Poem

The Clowns

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Know this: those commuters
causing commotions on locomotions
with their funny fold-up bikes,
the vélo origamists of the vestibule,
are out-of-town clowns.

Their bags do not house laptops
or dossiers of documents,
but wigs and whistles, red noses,
hand-buzzers and balloons,
water-spraying carnations, outsized shoes,
giant toothbrushes, chickens.

Follow them out of the station,
post-disembarkation.
Observe the nearness of their feet
to the saddle as they straddle
their bicycles and comically pedal
through London street puddles,
and peddle their selection
of slapstick services
to city centre circuses.

Beards

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Beards grew on men’s faces,
inched past belts and braces,
slithered over shoe laces,
spread across floors,
crept under doors,
stretched across streets,
became entwined and entangled
at all kinds of angles
’til the ground disappeared,
drowning in beard.

Oceans got clogged
and mountains hogged
by the hirsuteness
that took rootness
as attempts to halt
the barbate bombardment
proved fruitless.

No glimmers of hope,
no trimmers could cope,
the vanity of humanity’s
destruction impending;
a hairy tale ending.

Logomachy

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

To say that Damian
was sesquipedalian
would be an understatement
for there was no abatement
in his capacity for loquacity
nor lack of temerity
in his pursuit
of verbal dexterity.

It was precisely this pomposity
mixed with verbosity
which made him describe
Kieran Thomas as “crepuscular”.
Kieran Thomas was also more muscular.

Damian nursed his black eye
and hoped Kieran
might be struck down with
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis.

Australia

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

on a beach in Bournemouth in ’79,
holidaying with some parents of mine,
i attempted to dig a tunnel
down to Australia

the project was a failure

but the memory of that day stayed;
i should have used a bigger spade

Why the chicken crossed the road

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

I saw the chicken cross the road,
deep set in contemplation.
So I put my cap on and followed
to end all the speculation.

He ducked down an alleyway,
then suddenly stopped dead
below a sign that gently swayed,
upon which said The Gag’s Head.

On the door, he went knock-knock
“Who’s there?” “Me. Chicken”
He was quickly ushered in
and the plot began to thicken.

I peered in through the window
to get a better look at the place;
the first thing that caught my eye
was a horse with a long face.

The horse was looking at something
black and white and red all over,
while stroking a dog without a nose
who emitted a terrible odour.

Next to them was a big chimney,
smoking in front of his son,
and Pikachu who had missed the bus
because nobody poked him on.

An Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman
were all standing there in a group,
talking to an elephant in a fridge
and a fly doing breaststroke in soup.

The chicken ordered himself a beer
and began a night of boozing
to escape from a joke of a life
made not of his own choosing.

I looked on sadly for a little more
before deciding I’d better split;
the first rule of joke format club
is nobody talks about it.

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