Selected Proverbs

Assorted Poems, Some poems

A fool and his hair are soon parted.
Do not put all your baskets on one egg.
People who live in glasshouses shouldn’t.
Summer comes before a Fall.

Don’t count your line drawings before they are hatched.
History repeats itself.
If at first you don’t suck seed, try, try a grain.
Incidents will happen.

A flat tyre will get you nowhere.
A watched pot gathers no moss.
Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to be Fish
and he’ll ask Kayleigh whether it’s too late to say he’s sorry.

He who hesitates is … um …
Don’t get mad, get even madder.
A leotard cannot change its spots.
History repeats itself.

The Day We Argued About Roman Numerals

Assorted Poems, Some poems

Of that day when we argued,
my memory is VIVID;
I, for one, remained CIVIL
but you ended up LIVID.

Please take these words for I need them not

Assorted Poems, Some poems

Com ppance

Assorted Poems, Some poems

Things work both ways, of course.
And so the EU left our language,
waited not for any half-mumbled logy,
bade no adi .
And the rosceptics,
felt no phoria,
outmano vred as they were.

Words found themselves misconstrued.
There were bitter f ds
raised fists, Fr dian slips,
few remained n tral.
Unemployment rose –
amongst mass rs, chauff rs, n roscientists –
and mus ms closed.

The country got roomier
and rh mier,
a mausol m to memories of imperial grand r,
mixing racial slurs
with a sip from a glass of Pimms
and a snip of secat rs.

Man of Action

Assorted Poems, Some poems

I am writing to report
my dissatisfaction.

How dare you say
I am not a man of action.

You say I like:

to sleep,
to loaf,
to lie around,

to drift,
to dawdle,
to loll and lounge.

All verbs, I note:
have you not heard

that verbs are known
as doing words?

Best seen, not heard

Assorted Poems, Some poems

Writing poems which rhyme can be tricky and tough
for words often look like they’re from the same bough,
yet the end of each line sounds quite different, though,
and best hidden behind a hiccough or cough.

I wonder, did this bother Byron or Yeats?
Or Larkin or Wordsworth, Auden or Keats?
Were opportunities presented or simply just threats?
Could they think up their rhymes without caveats?

But what should it matter when all’s said and done
if you should read this as scone when I meant scone?
It’s hardly a crime for which you need to atone;
it would all be baloney to an abalone.

So perhaps I should not be quite so afeard.
Some poems are best seen rather than heard.