We all have a book in us;
but only a few
have two.
Like Howard,
who devoured
The Selected Plays of Noel Coward
but to his surprise,
before his very eyes,
he saw his abdomen distend
and it came out Howard’s End.
Month: January 2015
Whither Spoons?
Assorted Poems, Some poemsWhither the spoons
in my cutlery drawer?
Of spoons it is empty
but it used to hold four.
I checked the dishwasher,
and I scoured the floor
(then scoured it again,
just to be sure).
Whither the spoons
in my cutlery drawer?
Of knives and forks,
I have plenty in store.
But what use is a knife
except as a saw?
And what good is a fork
except as a claw?
Whither the spoons
in my cutlery drawer?
For scooping and stirring,
it’s the spoon I adore.
And should one day you look up
at the shallow-bowled moon,
please ponder the poet who perished
for want of a spoon.
An Ode to Lego
Assorted Poems, Some poems
Come away, come away, come away, my lover
Assorted Poems, Some poemsCome away, come away, come away, my lover,
Come away to the cherry tree,
Where lovers sit and sing to each other
The songs of Gwen Stefani.
No.
Come away, come away, come away, my lover,
Come away to the apple tree,
Where lovers sit and discuss with each other
The best bits from Casualty.
Please go away.
Come away, come away, come away, my lover,
Come away to the old beech tree,
Where lovers sit and read to each other
The novels of Maeve Binchy.
You are freaking me out now. I’ve never even met you before.
Come away, come away, come away, my lover,
Come away to the poplar tree,
Where lovers sit and debate with each other
The fight scenes in Rocky III.
Right, I’m calling the police.
Run away, run away, run away, dear poet,
Run away to the sycamore tree,
Where poets hide in the thick, green foliage
To avoid captivity.
Her Universe
Assorted Poems, Some poemsShe gazed up into the night sky
with intensity
and pondered the immensity
of the observable universe.
Space seemed so spacious,
forty-six billion light years in radius,
with recent astronomical analyses
suggesting one hundred billion galaxies
and stars numbering
three hundred sextillion
(give or take a few thousand billion).
Even if she set off soon,
a walk to the moon
would take three thousand days
which, to coin a phrase,
would be sheer lunacy.
The universe held her spellbound
in its unimaginable boundlessness
until the phone rang
and she went back inside
her cramped one-bedroom flat in Croydon
to answer it.
The Romance of the Cup
Assorted Poems, Some poemsColin loved the Cup,
more than the plate or the saucer,
or the complete works
of Geoffrey Chaucer.
He stopped seeing his mates,
took it out on dates,
to the museum, the pictures,
to Pam’s All-American diner,
Colin and his old china.
He drank from it greedily,
speedily, needily
until one night, in a bath
lit by a water-lily floating candle,
he asked for its handle
in marriage.
Some said that to wed
crockery made a mockery
of matrimony
and remembered with acrimony
the time his sister, Trish,
got engaged to a ramekin dish.
But one week before the big day,
he slipped while carrying
the breakfast tray,
its contents fell to the floor
and clattered.
Colin’s Cup dreams lay shattered.
Upon Awakening to the Sound of Distant Rumbles
Assorted Poems, Some poemsHe awakes from seasonal slumbers,
to distant rumbles. A storm approaching,
perhaps, or the muffled guns from
the ghost of a war long since waged
upon faded fields.
The dawn chorus wakens the dead and
rattles the brain as the back street clatter
recedes into murmured memory and the
awful truth emerges. Bin day! The revised
collection days due to the Christmas holiday.
Thoughts fly unbidden to the rooms
of recycling, Pennines of packaging,
glaciers of glass, corridors of cardboard and cartons,
growing, overflowing, silently creeping up the staircase,
across the landing, clawing at the bedroom door.
The horror! The horror!
He lies there and tries to collect himself.
