Bide-A-Wee.
(for those unfamiliar wi' the Scottish lingo, this means 'to stay, to linger, to tarry, to take pause, take a wee little moment.)
When out on an easy backwoods jog
Far from the home comforts of a bog,
With a bladder fully stirred and shaken
A private easement must surely be taken.
When time runs short
Don't get caught.
Time to break stride
And step aside.
Find a fine quiet upstanding privet hedge,
Towards a wee private dark corner slyly edge,
With cool careful precision flash and splash-
Careful, that touch of poison ivy- rather rash.
Don't be cocky, silly-
Spraying nilly-willy-
And it's downright folly
Dousing near holly.
The Buck Stops Here.
In our family tree
Few entertain writing poetry,
But my Great Aunt
Handed me a grant.
To College I went,
Her talents I misspent,
One thing was clear-
I'm a poor Shakespeare.
So, like 'Paradise Lost'
Out I was tossed-
No safe havenly dorm
Thanks to D-grade form.
Such is the curse
Of purveyors of verse,
Down to last buck
Till a stroke struck.
++++++++++++++++
With Great Aunt dead
Good will was read,
My unexpected little dividend
Cheered me no end.
Time wasted at home
I'd lavish on poem,
I strutted up town,
Laid my deposit down.
No stairs to climb,
I'd take my time,
My musings, tediously glacial
Echoing round rooms palatial.
I liked to compose
My rich redolent prose,
Pure black 'pon white-
Like, Old School, write?
Fine paper, finer pen...
Increasingly, now and then,
As poor circumstances demand,
Whatever comes to hand.
My talent, beyond doubt?
Amazingly quickly run out,
Who'd ever have thought
I'd be caught short?
Tragically under financial collapse
I'm reduced to scraps,
My outlook's growing darker-
Newsprint and Magic Marker.
My so rosy outlook
Decimated my cheque book,
Past goodwill rarely counts-
Good cheques don't bounce.
From my bottom floor
Was shown the door,
What problems it poses
When one's door closes?
For half the rent
Upstairs I went, bent-
My heavy rent cheapened
As the stairs steepened.
From canopied four-poster bed
To attic inches overhead,
Like Lizzie Barrett Browning
Fiscally and literature-lly drowning.
Rent a month overdue-
Girlfriends says she's two-
All the money's gone-
A moonlight flit's on.
I'm up at midnight
'Neath moon and skylight,
Sadly I'm not above
Running out on love.
Press the dormer window,
Peer waaaaay down below,
Put aside my vertigo-
Hey, way to go!
I'd knot some sheets
And hit the streets,
But I've some pride-
And a humungous backside.
The rent cheque submitten
I've left woefully underwritten,
Whoever's rattling my door
I'm writing no more!
Giving Writers credit- fiction!
I'm facing cold eviction,
Pen mightier than sword?
Tell my pernicious Landlord.
Cheap Penny Dreadfuls.
One fine day this dime-store writer will wise up,
Suss out as to why his buck-a-10 pack pen dries up,
Why do I persist in keeping my escritoire ill-equiped?
But I'm no gold-nibbed rich man, more... felt tipped.
In richer days I plucked up the flighty quill,
From its tip the Master's words must surely spill,
My manuscript was literally beyond description,
Illegible as my shaky trick Doc's prescription.
I've been advised to splurge out on a Scripto
But I'm too tight to sign up on that tip though,
That's one big cheque I'll personally leave blank,
I'd rather snip me a bargain... down at the bank.
At least no more notebooks I'll have to buy,
I've a wardrobe of A3s stacked five feet high,
When my old firm laid off their stationery clerk
They knew I've always taken home my paperwork.
So, doodling paper, I have oodles, I have screeds,
It's the piss-poor pens that don't serve my needs;
How many times I've pounded 'pon my poor desk top
When my cursive calligraphy decides to- fuc Full stop.
I do not advise going in ever-increasing scribbles
Until the paper thins and/or a drop of ink dribbles,
Then my penned-up words emerge when hard pressed-
Less a messy plot, yet more blots on my Rorschach test.
Firing Up.
As far as finances go
I'm in a proper pickle,
My once flush cash flow
Has dribbled to a trickle.
The bills endlessly wash in,
Only my heart goes out,
My means are paper thin,
My prayers never more devout.
No assets left to seize,
All my boom's gone bust,
I'm down, on my knees,
Not one 'In God We Trust.'
Pacing the floor, by the door,
Going postal for that relief cheque
To pay off Bill's Convenience Store
Before he wrings my scrawny neck.
No last post for me today,
No welcome postman's knock,
The room's turning Arctic Grey,
I'm freezing and in hock.
I gather together every letter
In shivering mittened hands,
One time I'm a real go-getter,
Now holding only final demands.
Grab the largest pot
In the stone cold kitchen,
Dump in the miserable lot;
Got troubles? I'll pitch in.
All those weighty dispatches,
Gone up in a stroke,
Thanks to Safety matches-
Hello hellfire sulphur and smoke.
The letters dutifully brought
By the conscientious postman
Though warming, were too short,
More a flash in the pan.
........................................................
I fear Bill knows my place,
I fear an after-hours surprise,
Afraid he won't leave this cold case,
Bill's got fire in his eyes.
Will Bill come by torchlight,
Say 'pay 200 bucks or go to jail?'
Cold comfort on a cold night?
Bill, bring a molotov cocktail.
Written for Chel Owens A Mused poetry contest, subject; 'a rant.' (Join in, jump in, its fun!)
Last Do-si-doh! For Don.
My old Grampap used to dance up a storm,
Pops needed no invitation to get up and perform,
A proper Yankee Doodle dandy life-long Democrat,
He'd be on his twinkling toes at the drop of a top hat.
It was only after Trump waltzed in four years back
Pappy hung his tuxedo, hat and cane on the hat rack,
Grampa knew he'd not be smiling or singin' in the rain
Till that bull in a china shop slipped down the porcelain.
No more doin' the Hand Jive complete with back flip,
No more twistin' by the pool, risking poppin' out a hip,
The best moon walker I'd seen besides Michael Jackson-
Pretty damn fly for a white-haired geriatric Anglo Saxon.
Pops thought his tap shoes and he were past their best,
Now was the time to reminisce and wait for eternal rest,
He set his La-Z-Boy to decline, settled down to Fred Astaire;
Seeing Trump's goose miss-steps made his bed a pit of despair.
Old Granpop wasn't up to doing the Hustle any more,
More of a desperate shuffle towards the bathroom door,
Nothing outside an atom bomb can get him up and about,
He was just like Michael Flatley, all crapped and tapped out.
For four long years poor Pop barely busted a move at all;
Purely pitiful to watch a once Great Man's decline and fall,
It pained Pop seeing Dancing Star Don waltz tango and foxtrot
Effortlessly over democracy, to the stirring soundtrack of Fox rot.
But, come a day of judgement, and before a live audience-
Which star duo would win... Joe/Kam or Dunce/Subservience?
Till on the fifth day of drama, before which Pop avidly sat glued
Finally the vote was in, and left Donny feeling lost- and screwed .
Gramps lifted up his blanket, sat on the edge of his seat
Smiled, seeing Don getting his numb ass kicked by two left feet
As Don rants and starts filling in injunctions (and his underpants)
We're truly privileged to see Granpa's gleefully exuberant Riverdance.
(Check out the odd tired musical reference in there? I'm exhausted, but still dancing on air.)
That Holiday Air.
We breezed into the Brunswick, followed our noses to the dining room,
'Twas a romantic hideaway boutiquey newly tarted-up historic hotel,
But when in authentic 30s Kingman hot young lovers cannot assume
Their Arizonan night of heavenly pleasures won't come -or go- to hell.
The owners had been penny wise when fitting out the Brunswick,
True to its history they'd turned to every possible cheap trick,
An attempt to retain all original features, all part of the plan;
So, creaking bedsprings and no air-con 'cept for the ol' ceiling fan.
Outside, a high desert wind buffeted the shuttered window pane,
Inside, an ill wind blew no good, thanks to a lousy hotels buffet,
Dawn saw the leaving of two wretches who will not return again,
Now neither of us talk of, much less wish to repeat that sorry day.
(Written for Chel Owens A Mused poetry competition. Slightly modified from her PG13 requirement.) This less than top rank effort contains a touch of poetically licensed exaggeration yet embarrassingly retains more than a whiff of pure unadulterated truth.
What A Hollow Halloween.
Being the prize pick of the pumpkin patch
Come November comes with a nasty catch,
Being soft and tender, sweet as pumpkin pie
Don't mean Jack when Halloween is nigh.
Once the father came to weigh up his choice
Being top o' the crop gave me no cause to rejoice
But 'twas only when the mother cut me from the vine
This prime pumpkin knew it was the end of the line.
So this orange squash's future's turned to soup,
It cuts me up to see me reduced, scoop by scoop
Until I'm left, a grinning rictus of an empty shell;
Does my tasteless tale turn your insides as well?
What Haunts The White House?
We're fast careering towards Halloween
And a few days later we hope to have seen
An end to the dispiriting Ghastly Horror of 2016.
With a crucial election nigh
Hopes for a change are frighteningly high,
Pray we can exorcise the so-wrong Right guy.
Don's sure to want someone to look
At every way he can cook the rule book,
He needs to win, by hook or by crook.
The polling prospects for Don might look dire
But his supreme self-belief one must truly admire-
Plus his Supreme Court's now bound to back a liar.
Though he doesn't really possess the ghost of a chance
Still he's trying his damndest to deny any votes in advance,
To tell the truth he's relying on flame-proof underpants.
Should it be the will of the hoi polloi
My whole face will be suffused with joy
To see the golden boy become the orange boy.
Then when the blue boy(!) is given the win
I'll try my damndest to keep my joy deep within,
But I guarantee no mask could hide my Cheshire grin.
In the Halloween camp– or spirit- here’s a jaunty little number.
(To the tune of Rocky Horror’s ‘I Can Make You A Man.’)
Can We Lose The Fake Tan?
Weak-minded, criminally unsound,
Will Don leave with red face
When November 3 rolls around?
Since his chances are slim
Despite determined Fox spin
To cover his multiple flaws
He's privately packing his drawers,
Still refusing to listen to his team
And the unwelcome message
That the four year bad dream
Ends with Donald as a has-been.
Don won't be here long, man.
('Cause he's the wrong man.)
He's nasty and vicious, splenetically mean,
He'll wallow, he'll beg,
Bitch and blame postal workers-
Accept mail-in votes, then renege
Without second thought,
But time's short, not-so-Great man,
In just seven days
You'll be a done deal, fake tan.
He upset the queen, he royally f*cked up,
Hopes to snatch victory, dirty devious jerk,
He thinks democratic elections
Will drive Putin berserk,
Voters so unforgiving
He plum cain't understand,
So in just seven days
Ciao baby,
Make way for a better human.
President Trump, Resident Shaman.
Donald's re-election plans were looking sick
So he drugged out his old tired but trusty trick,
Doctor Don's patented cure is downright cruel;
Donny decides Doctor Fauci must play the fool.
He don't mince words with his double dealings,
Don sure don't believe in masking his feelings,
Good Doctor Fauci has been hung out to dry,
Guess who Donny's designated as his fall guy?
Now Don says all Doctor Fauci's sick talk is phony?
Great Medicine Man Don knows better than Tony?
Tony's just another discarded discredited Trump minion?
Would you stake your your life on witch doctors opinion?
That West Bromwich Albion crowd are all celebrating again,
There’ll be cheers and beers being hurled in Halfords Lane,
Navy and white scarves will abound around Old Birmingham town,
At least till next May when, historically they’re bound to go down.
The Albion are one of those teams that drive loyal fans to drink,
All season long, nailed to the table bottom or clinging on the brink,
The Baggies, back in in their regulation spot, flirting with relegation-
At least of late poor Aston Villa fans can sympathise with that situation.
Still, congratulations! on becoming Birminghams second best,
Now two bum *Brum fans can still share in one common interest,
For one season the twain are Premier League teams, and so sitting pretty,
Both loving lording it over mutually loathed Wolves and Birmingham City.
