Exclamation Mark!

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Mark was his name!
He would shout and proclaim!

Every sentence he wrote
would end just the same!

He would assert! He would blurt!
He would ejaculate and spurt!
Each line was a screamer!
A gasper! A slammer! A shrieker!
A literary loudspeaker!!!

Frankly, it all began to needle and nark!
Why did no one think to question Mark?

Read My Lips

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

I don’t need a lover
who’s a looker,
just someone who knows
the shortlist
for this year’s Booker,

with an insightful view on
Doris Lessing or Ian McEwan,
being satanically well-versed
in Salman Rushdie,
and would find it cushty
to share pillow talk
about the work of A.S. Byatt.

Yes, that would be a riot.

I could never judge a lover
by her cover,
be swayed by make-up
or a fancy hair do;
I’d much rather her be intimate
with À la recherche du temps perdu.

To be clear, I’m not talking
Fifty Shades of Grey here,
but finding someone
who knows their way around
the complete works of Shakespeare.

I would rip out my heart
and write her name upon it
if she can recite to me
his eighteenth sonnet.

So don’t give me eyes
to get lost in;
I’d rather have a heated debate
about Jane Austen.

I don’t care if she talks
in a Donald Duck voice,
if, together, we can thumb
through the stories of Joyce,

nor will we ever feel
an unbridgeable gulf
if neither of us are afraid
of Virginia Woolf.

You see, one thing I’ve learnt
as I’ve got older
is that literature
lights up love
and makes it smoulder

and that beauty
is in the eye
of the book holder.

Whither the 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
at the shallow-bowled moon,
ponder the poet who perished
for want of a spoon.

Lapse

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Housework got neglected,
dirty dishes stacked,
because people
had cats
who sat
on their laps.

Careers were stalled,
all plans got scrapped,
because people
had cats
who sat
on their laps.

Whole cities crumbled,
economies collapsed,
because people
had cats
who sat
on their laps.

Aliens invaded,
Earth got attacked,
while the people
with the cats
who sat
on their laps,
just sat there
with the cats
who sat
on their laps.

A Farewell to Arms

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

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

Poem For International Yoga Day

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

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.