DELICATE

I hear the wind
urging the door to creak,
upsetting my concentration 
and mood so bleak.


I hear a thought
refusing to let you die
a delicate moment,
capturing you and I.

5 X FUN POEMS

BIG GAME

If flamingo

plays bingo,

If baboon

plays pontoon,

can you object

To newt

laying

trivial pursuit?

HOP HAT

Round and round

the milliner’s shop

my group of rabbits

on the hop

eating every type of hat

until each one was very fat.

So now one of my magical habits

is pulling top hats out of rabbits.

GRASSISTANT

There was a gardener called Brewer

who invented a grass-cutting cure

his brain went pow

he thought of a cow

as the ultimate efficient lawn mooer

HUM DEE DUM DEE DUM

One theory

about the humming bird

is really quite absurd.

It’s said

it hums the tune because

it doesn’t know the words

CHUMS IN MY TUM (or HANNIBAL LECTER'S POEM)

I had some friends for dinner

and from the evidence of empty dishes

despite the calorie intake

my friends were quite delicious.

HIJACKERS

One Christmas, Santa brought me a toy tipper truck filled with sweets.
I loved it and had great fun loading and unloading my new toy,
driving up and down the hall, in and out of the legs of my family,
sometimes accused of being a pest, other times ignored completely,
but content in my own imagination, a happy, lucky little boy.


But the fun turned to frustration and despair when the hijackers closed in.
My brothers and sisters ganged up to steal the sweets, mean with greed.
I shouted, cried and appealed to my mother as I tried in vain to guard
the most precious possession at that time in my life, under threat
from my own family, this band of robbers pursuing this evil deed.


What does that say about me as fifty years on I remember it?
My only pleasure is knowing that the hijackers think they got away with it.

SONGS OF YOU

This is more a song lyric than a poem.

Songs of you come easy

The words and music make me cry

Songs of you come easy

It’s been so long I wonder why

The years still cast a haunting shadow

Showing you in silhouettes

Still without you where would I

Have found he time to have regrets

For every moment looking back

Two lie wasted on the floor

And though I see your face at times

I can’t pin my hopes on closing doors

Songs of you come easy 

the words and music make me cry

Songs of you come easy 

it’s been so long I wonder why

It all comes down to loving arms

That hold the past and won’t let go

There’s not a lover in the world

Who doesn’t know the way it goes

I’ll hold the pen and let it write

‘Til I run out of things to say

Then I’ll close the book and try

To put all my thoughts of you away

8 x POP MUSIC HAIKUS

PROCOL HARUM
Dancing salty dog
skipping a light fandango
wearing a homburg


ELVIS COSTELLO
Hire the detectives,
man in specs is watching you,
his aim may be true


PAUL SIMON
Boy in a bubble,
rhymin', hearts, bones, Graceland, saints
and water trouble


LITTLE RICHARD
The guy can't help it,
Lucille, Molly shake his room
with a wop bam boom


REM
Nightswimmers in tune,
sleeping sidewinders tonight
dream of man on moon


HOT CHOCOLATE
Sex thing, little miss,
she could have been a lady,
started with a kiss


THE HOLLIES
Pigtails and freckles,
Carrie-Anne at bus stop with 
Jennifer Eccles


RINGO STARR
It don't come easy,
beaucoups of blues, boogaloo,
Thomas goes woo-woo

ON SUICIDE

He seemed so happy, content,
a "together guy" his friends would say,
life and soul, he'd light up a room,
laugh and joke, give you the time of day.


Nice wife, nice kids, nice home,
great job going well, no sign
that something was troubling him,
something that made him cross a line.


Sometimes we can have it all,
physical, emotional and material stuff,
but sometimes something's missing
and having it all is not enough.

BREATH OF A NATURALIST

This is another poem attributed to my creation Hamish Sheaney, possibly spoofing the rural notions of a poet with a similiar name.......

Between his purple lips, a piece of straw,

chewed and sucked, a mulch of tasty-tangs,

in his molars, remnants of a cabbage dinner,

green specks against his yellowed-enamel fangs.

His scrumpy-filmed tongue laps saliva,

ready for the next gob-spit on the dirt,

he aims for a dragonfly sunbathing

and zaps it with a hiss of deadly spurt.

His lunch is cheese and scallions in a bap,

strong pickles and a string of sausage links,

two jugs of rocket-fuel, four-star hooch

and an afternoon collapsed in forty-winks.

He rouses from his nap and yawns with gusto,

belching out a cloud of rancid breath,

all animals overpowered by halitosis

stagger round on the brink-edge-ledge of death.

Between his purple lips, a piece of straw

wilts from the rank aftershock of every breath he’ll draw.