Garden gnome

 I fell in love with a garden gnome

He was always there when I got home

Always listened when I was alone

That's how I fell in love

With my garden gnome

He's travelled far and wide

But now he prefers his pond side

To sit there hour after weary hour

And catch the fish beneath the lily flower

But I love my garden gnome

Though I know his heart is of stone

We've gone on many an excellent adventure

From the town of shepton to the county of bedfordshire

And even once to Paris and Rome

Oh how I do love my garden gnome

The constant gardener

 When you say you love her

Could you be together

Any wind or weather

The wind must blow alone

For the ivy on the wall will blacken

The brambles tie up in the bracken

The fireflies twist in flaxen

And the rooks cry out in a klaxon

And all, above it all

Don't you wish you were

The constant gardener

Have you ever fallen in love

With someone you work with?

Is it a case of just making the glove fit

Well if you've ever fallen in love with

Someone you work with

Was their husband a git or did they have

kids

Was there a bolt from the blue sky

That meant you were too nice a guy 

or too shy to try

When you're in love, in love with

Someone you work with

And you can't stay or leave the room

But you must be friends make play

Of doom and gloom

And laugh as if life is gay

When really it is grey

Until you say I love you

And she says it too

Until then you have to be 

the constant gardener

I wish I could be like

the constant gardener

Inside the garden

 The curtains are pulled tight

but you can look over the walls

Every morning and night

You just might

Leave the garden

The birds and bees are happy

On the flowers and the trees

All the starlings startle and freeze

But the trees know no disease

Inside the garden

Little mice tiptoe

Badgers go to and fro

Inside the garden

My love stands at the gate

And I say goodbye to hate

Inside the garden

You can get all you need

Be far from sin and greed

in the garden

Oh the sun always shines

Upon your spindly lines

In the garden

The anteaters thump

the grasshoppers jump

Inside the garden

Memory fades away

Like an elephant's grave

Inside the garden

You'll have no more fear or doubt

Even if it rains or there's a drought

Inside the garden

Love Spade sonnet number 5

 Shall I compare thee to a garden hoe

Thou art more buxom and less straight

And were I to call a spade a spade

A spade by any other name would cut as deep

As the wound your lover's blade has inflicted on mine breast

Shall I compare thee instead to a cold north wind

Which blows down my allotment rows

Freezing all my peas, tearing my cabbage leaves

But no, thine own wind is more poisonous by far

And were it not able to let sleeping dogs lie

I should compare you to a roamin' butterfly

Who wanders aimless through the summer fields

Makes acquaintance with dogrose, or dandilion

But her self has teeth enough when she's a pup

To cut as deep, into my brassica leaf or butter cup

Or as a caterpillar grub to hang high above in Beech

Or as pure as a silken glove as a Chrysilis who speaks

Of stolen love, and innocence though monsterous actions dreams

Well after all, lets call a spade a spade, you do no more harm

lest you keep your forked tongue behind your rake's teeth

For when winter's storm comes to blow dead leaves down my street

I hold you by the trunk and ask those same fastidious protuberances

Be used to clean the mould from between the toes of my frozen feet

Placing an order

 A four pronged pick

Two Dutch hoes 

And a billhook

Look what do you take me for?

A pillock?

A billhook

Two Dutch hoes, from Amsterdam?

No the garden variety

For digging me rows

And beddin' in I suppose

Oh wouldn't you like to know?!

Oh and some flower seeds

Got any Corncockle?

In me pocket yokel

How about Lady's bed straw

Top draw

White Campion

She's a Champion

And grows

four feet tall who knows?

Evening Primrose

Evening Sir

Oxeye Daisy

I'll have four, for me and Miss Mazy

Driving down to the Oxbow lake

To drown our sorrows

Self Heal?

They're only in tomorrow

And Corn Poppy

Hippity Hoppity 

What a happy shopper

Alright how about a pair of telescopic loppers

Coming right up

From round the bend

Periscopic perambulation

Of a flexible friend

Draper edging shears

Oh yes give me a trim around the ears

And shovel square mouth T handle

Open wide sir, let me stick it in

Ah now that feels better

Your face is the ace of spades

Not fit for a king A Rib-eyed Stake

A T-bone?

No a sharpening stone

Round

Sound

As a pound

And a sharpening stone

Flat

As a pancake sir

Anything more after all that?

Just one thing my good man, and mind you're back chat

A lawn rake 21" Eagle

Eerie sir?

No, ordinary

Spread or Closed?

Spread? What do you take me for, some kind of crow?

Crow, a crow a cock-a-doodle doo!

Listen you cockerel fool, fooey to you

Well, I'll call you in the morning

Deliver to your hovel?

Sir, you are too rude, by the way add to that 

a shovel

Oh and a wheelbarrow

20 ltr poly blue

Right first thing tomorrow

Is there anything else I can do?

No you've done quite enough

I think I need a tissue

To wipe off my sweaty brow

I do believe we're through

The Garden Stroll

In the early light

When witches candles turn low to smite

The earthly walkers on a stroll

Beside an ancient garden wall

Then one says to the other

“How strange!?

The brick work of Eden has been rearranged.”

As they ponder mortar and stone

They feel the feeling they aren’t alone

Then an archway becomes clear

Designated this way; ”Do not Enter Here!”

They hold hands then cross the threshold

Into a garden bright and so bold

The green’s of willow

The lush of Ash

Oaken avenues stand in stash

All look starkly like someone’s preserve

They feel darkly like they do not deserve

And then a hare and next a rabbit

Come by close as if by habit

Disarmed the intruders are quite standoffish

Then they realise they appear quite selfish

And pet and talk kind words to the mammals

Feeling next they may meet some camels

As they stand and pervade the view

The garden’s paradise changes hue

And far over a foreign hill

They see Cain fight Able, until one is killed

And open under heaven’s skies

They see rains fall and flooded lies

Noah’s Ark is there by chance

But many a bad creature takes death’s dance

And suddenly they too are running from the flood

By this they find the ties of water

Much stronger than those of blood

All washed up now on heaven’s shore

They think of their stroll to the garden’s core

And they think to themselves, but neither comment

They should not have walked in wherever they wanted