Poetry

Wednesday, 4 August 2021

Body of lies

 I was talking to a lady who was writing a sketch

She came outdoors and handed me the script

I felt alright then I had to sniff

And soon I was sneezing, into her papery bits


I said I'm so sorry but I'm allergic to comedy

Can't you see I come out in a rash

If you tell another joke I'm sure I will cough at you

And then the whole mother ship might crash


She said I knew you were funny but I didn't know how strange

When I said show me the money

I didn't mean give me your change

You better be careful for the next line's coming up

And the end is a deadline and it packs a punch chump


As she said that I started rolling around the floor

You see I was in stitches, but by that I mean sores

For my sides they were itching and my brain did abore

I said I think my nervous system is malfunctioning

I don't this funny anymore


Finally came the punch line and the end of the joke

With that I was at the washing line, like it would choke

She said it's got you in a choke hold, I gasped "I think that you are great

But please don't write another sketch or else, I'll end up dead or a worse fate"


With that she lay her pen down, put no more words on paper

And I left with a frown, saying good bye and see you later

"Not if I see you first" she said, just a throw away line, 

But that onliner was a curse, for at once I fell down

My heart gave way I had a cardiac arrest,

The police came to put it behind bars

But they had to call a Taxi

Instead a taxidermist turned up

And stuffed me full of paper shreds

You see the script writer had torn up her script

And with her waste jokes I'd been stuffed instead

And so now I stand before you

A shadow of my former self

Just a statue of a comedian made up of bad jokes

But it isn't all that bad, because the next day she went for a PET scan

She said is it all right if I bring a friend 

They said of course you can

So then she brought me - her own private dead pet

Well they put me in the machine, to see if they could get

Any funny sense out of my remains, but it seems as if 

I never had a funny bone in my body

What they did instead was re-read her old jokes

They came out better now they'd been jumbled around by taxidermy

It seems she was pretty funny, so there's life in the old girl yet

You bet, you little bunny, and she even married a vet

They spent many happy hours reading jokes

To elderly dogs in nursing homes for the guides

Some of them had gone blind themselves

And it was like the blind leading the blind

But enough of that because as they say

All dogs go to heaven, but perhaps not

If they've gone to Mars already, then robbed a seven eleven

They will probably go to Hell

With the Mars rover, but he knew things were going well

Up until they ran him over

But they say in Space no one can tell a bad joke because

There's no gravity just levity,

Nothing to bring you down

Only maybe roll you over

A minor role

 Rainy day in Cardiff the News in newport is bad

Have you heard the rumour in Caerphilly

That the road to the Gower is sad

Has anyone seen a smile in the valleys?

Not for a week or two

But the sea gulls still fly by making their sallies

In then out as time flew


I have seen the merry-go-round and I 've been on the swings before

But it's all roundabouts down by the coal mines

Where the caged canary cries cuckoo

I have seen the jamboree

And the elephants march from the zoo

And old Eliza empty his trunk

Back when the junk was new

Now they are selling second hand guitars

With their strings like trip wires

for musical burglars 

As they are taking down notes and holding up cars

Throttling their throats and smoking cigars

And gypsy swans go roaming

Across the fields and fens

As jugglars are telling jokes

To jaguars and jens

And Jesus has a supersoaker

Which he uses on his friends

They are wet without their boats

He don't get their votes when it ends


I saw a piano hanging from a nail

And I pulled it out but the piano man went pale

He said

 You must put it in again

You need to plug the hole

There aren't enough parts as it is

In this key for a miner's soul

So I put it back

And saw it was dark

Then I heard the canary

And it was singing like a dwarf

Down on the wharf

Where they bleed the fairies

They said bring us in our cargo of wings

Let me see their steel

And if it flies then it's a thing

And if it sinks we fail

So the fairies wore their steel wings

And each fell in the water

And the mine owner said

That's what you get

When fly without a tail

Surely said the miner's daughter

They should be given another chance

To be seen in a photograph

Or wash up on the shores of France?

Put them back in the mine he said

And they can glow down there

And help us find our precious coal

Before we both go spare  

Monday, 2 August 2021

Paper planes

 A paper plane

Dropped a paper clip

From blue ink jet sky

With paper mache clouds

Printing out rainbows

In black and white

And dropping ink rain droplets

Onto the blotting paper ground


Where a strawman walked

Wearing a straw hat

And he walked a straw dog

Who was getting rather fat

And he drank Pimms

From a plastic straw after that

In the garden of his straw bale house


When at the door a pig turn up

Carrying in his trotters a little paper cup

And he said can you spare me a drop of that

So the straw man invited the pig

Inside his straw house

Before the ink jet rain began to fall

From the sky printer clouds


Just then a paperwolf appeared on the front lawn

And said, I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down

I'd like to see you try it said the straw man

These walls are four feet thick and you're not a bellows man

What you'd need is a good blaze

But even that is a push

Because the reeds are bound so tightly

That there really is no air gap


And the paper wolf howled

As he ran down the runway

Of the paper airport

To catch the paperplane

Out of the paper city

Where the wind blew through

The straw houses

And along the wooden streets

Where paper trees

Stood

Writing poetry to themselves

Written in their bark

And upon their fallen dead leaves




Sunday, 1 August 2021

Jesus is around me

 Jesus is around

me

He's in front of me,

He's beside me

and behind me

Jesus is in the air

tonight


Oh to be near Jesus

Everyday and night

Oh to hold him next to me

I'll be like a bird who takes flight


When I need you Jesus

you're next to me on my right

And when I am bereft you see

Him on my left saying

It' gonna be alright


Oh he's around, he's around me

Lightning calls

 There's a clap, clap in the morning

And it wakes you up from sleep

And as you climb out to the morning

The windows begin to weep


And the polecats stop their snoring

And the fat dogs lose their barks

As the thunder rolls are peeling

And go carolling through the dark


And the television house wives

They fall to their knees and pray

That God will stop his anger,

And leave his wrath for another day


And the soldier races from his cabin

And brings his deaf ears into the street

Saying is that the drummer I hear calling

Or am I just a dead man on my feet


And the fires stop their wailing

As the engines turn and beep

Because the sheep are on the hill pretending

They haven't just lost little Bo Peep


And the Bo bells are ringing

As the rain begins to beat

Against the windows of all the people

Who stare out into eternal heat


And the steeples dance with lightning

Inviting it to come down and greet

All the people who are now frightening

And running down the raging street



Tuesday, 27 July 2021

Journey to the East

 I'm on the midnight ferry from Dover

But I can't stop until it's over

Through the spider web of chance

I took my leave to visit France


And all the castles of the Sailing sea

All the shadows hanging over me

From Harfleur to Dunkirk

I left my home in rainy Southport


Well the road lay down in front

And Belgium and Brussels

they were stunts

all I needed was an actor

But what they gave me was a doctor

And the cure was inside of me

As the shore was sure beside the sea


Next the Autobahn of Germany

And the vignettes from BMW

But the man didn't speak a my language

So I lay on a park bench and wept

In exhaustion and fumes from car jets

And the wash of lorries

That drilled like insects

Into the very earlobes you see

As I sped down the E40


Only stopping to meet a friend

A fellow traveller where our paths did wend

And he a carpenter

Like Jesus Christ

Who carried a coffin for his sacrifice

To lay in wooden walls

And think of trees

As he slept in cannabis obscurity

But no rest for the wicked

And the devil drove me

On through picket white fence country

And lederhosen pastorality

Into the Danube bend near Regensburg

Where I took my rest

Like a falcon takes his perch

To lie on pavements

To catch a snatch of sleep

Where Gypsies

ruled the night parking lots

And East Europeans smoked and scuffed

Their trainers against curbs


The morning brought me creaking

To my knees

To pray for good travelling

Of the iron seas

As the tarmac stretched out perfectly

And Austria beckoned

Debts

Of all St Thomas' virtuosity

I met Vienna by the suburbs

And burbled like a spring water reaching surface in Hungary

Where I breathed a sigh of relief

To have a arrived with

Time to spare

Then drove to that county fair of Veszprém's

Sweet climes


Sunday, 25 July 2021

Inside the night

 Inside the night

I'll see you there

Inside the night

The sacred night

Inside the night

Inside its lair

Wrapped up in its arms

Blanket of the dark

Inside the night

The mind of a shark

The idea of death

In the mind of someone living

Inside the night

Turn off the light

Meet me middle of the street

On the right

I'll be there


Otherside of today

Bottom end of tomorrow

Lifting up the stars

Revealing the universe so hollow

We are

Just little insects

Buzzing round in our cars

But inside the night

We can come alive there


Nothing matters baby but you and I are together

Inside the night

Oh for ever and ever

Wave off today, Put off tomorrow

Let us free inside the night

Outside of sorrow


They may be baying for our blood

Or wishing on us horror

Still inside the night

We are the otherside of the mirror

Where I can see you

And you can see me fly like a swallow

When we are inside the night

With nothing left to borrow


We are inside the night

And it's all so crystal clear

The beer bottles have stopped singing

They're swinging from the chandelier

And I can hear nothing but silence

And I'm waiting for them to fall

But while we're inside the night

I know we still rule them all