BOXSET (WITHOUT A BOX) OF FUNNY POEMS

Currently drawing together my three poetry books for children (of all ages) into a

 "Boxset (Without A Box) Of Funny Poems" 

Individual paperbacks available from http://www.feedaread.com/

Juggling Jelly & The Chuckle Files are also available via Amazon Kindle.
The latest - Fun With Words, Fun With Rhyme - is only in paperback.

More on "Boxset (Without A Box) Of Funny Poems" soon. 



I would love to have the work considered for poetry anthologies.

I would love to write funny editorial for advertising agencies.

BLINKING SILLY (FROM NEW BOOK)

From my new book of funny poems (available here http://www.feedaread.com/ ) and soon via Amazon and other book sites

BLINKING SILLY

I thought I saw a dinosaur

Creeping up on me.

I’m sure I saw a dinosaur

As big as big can be.

But then I stopped and pondered,

I had a good old thinct,

It couldn’t be a dinosaur

‘Cos they are all extinct.

POETRY BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

My three poetry books for children (of all ages) -
paperbacks all available from http://www.feedaread.com/

Juggling Jelly & The Chuckle Files are also available via Amazon Kindle.
The latest - Fun With Words, Fun With Rhyme - is only in paperback.



I would love to have the work considered for poetry anthologies.

NEW BOOK: FUN WITH WORDS, FUN WITH RHYME

My new book is available now from http://www.feedaread.com/books/Fun-With-Words-Fun-With-Rhyme.aspx and soon from Amazon and all other online book sites.

The books are delivered in Amazon-quality outer packaging.

Fun With Words, Fun With Rhyme

By Joe Cushnan

I love poetry. Sometimes I don’t understand it but other times I get it, learn from it, am entertained by it and, occasionally and wonderfully, I laugh out loud at it. This book is called Fun With Words, Fun With Rhyme and, apart from sharing some new funny poems, I want it to be a book of encouragement to promote a lifelong love of books, bookshops and libraries. The poems can be read quietly or performed by and to enthusiastic, interactive audiences. There are those who, for whatever reason, have the ability but have not had the active encouragement to come back to the language and give it a great big hug. We can all do it. We can all write poems. We can be serious or funny, serious and funny, whatever we want to be. Our poems don’t have to be literary masterpieces, don’t have to be hifalutin, Nobel Prize nuggets of genius – although, if they are, good for us. The joy is in having a go, playing with words, playing with rhyme…..and having fun. Start with “the fat cat sat on the mat” or wherever you like. But, have a go. Like my old friend John, tear poems out of newspapers and magazines. Keep them in your pockets to read later or to give to others. Read poems out loud whenever you can to poetry groups, school classes, at parties – to yourself!

ISBN: 9781784079581

Total Pages: 101

Published: 12 August 2014

Price: £5.99

BIRTH OF HATRED

I went back to the birth of hatred, no further back,
even further back still, with a cudgel to beat the newborn
to a pulp, to kill it even before it had stuck its head out,
before the first gulp of worldly air, the first cry, my attack
would be surprise, out of the blue, the red mist ghosting
through the network of my veins like a rollercoaster 
in a theme park, my head dizzy, my heart thumping,
my chest heaving with intoxicating vengeance, boasting
that I would be the one from now to go back to then,
the hero of the lets-kill-this-fucking-thing and start over,
but hatred was out before I reached the ward doors,
and no amount of hopeless quests would drag it back in again. 

CAT POEMS

1

FEE LINE

The day the cat

swallowed cash

was not a cause for pity

for after all

the end result

was money in the kitty

2

FELINE SORE

A cat chap

had a mishap

with a cat flap

due to back slap

3 

KNIT CAT

Our cat married a ball of wool

because he was totally smitten

and very soon 

they were blessed

by the birth of a newborn mitten

4

PURRFECT

Intelligent cat,

meticulous cat,

when she was writing a letter

would work at the language

and aim for perfection, 

so she would get better and better.

Other cats sneered, 

insulted, derided

and call her a swot and a wuss,

but intelligent cat

stayed calm for she was

content as a grammar puss.

APPRECIATING TURQUOISE

I look ahead,

up the gradient

to the hilltop,

follow the white snow path

and watch it change,

victim of the playful sunlight,

to a kaleidoscope of colours

but especially to turquoise

and I am so emotional

because of the brightness and the dazzle,

my brow is furrowed,

my skull aches,

my eyes hurt so much

that I raise my arms and a scream

echoes to the summit, through ravines,

ditches and passes......

“Curse the bastard who stole my sunglasses!”

NEW BOOK - FUN WITH WORDS, FUN WITH THYME

ORDER NOW VIA www.feedaread.com

http://www.feedaread.com/books/Fun-With-Words-Fun-With-Rhyme.aspx

Fun With Words, Fun With Rhyme

By Joe Cushnan

I love poetry. Sometimes I don’t understand it but other times I get it, learn from it, am entertained by it and, occasionally and wonderfully, I laugh out loud at it. This book is called Fun With Words, Fun With Rhyme and, apart from sharing some new funny poems, I want it to be a book of encouragement to promote a lifelong love of books, bookshops and libraries. The poems can be read quietly or performed by and to enthusiastic, interactive audiences. There are those who, for whatever reason, have the ability but have not had the active encouragement to come back to the language and give it a great big hug. We can all do it. We can all write poems. We can be serious or funny, serious and funny, whatever we want to be. Our poems don’t have to be literary masterpieces, don’t have to be hifalutin, Nobel Prize nuggets of genius – although, if they are, good for us. The joy is in having a go, playing with words, playing with rhyme…..and having fun. Start with “the fat cat sat on the mat” or wherever you like. But, have a go. Like my old friend John, tear poems out of newspapers and magazines. Keep them in your pockets to read later or to give to others. Read poems out loud whenever you can to poetry groups, school classes, at parties – to yourself!

ISBN: 9781784079581

Total Pages: 101

Published: 12 August 2014

OBSERVATION OUTSIDE CHARTRES CATHEDRAL (JULY 2012)

Woman on a bench

lights a cigarette, then,

with her cigarette-holding hand,

tries to put on sunglasses and,

with her camera-holding hand,

tries to position herself

to take a photograph.

She fumbles,

she mumbles,

she almost drops the glasses,

puts the cigarette in her mouth,

puts the camera on the bench,

tidies the glasses on her face

in a moment of sense to avoid a mishap.

Then, finally, she takes the photo

as a half-inch of ash drops onto her lap.

TRAVEL SICK

Over-stuffed trains,
Airport farce,
Traffic jams,
Pain in the arse.

THE GAP BETWEEN OUTSTRETCHED HANDS

I heard about a refugee walking away from his home,
fleeing with hundreds of others to wherever the road led,
when he saw a child hurt in a ditch and weakened at her yelp,
pleading for someone to notice, crying out for anyone to help.

Trying to stand still in the slow-slick of human weariness,
the man was in more than two minds, momentarily focused
on this small human object, locked in a stare, eye with eye, breath with breath,
the gap between outstretched hands, the distance between them.......

the distance between his life and her death.

LEAVING WORK (1911)

He looked at the painting on the wall,
then stared far out into his own past,
to a distance that only he could travel,
to a memory of working-class Belfast:

"I left the shipyard at the usual time
and looked back beyond
the packed workers' trams
to a huge scaffolded shape,
another hard day, dirty day,
but seeing the results of your sweat
made it worthwhile, a great ship,
the Titanic, always worth another gape."