When a young lady brandishing whips and chains
Said, “do you like a girl with brains?”,
I said, “dear Lou,
I most certainly do!
But please can you stop brandishing those chains!”
When a young lady brandishing whips and chains
Said, “do you like a girl with brains?”,
I said, “dear Lou,
I most certainly do!
But please can you stop brandishing those chains!”
I heard children at play
On a spring day.
Their voices full of pleasure
In sunny weather.
The ice cream van came,
Then the wild wind
And the rain
Came and shook the glass
In my window frames
And reminded me
Of man’s fragility.
“A Century of Nature Stories”, left on a ledge
In a bare room.
Did perfume
Once linger here?
A spinster lived and died
In this place
We made our home
For a little while.
“A Century of Nature Stories”,
What did that mean to you?
An old tome
Left in your former home?
I recall horses on the wall
Of my bedroom.
I think you would have approved
But I will never know
For you died long ago.
I regret we never met.
The memory of that book has stuck with me
And I would like to ask you
What it meant to you.
You came from a different age.
I imagine you would have engaged
With books
And the garden with the Crab Apple Tree.
What would you have thought of this age
Obsessed with technology, where quiet
Is so often replaced by formless riot, of people
Who have lost
What they can not regain,
And I can not explain.
You where anchored in your home and time.
I have a rhyme
Of a lady I never knew
And thoughts of what may be true.
Or at least half true.
When I went to a swingers bar
With a girl who calls herself Marr
A police constable named Flair
Danced nude on a chair –
But you should have seen Miss Marr …!
I am pleased to let you know that my poem “I am Tired” has been included in the latest episode of Dodo Modern Poets. To listen to “I am Tired” and the other poet’s work, please visit https://dodomodernvidpoets2022.blogspot.com/.
I listened using Google Chrome. (For some reason none of the poems would play for me using Microsoft’s Edge browser. If you do get Edge to work for you, please do let me know)!
There was a young lady named Polly
Who was known for her love of melancholy.
Her verse was so sad
It drove us all mad
So we exiled that girl to a folly
There once was a young lady in slippers
Who was famous for her custard and kippers.
Her food was real nice
But that girl’s only vice
Was serving kippers whilst dressed in just slippers …!
Sometimes I dwell on the impermanence of things.
In early spring the birds sing.
And I pass by grass green from rain.
But the grass will not stay.
The mower will come in sun or rain
And make sweet hay.
But the hay will rot away.
Rain will return again
And I will pass by grass
Lush from the rain
Until I am as the hay.
There once was a writer named Hatch
Who was fond of having a scratch.
He liked to write
With his dog White
Whose fleas would cause Hatch to scratch!
The alarm warns me
That my tea
Is ready for me
In the microwave.
There is nothing profound
In It’s sound
Which will not save
Me from the grave
Where no bird
Is ever heard
And worms make tea
Of you and me.