Poem
Come away, come away, come away, my lover
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsCome 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 poemsShe 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.
The Romance of the Cup
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsColin loved the Cup,
more than the plate or the saucer,
or the complete works
of Geoffrey Chaucer.
He stopped seeing his mates,
took it out on dates,
to the museum, the pictures,
to Pam’s All-American diner,
Colin and his old china.
He drank from it greedily,
speedily, needily
until one night, in a bath
lit by a water-lily floating candle,
he asked for its handle
in marriage.
Some said that to wed
crockery made a mockery
of matrimony
and remembered with acrimony
the time his sister, Trish,
got engaged to a ramekin dish.
But one week before the big day,
he slipped while carrying
the breakfast tray,
its contents fell to the floor
and clattered.
Colin’s Cup dreams lay shattered.
Upon Awakening to the Sound of Distant Rumbles
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsHe awakes from seasonal slumbers,
to distant rumbles. A storm approaching,
perhaps, or the muffled guns from
the ghost of a war long since waged
upon faded fields.
The dawn chorus wakens the dead and
rattles the brain as the back street clatter
recedes into murmured memory and the
awful truth emerges. Bin day! The revised
collection days due to the Christmas holiday.
Thoughts fly unbidden to the rooms
of recycling, Pennines of packaging,
glaciers of glass, corridors of cardboard and cartons,
growing, overflowing, silently creeping up the staircase,
across the landing, clawing at the bedroom door.
The horror! The horror!
He lies there and tries to collect himself.
A Sticky End
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsOn the phone, the police found some photos
Of its owner skewered on a hilltop in Devon.
It appeared his possession of a selfie stick
Provided both the motive and murder weapon.
Satsumas are the Only Fruit
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsO how I love to consume a satsuma!
A satsuma a day leads to good humour.
To obtain one I would fight a lion or puma
or risk the revenge of wrathful Montezuma.
For the sweet taste of just one satsuma
I would listen to a concerto of tuba,
learn the three major dialects of Yoruba,
read the minutes of the 1906 Duma.
The merest rumour of a buried satsuma
would see me turn fructo-archaeologist/exhumer.
Juicy-sweet segmental sensation!
Luscious litmus-testing, citrus-besting Christmas elation!
O how I love to consume a Satsuma!
It is also easier to rhyme than orange.
Terry’s Mistake
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsSurveying his handiwork,
Terry realised he’d made a mistake
in buying Italy for Jo’s Christmas present.
Not only did it take ages to wrap up
but she was bound to guess what it was
by its distinctive boot-like shape.
He now also needed to get a bigger tree.
supermarket
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsin the supermarket of her love life,
she rummaged in the rubble of reduced items,
looking for something edible,
if perhaps not entirely credible
later,
in the bagging area of her bed,
she found the unexpected item of Fred
After the Fall
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsAfter he fell off the wall and it became clear
That all the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put him together again,
He was taken home.
His wife looked at him.
He wasn’t like the egg she used to know.
He was cracked and broken
And wouldn’t come out of his shell.
That’s the end of my love life,
Thought Mrs Humpty Dumpty,
No more rumpty-pumpty.
Brian Bilston