Budding lovers beware
of the Flowers of the Garage Forecourt;
they are not for courting.
Love will not blossom
with the Flowers of the Garage Forecourt,
these blundering bouquets
of cellophaned sadness:
the slip-road roses and tarmacked tulips,
petrol pump peonies
and crushed-dream chrysanthemums.
All those dahlias of desperation.
The I-forgot-you forget-me-nots.
Please know this, would-be customers
of the Flowers of the Garage Forecourt:
romance wilts with a lack of forethought.
(with Autocorrect turned on)
O what Brave New Worm is this
That holes you, my sweet darting love?
I see you in the stairs that twinkle
In the heavy above.
Your light shins down upon me
and sets my heart on fir.
You stir up my emoticons
And fill me with dessert.
I gazebo upon your lovely Facebook.
Your rainy nose, sweet, unmissable,
The blue-greed eyes like limpet pools,
And your petty mouse, juicy and kissable.
Come with me, Angle of my Dreams,
Hold my ham and journalist into the night
And together lettuce explore the worm,
Over the horizontal and out of sigh.
Brian felt confused,
his brain out of order,
his reward was a prison,
without need of a warder.
For Pam was an anagram,
a crumpled map with no key
and while desserts often stressed him,
he’d gladly eat her for tea.
Maybe she was married
or had some other admirer?
But still hope’s thin flame resided
in his heart; he desired her.
He was held rapt in a trap
and would think of her hourly.
She was wordy, she was rowdy;
she might come with a dowry.
He felt angered. Enraged.
World-weary. Wired. Weird.
He couldn’t declare his feelings
until his head cleared.
He explored all the angles,
prayed to the angels above;
for he wasn’t filling a novel
but rather falling in love.
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.
Colin 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.
Brian Bilston 