The Poetry Marathon

A Moving Tale.

A noisy adulterer
Snagged his pants
On a lemony tree,
While climbing
Over the filigree.
He got off a kiss
But had to leg it
Due to the risk.
He was met
By an irate wife
Who decried
His “other life”
His “extra job”
And knifed him
In the gob,
For infidelity.
It was the lemony tree
That gave him away.
You see.

Finn
Finn, the three legged fiend,
Lost the fourth,
Demanding with menace,
By the railway line.
It ended up in Cardiff, hanging
From a dead fox’s fur,
Which the nasty woman
Never wore again.
For that, we should be thankful.

Finn did ok with the three,
Invoking female compassion,
And secured many a chicken drum
By way of compensation.
No matter that he brought it
On himself, by greed
And round-eyed need,
He knew he was to blame.
For that we should be thankful.

If it had been deemed our fault,
You can bet your last biscuit
He’d never let you forget.
It would cost a fortune
To keep that fiend
In the style he wished
To become accustomed.
I think he did it on purpose.
For that we must be grateful.

Autobiography of a Face.

Its round.
Perfectly round.
Swiss-precision built.
A face,
With hands!
Who knew?
It ticks off my days,
Relentlessly stoic,
Unable
To warn,
Or cajole
When pushed to extremes
By my casual waste
Of time.

Five minutes, that’s all it took.

He was ill, hungry and tired.
Ok.The diarrhoea was a no no.
What’s a mangy fox to do
When faced with a cat’s flap
Into brightness,
But enter that forbidden world?
To dance, disturbingly,
Past pots and pans,
To drink from pools of soup,
And gnaw on bones of lamb.
To storm for one blest night
The gates of paradise.

We Need.

We need to bring about a new age

Of peace, and bounty bars,

With lashings of honey,

And rivers of money,

Said the scarecrow man, holding the placard,

Earnestly shoving his face into mine.

Don’t you agree?

He said.

I don’t like bounty bars,

I replied.

Not enough chocolate.

We need, instead, Minstrels in buckets

And Mars Bars in droves.

We need cats in the choir,

And dogs playing with fire,

Said the lady to the left, holding her handbag

As though it housed a bouncing bomb.

Don’t you agree?

She said.

I don’t like cats.

I replied.

Not enough meat.

We need to let the cops know the whereabouts

Of the Quality Street gang,

Holed up in China Town for real,

Playing roulette on a liquorice wheel.

Said the burglar to my right

On his way to the next lucrative job.

Don’t you agree?

He said.

I don’t like liquorice

I replied.

Not enough crunch.

Oh, go on! You’re a right stick in the mud.

No imagination. No rosy flights of fancy.

You’re as turgid as a Toffee Crisp,

Or melting messy Walnut Whip

Said an old woman just in front,

Waving her stick of Blackpool rock.

Don’t you agree?

She said.

I don’t like toffee

I replied.

Not with my fillings.

We need a revolution, all right, of sorts.

We need to be left alone to stand, or fall,

To like what we like, and bugger the rest,

Chocolate, toffee, sherbet, or lemon zest.

I said, buttoning my coat up, tight,

With a finality that left them gasping.

I don’t like change.

I said.

Not enough warning.

The Milktray Man.

A silent assassin melds with neon,

Blends with the lightness of lamp,

And pooling shadows.

Come to take a heart away.

But it can’t cut

Through winter,

Nor splinter a heart

that’s quiet, now

After life’s storming.

In this loneliness

Even a killer must withdraw,

Hopeless to change

The inevitable cooling of age.

Pug poems.

1.Pug Face

Have you ever noticed

The disturbing resemblance

Between a pug

And a Toby jug?

I think it’s a case

Of the squashed face

And buttoned nose.

Well .. anything goes,

But I’d bet on the pug

Against the Toby jug

All day and night

If there’s ever a fight.

2. Dog v Wolf

“Whoa! What is that?

It’s not real.

The stuff of nightmare.”

That’s what a wolf thinks

When it meets a pug.

“Whoa! Stupid, hairy mutt.

Hehe. Too big

To get through the cat-flap!”

That’s what a pug thinks

When it meets a wolf.

ACID DROP

I’m a madness
At the heart
Of hate.
I’m an acid drop
From a height.
Into something
Not to be borne.
Not to be born.

Dragon Dreams

He’d burn the world for you,
And tumble-turn in cloud of ash,
Scaling skies of flame-licked hue,
A blistering blade of loneliness.
Trapped within
A fairy’s storybook,
Always one,
But never two,
This dragon dreams of a another day
Where he flies in emerald light,
Before the magic first held sway,
Before he lost you to the knight.

Fishing on Fish Quay

Angling for an opening,
Casting about
For a date.
Hoping to catch
the one that got away.

Lining the walls
Of the clubs,
and the halls,
A lure for the one
Who wont get away.

Patience and beer,
Long night in store,
Come on, little fishy
Fall for my line,
And you wont get away.