When a young lady wearing only a hat
Went and invited me back to her flat,
And I said, “Rose!
Where are your clothes!”,
She said, “You’re silly! They’re at my flat!”
When a young lady wearing only a hat
Went and invited me back to her flat,
And I said, “Rose!
Where are your clothes!”,
She said, “You’re silly! They’re at my flat!”
A patch of sunlight on the hall floor.
I close the living room door
And the light is seen no more.
I know the night kills the light
And the ferryman waits to take
Me to the final gate
Where there is no Cerberus
To prevent our escape.
Just what was us
And implacable fate.
I am marrying a young lady named Kate
Who will inherit all of my literary estate.
She says, “writers have money”,
Which I find really funny –
As she’ll inherit all of my literary estate …
The last
Of the summer grass
Is mown.
The future is unknown.
The past
May be a guide.
But we decide
What seed is sown.
But does grass
In the mower’s grasp
Feel itself free …
When a young lady named Jacinta
Went and trod on a splinter,
She hopped all around
And said something profound.
And then she cursed that splinter!
The wind is fresh
Carrying the scents of life and death.
While from a tree
The autumn leaves are falling on me.
I lose myself in rhymes
Of passing time
And others who once stood
In autumn’s wood.
My friend collects acorns from leaf-strewn lawns
Hoping that Oaks may grow.
Others may see the fully grown tree.
While we will not know.
When I met a young lady in red
Who said, “do you read when in bed?”,
I said, “dear Miss Ling
Do you fancy a fling?”,
She said, “I only read in my bed!”
Hearing you cry twice
I thought of rats and mice.
You live in my heart
Inspiring my art.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Your cry portended death.
When I hear your cry
I know I too must die.
But perhaps you and I
Will find in rhyme a kind
Of immortality –
Though, in the graveyard plot
It matters not.
A careless young lady named Miss White
Often falls in the street at night.
A kindly vicar called Paul
Said, “many young women fall”,
As he picked her up last night …!
Some speak of the inevitability of progress.
While I rhyme of springtime
And trees that bud in ancient woods.
But autumn will surely come
And the trees undress.
Bare branches breed despair in some.
But spring sun will come
And buds appear in gardens and woods.
For nature has her cycle
Of death and rebirth
And cares not for what
We label as progress.