Some names like Beauchamp,
get mispronounced
unless you teauchamp,
thought Niamh Cholmondley,
glolmondley.
Some names like Beauchamp,
get mispronounced
unless you teauchamp,
thought Niamh Cholmondley,
glolmondley.
he found
a mound
of a million dismembered sleeves,
piled up like leaves,
chopped and lopped
from all the world’s
tank tops
sleeves
which grieved
and felt bereaved
sleeves
which felt
they had underachieved
disarmed,
embalmed,
lacking in vim,
left out on a limb
You should never
do yoga
in a toga;
it’s hard.
Far better to wear
a leotard.
But do check first
it’s not
a leopard
in case you place
your life
in jeopard
y.
Gimme a kiss, a smooch,
a snog, a smacker.
Light up my lips
with a lusty firecracker.
Please don’t ignore this;
let us conjoin our labia oris.
Because I’m a sucker
for the way
that you pucker.
I hope
that our lips
get stucker and stucker.
So let’s osculate now,
I can’t help myself.
Oh, sorry, I thought
you were somebody else.
Frisbee whizzing
through the air
above our heads
over the sand
into the water
onto the waves
out to sea.
You cried a lot that day.
Frisbee was a lovely dog.
La belle Una Stubbio, flicki-kicki subbuteo,
Lei è well beautio, charade di muteo.
Let us go then, you and I,
When I have finished this quorn and mushroom pie,
And cleared away the table;
Let us go, through sterile shopping malls,
Consumer cathedrals
Of bargain baskets in poundshop aisles
And cut-price calendars of Harry Styles:
To lead you to an underwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What are you on about?”
Let us go and work it out.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Barry Manilow.
And indeed there will be time
For selfies in fastfood restaurant toilets,
Or dirtied department store changing rooms;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare your face for Instagram;
There will be time for Facebook and for Twitter,
And time for all your life’s minutae
To be spread like butter across the sky;
Time for blackjack in the new casino,
Before the taking of a frappuccino.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Paolo di Canio.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I care?” and, “Do I care?”
Time to turn back and listen to Cher,
With my newly grown facial hair —
(They will say: “Throw his pipe into a bin!”)
My frayed tank top, wearing thin,
The quadrupling of my double chin —
(They will see the fade of tattoos upon my skin).
I should have been a piece of unsuspected lego
Embedding myself into the soles of yellowed feet.
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall subscribe to UK Comedy Gold.
Shall I become thin and frail? Do I dare to eat some kale?
Regardless, I will always hate the Daily Mail.
I have heard the boy bands singing on the radio.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them dancing on Saturday night talent shows
Prowling the stage with their hair blown back
When the wind machine whirls and their jaws go slack.
We have suffered the agony of the buffering page,
Lapsed into a sleeping silence, the uncomprehending frown,
Till Katie Hopkins wakes us, and we drown.
I’ve never seen
Game of Thrones.
To me, it’s one
of those known unknowns.
Does it rhyme with “scones”
or “scones”?
Sometimes I feel so alones.
it’s not the way you walk
it’s not the way you talk
it’s the way
that you wield
a spork
queenly exponent
of hybrid cutlery
you make my stomach
utterly
fluttery
one minute,
your pronging
fills me with longing
the next,
you scoop to conquer
it’s driving me bonquers
elegant elision,
practised precision,
your spork
lights the spark
in my heart