect of a man
Who gave the name ‘Kiddleywinkempoops’
To his cat?
The problem with the name ‘Kiddleywinkempoops’
Is that engraving it on a tombstone costs a lot,
So when the cat grew old, Hardy shortened it
To ‘Trot’.
But Hardy was himself to be buried twofold:
In Westminster Abbey his body, in Dorset his heart.
Unfortunately the heart was left out on a table
And the cat ate it. Hah! Serves him right,
Mean old fart.
2. BEST SELLER
People call their pets strange names
Like Scampiwoogle and Mister Brown
But I’d want to be called ‘Bestseller’
So they couldn’t put me down
MATHS FOR MORONS
I always had problems with numbers:
Numerically challenged, that’s me.
So I bought a book called ‘Maths for Morons –
Two for the price of three’.
THE HUNGRY CROWD
There’s a noise in the street
From the hungry crowd
The rich man stands
At his window gazing
When the noise from the street
Becomes too loud
He gets double glazing
PUZZLE
Out beyond the shipping lanes,
Far from any land,
A freak wave sinks your boat:
You grab the things to hand
And jump into a life raft
To float upon the deep.
Which things do you throw away
And which things do you keep?
Some water but no radio,
Some biscuits but no phone,
A shaving minor, brush and razor,
This is all you own.
One of these could save your life
But which one might it be?
A plane flies high above your head
Across the endless sea
COMPETITIVE
Don’t blame me
For being competitive:
Nature competes,
From the squid to the squirrel.
No-one was born
From a spermatozoon
That stepped to one side
And said ‘After you, Cyril…’.
THE PLEASANT SORT
We had an outage at our house.
The electricity went down.
I couldn’t use my TV, DVD, PC,
Or charge my mobile phone.
I would have played some tennis
But there was no-one at the court,
So I sat and chatted with my wife:
She seems a pleasant sort.
UNEASY LIES THE HEAD THAT WEARS A CROWN
(Shakespeare, Henry IV Part II)
Uneasy lies the head
That wears a crown
Well, you try wearing one
When you’re lying down
The spikes tear the pillows
The polish turns them green
And it’s even worse
If you sleep with a queen
You both get frisky
In the middle of the night
Your crowns get locked together
Like stags in a fight
The prongs leave you bloodier
Than a côte de boeuf
If you’ve got a crown on
Forget soixante-neuf
Uneasy lies the head
That wears a crown
Never ever wear one
When you’re lying down
LUNCH AT THE DESK
Boxes poxes
Twixes Coxes
Crisps and chocs is
Not for me
Three-hour munches
Claret punches
That’s what proper
Lunch should be
Boxes poxes
Twixes Coxes
Shares and stocks is
Not the point
Stock’s for sauces
On the courses
Pass the peas and
Carve the joint
THE PASSING-OUT PARADE
The sun shone down
The lines of soldiers swayed
And crumpled to the ground
At the passing-out parade
COME GALLOP
I married a man of a hundred and four
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
He came to my bedroom and flung wide the door
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
As he ripped off his shirt he said with a roar,
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
So we galloped and galloped and galloped some more
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
We galloped in bed and upon the hard floor
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
In the wardrobe, the bathtub and back to the door
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
Then he left with a bow and a suave ‘Au revore’
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
But half an hour later he came back for more!
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
We galloped, we galloped, we galloped and then
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
We galloped and galloped and galloped again
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
And he left with his bow and his suave ‘Au revore’
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
But half an hour later he came back for more!
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
I said ‘Sir, for a man of a hundred and four,
Comegallop come gallop come gallop with me
You’re amazing!
Three times you have come through that door!
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
He said, ‘What, have I been here before?’
Come gallop come gallop come gallop with me
HOW AM I DRIVING?
I followed a van
The other day
It was revving
And dodging
And swerving
With stamina
On the back
Where it says
‘How am I driving?’
Someone had written
You bribed
The examiner
WHAT MATTERS IS WHEN
There’s less of me now
Than there was before
There’s less of me left
To mourn the more
There’s less of me now
Then when I was small
There’s less of you too
There’s less of us all
There’s less of us now
Than way back when
Our mothers would say
Now then now then
Then now then now
Now then now then
Less or more is how
What matters is when
THE FUTURE CALLS
I rang my office number
And a man’s voice, just like mine,
Said ‘Ashley, Jones and Plumber –
Can you hold the line?´
‘I held their line for years’, I said,
‘A clock was all I got.
But on the whole they weren’t so bad –
They’re quite a cheerful lot.
Presumably they’re down the pub;
Ashley’s telling jokes
And Plumber’s buying rounds of beer.
I miss them all, those blokes.’
‘So you were a partner, then?’
‘I’ve just become one too.
If you leave your name and number,
We’ll get back to you.’
’They never took me with them,’
I said. ´Left me on my own.
‘Eating corned beef sandwiches
And answering the phone.
I later found they would have liked
To take me if I’d said.
But I was shy, and didn’t ask,
So stayed at work instead.’
‘Eating corned beef sandwiches?’
He said, ‘Now there’s a thing.
‘I’ve got one here in front of me!’
I said, ‘Don’t tell me. And a wing –
‘A chicken wing, with gherkins?’
‘And some of Aunt Anne’s bread?’
‘Why – yes,’ he said. ‘Look, who are you?’
But then the line went dead
WHEELIE BIN LADEN
The enemy is everywhere
He’s in your front garden
That dustman over there
Could be Wheelie Bin Laden
TWO POLICE POEMS
ROZZERS IN THE CHIPPY
Rozzers in the chippy
Buying bits of cod
Caps and belts and handcuffs
But no sniffer dog
Thank God
COPPERS
Sergeant Todd was arresting
I let him lead me away
Dear Bill Todd, now’s he’s resting
And my own hair’s turning grey
But as I go down the High Street
There’s coppers across the way
You can keep your TV cameras
Give me coppers any day
GREETING NOT GRIEVING
Down in Departures they’re weeping
And waiting with nothing to say.
After they’ve stood there for hours
The body gets taken away.
Up in Arrivals they’re waving
And laughing and shouting ‘Hurray!´
The airport´s for greeting, not grieving.
It was lovely to have you to stay,
We enjoyed going out there to meet you,
The hugs could have lasted all day,
But the airport’s for greeting, not grieving:
We’ll drop you and then drive away.
THREE BLIND MICE
Hello Jonathan,
We noticed that you hovered over one or two items
On our website, but didn’t click on the mouse.
Just in case your mouse has a defect of any kind,
Or is for example one of three mice that are blind
To our generous carving-knife offers, we thought
We would give you this further opportunity
To visit the site and see for yourself.
If you are still not convinced, our representative
In your area, the wife of a well-known local farmer,
Will be visiting you shortly.
FOOD AND FAITHS
Which religion eats what
Is one of life’s trickier questions
Basically you have to remember
That Hindus don’t eat beef
Muslims don’t eat pork
Christians eat anything
And lions eat Christians
HAVING ENORMOUS EXTREMITIES
Having enormous extremities
Is not always that much fun
I have enormous extremities
At least, that is, every extremity
But one
(Pause)
(Point to nose)
THE PLASTIC MOTOR
New! Plastic motor!
Cheap as cheap can be!
New! Plastic motor!
Full two-hour guarantee!
PSLIGHTLY PSORIATIC PSIMON
Pslightly psoriatic Psimon
Pscrubs himself with psaddle psoap
Next he takes some psilocybin
Which is fortunate for rhyming
And sees pterodactyls climbing
Through his window on a rope
A pseudopseudohypopara-
Thyroidistic little sparrer
Ptarmigans with psitticosis
Some with glasses on their gnosis
Psimon takes a few more doses
In his psychedelic pspree
Then before his courage falters
Bashes all of them with psalters
And goes off to have a pee
LITTLE WORDIES ON THE PAGE
Little wordies on the page
Dance along behind my pen
Bees and seas and peas and teas
To the end then back again
Little wordies in the inkwell
Waiting to come out and dance
So I suck my pen and thinkwell
Wordies only get one chance
Cross them out and they get crosser
Thinking they’ll be thrown away
‘Put that bottle down, you dosser!’
All the little wordies say
So I set aside the scrumpy
And the whisky and the gin
Then the wordies don’t get grumpy
Happy not to hit the bin
Writers writing write it rightly
And you will escape their rage
They will treat you quite politely
Little wordies on the page
TEST TUBE GENERATION
It’s all gone wrong
We’re effyouseecade
It’s all gone wrong
Life’s too much to bear
It’s all gone wrong
We’re effyouseecade
But it all went wrong
When we no longer were
NARCISSUS
After Oscar Wilde
‘Why do you weep?’
The river is asked.
‘Narcissus looked in me,”
The river replies.
‘How I did tremble
To gaze up at him
And see my beauty
Reflected in his eyes!”
FACEBOOK WHATSAPP INSTAGRAM AND SNAPCHAT
Facebook WhatsApp Instagram and Snapchat
Aren’t they wonderful, isn’t life a ball
Facebook WhatsApp Instagram and Snapchat
Twitter and witter and titter with them all
Facebook WhatsApp Instagram and Snapchat
Don’t miss your messages, answer when they call
But never check your e-mails, e-mails are boring
And what’s that thing with a slit in the wall?
YESTERDAY WE SOLD TOMORROW
Yesterday we sold tomorrow
Now it’s time for us to pay
Now there’s nothing left to borrow
Now tomorrow is today
THE HORSES
To the bedroom
In the small house
Of the recently departed
Come
One by one
The horses
Their clothes
Slowly drying
In a new day’s sun
A POEM FOR CONDOLENCE
The curtain falls
The crowd applauds
The actor bows
And leaves the scene
For years to come
Our heart recalls
The great performance
We have seen
To be is not to be
My lords
To be
Is to have been
MISCELLANEOUS VERSE
From the magazine ‘Contact’
Said The Penguin
A hexalogy in 6 issues
1.
I was in a car with a penguin.
The cops pulled us over.
‘Get out of the car! Freeze,
Stop the engine!
What is this? You should take him to the zoo!”
‘I did, we went yesterday. He loved it.
We’re going to the movies today,’
Said the penguin.
Said The Penguin
2.
So, the penguin and I go to the cinema
To see a film. The woman next to me
Gives me an astonished look.
‘I can’t believe that penguin
Is watching this film!’, she says.
‘Neither can I’, I tell her.
‘He hated the book’.
Said The Penguin
3.
The film I saw in the cinema with a penguin
Was about the Titanic. The penguin was unmoved.
He’d been in the film himself
As an extra, until the producers discovered
There are no penguins in the Northern Hemisphere.
He said, ‘The free coffee was a nice perk,
But there was lots of waiting around
And swopping stories. The polar bears told me
They’d gone to the shipping office
The day after the Titanic sank
To ask if there was any news of the iceberg.’
Said The Penguin
4.
I said, ‘It’s cold today!’
The penguin said, ‘This is nothing,
Where I come from, it’s so cold,
The words come out of your mouth frozen
And you have to heat them
To see what you’ve said.
This is cold? Bejesus,
In my part of the world, it’s so cold
That the flame on the candle freezes.’
He spun a good yarn, that penguin.
Said The Penguin
A hexalogy in 6 issues
N’ 5
There were ushers in the cinema
Where I went With the penguin
So, I put him under my overcoat.
After a while he got bored, and
Pecked through it with two or three cuts.
There were ladies next to me.
I heard one of them say,
‘Look, Ws got his thing out!’
The other one said, ‘So what?
You’ve seen one before, haven’t you?’
And her friend said, ‘Yes,
But his is eating my peanuts!’
Said The Penguin
A hexalogy in 6 issues
N’6
When the penguin and I left the cinema
They gave us balloons like the Titanic.
The car broke down
So, we hitched a lift with a three-legged dwarf
On a monocycle. She was taken in for peddling
And I was at the trial. Asked by the magistrate,
‘IS it true that on the 16th Of November
You were seen ping down Notting Hill Gate
On a monocycle, in the company Of a three-legged dwarf,
Two large silver and a penguin?’
I said, ‘Sorry, your honour, could you repeat the date?
Rome in a day
A visitor to Roma had called to see the Pope.
‘Are you staying long?’ His Holiness enquired.
‘l wish to know the city. A day, is what I hope’.
‘Splendid! ‘ said the pontiff. ‘No more is required.’
‘Rome in a day! Delightful! Amaretto?’
‘Thank you’, said the visitor. ‘Of course I had desired
To stay a week at least.’ ‘A week… yes, it could be done…’
Murmured His Holiness, a little feebly.
‘Or a month?’ ‘A month!’ ‘Or even a year, maybe.’
‘A year!’ cried the Pope. ‘Know Rome in a year? Imposibile! ‘
MANATEES
I’m a man at ease
Like manatees
That float around the bay
A lot of weed
IS all they need
And rest throughout the day
Like students
Of humanities
Are manatees, BA
HEAD COOK
I got a job in the palace
I was Head Cook to the King
Each time the guillotine rose and fell
My bell would ring
I did tête d’amant de la Reine à la sauge
Téte de républicain
Téte d’adultére, sauce Limoges
And of course
Coq au vin
This is the life for me
HOUSE LIGHTS UP
Stage lights down
House lights up
Interval
House leaves seat
NO SMOKING
Says the sign inside
So house lights up
Outside in street
THE SPEAR OF DESTINY
The spear of destiny
Is poised to be thrown
At the very moment
When mankind discovers
The secret of existence
Mankind will be
Inadvertently
Obliterated
Which may seem
A bit of a whoopsie
But is foreseen
Under God’s law
It is the law
Of the spear Of Destiny
Also known
As SOD’s law
CATCHABLE HEART
‘Catchable heart!’
Cried the commentator,
Kiwi in voice and name.
‘Half arves in the field,
It’s tiken!’
So back from the crease you came,
Past my seat on the boundary,
Pain in your eyes of blue:
I wanted to leap up and tell you
My heart was catchable too
UNFELLOW
I am an unfellow
Unbegotten
Unexisting
Unlamented
Let my grave
Unhallowed be
I am an unfellow
Unbegotten
Unexisting
Unlamented
You have
Unfollowed me
VIN DE CAROTTE
Two snowmen were talking one night
Over a bottle of claret.
One said, ‘Well, I hope it’s all right.
To me, everything smells of carrot.’
CITIZEN INDEPENDENT
Every citizen should have a mission
To become a politician
Pericles’ direct descendant
Freedom’s tireless defendant
In your party robes resplendent
Or you can always
Citizen independent
HOW DO I LOVE THEE?
After Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
On my calculator, using the LoveCount app.
You will not notice, for your lowered gaze
Is tending to more urgent matters in your lap
And for a while, before the embers die
And both our lights have gone from green to red,
We will recall our days together, you and I,
Especially the top of each others’ head
GETTING ON
You got on the bus
And I got on
We chatted as we sat
And we got on
I got off with you
And time moved on
It’s been a few years now
We’re getting on
But still the bus comes by
And we get on
OUT
The light looked up
Between the bars
And saw the heavens
Hung with stars
It longed to flee
Its tiny cell
To shine on sea
And fen and fell
But then a gust
Of time flew by
Blew wide the door
Threw wide the sky…
The cell goes dark
The jailers shout
But it’s too late
The light’s gone
