Selected poems

Priorities

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Oliver spent his days
fashioning word sculptures
hewn from the alabaster
of the English language,
using his imagination as a mallet
and his wit, a chisel.

His wife, Denise, sighed
and wished Oliver
would get a move on
in fixing the dripping tap
in the downstairs bathroom.

DESEMICOLONISATION

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Following the Pedants’ Revolt,
it was clear the semi-colons had to go.
Nit-picking sticklers sickened
by the centuries of their abuse,
misuse and misplacement oversaw
their displacement overseas.

Sentenced to de-sentencing,
they found themselves deported
to semi-colonies where
they could do no further harm.
Related clauses were reunited
or sadly, in some cases, split up.

Occasionally rogue semi-colons
would still be found; in a newspaper;
an obscure monograph; a badly-written poem.
The rebel writers would live in fear
of the knock at the door and
the heavy boots of the grammar police.

Sometimes these authors would
suddenly disappear, mysteriously,
before they had even fini

The Tomes of Death

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

She died
at the side
of the road,
collapsed
from the weight
of her load.

On the paving flags,
tumbling out
from her bags
were three tomes
she’d tried
to carry home:
1001 Films You Must See,
Books You Must Read,
and Food You Must Try
Before You Die.

A Surprise Ending

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

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.

Whither Spoons?

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Whither 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.

Come away, come away, come away, my lover

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Come 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, Selected poems

She 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.