Like listening to Moonlight Sonata.
Reflection without being distracted.
Looking at nothing reflected in a mirror.
Deep in thought without an idea enacted.
Darkness of the night.
Waking up before everyone.
Minutes buried to candlelight.
Lying in wait and fitting a silencer to a gun.
You’re a good egg, Lilibet
and we’ve grown up with you all our lives.
In an era not long gone
Lilibet you’re the one.
Black or white, rich or poor
Elizabethans all.
With your profile on all those coins and notes
who wouldn’t want to see you more?
On an island in the sea
and around the world spinning in space
newspapers today are drizzly soggy
or sun-drenched parched with your face.
Lucky us to have lived through your times.
Bit of a shock you’re mortal and just like us.
Our personal angels are winging thank you letters to you
while those that aren’t might mumble think gasp ‘Let them have fuss”.
Lamp posts are falling down
and we’re toasting you and your reign.
While not always understanding, we got you.
Us a little bit wayward,
but coming back to your ever-forwatd constancy again and again and again.
On Pleasure Pieland
islanders live life under a system called pie-in-the-sky.
Plumbers fit pipe dreams
and statistics on counting your blessings are always high.
Opticians sell rose-tinted glasses
to see good things over the horizon
and in every house, doors are fitted
so that when one closes, another one opens.
Every silver cloud has a golden lining
and everyone’s glass is always half-full.
Every adult has the job they want
and every pupil is the teacher’s pet in every school.
There’s love at first sight and love that lasts
and, for those more adventurous, true love in blasts.
Underdogs win and no-one feels like they’ve lost even when they lose.
Everyone walks around in everybody else’s shoes.
Pielanders are so happy they look pie-eyed.
They’re easy to recognise.
Doctors prescribe magic potions for free
and hospitals are only there to rest in cos nobody really dies.
you’ve got bills to pay
and you won’t be able to
up to your giraffe in it
someone’s having a laugh
and here’s the graph
you can’t feed your kids
they’ll go without
back to scrooge’s surplus pop by half
someone’s having a laugh
and here’s the graph
you’re struggling
to make ends meet
the rope for your graft
someone’s having a laugh
and here’s the graph
you’ll rant and rave to no avail
you’ll get a pat on the head
scrimp and save for your epitaph
someone’s having a laugh
and here’s the graph
When I use my head
to stick under the sand
it’s a goody that beats evil
with comic heroes getting out of hand.
miaow miaow miaow
wow wow wow
is a chorus to forget
but one you’ll remember I bet.
I got a low boredom threshold
but I can’t be bothered to work out whatever that means.
A tongue I can’t hold
and a button-lipped mouth spilling the beans.
Then there’s my psychedeliKat
doing a centimetre balcony
high up and miaowing
and a doom monger collecting money and bowing.
This place is outer space
where aliens arrive
and they love slumming it
in this exotic dive.
Where they come from is pure,
unspoilt, and as it’s always been.
They beam images back home
and pose in concrete and green.
They’re too clever for anyone here
and do their touristy invisible thing
cos where they come from is pure,
unspoilt, and as it’s always been.
They wonder how this species
never got to them and where they are.
But when they get a closer look
they see how far they have to go, how very far.
Secret reconnaissance
with star spies standing out visible
walking among them as human but undercover
sending back intelligence on this rival.
This place is outer space
where aliens arrive
and they love slumming it
in this exotic dive.
They’re too clever for anyone here
and do their touristy invisible thing
cos where they come from is pure,
unspoilt, and as it’s always been.
If someone had stopped
Pope Gregory IX persecuting cats
the plague may never have happened
with all those rampaging ‘cat’s away, mice will play’ flea-infested rats.
Now, that’s my kind of cat-propaganda Netflix doc fact!
But later, shooting my mouth off about it on a beach sunbed,
the sunbathing papist friend next to me shoots back
and googles what I’ve just casually summer day-out said.
And Vox in Rama! I’m wrong! Shot down in flames!
Pope Greg’s papal bull simply cites satanic cults and black cats as devilish symbolic allegories
but never an order to kill or make my furry goodies game!
Enough to make me black death sneeze!
But what kills me off, and not cats, gets even closer to home.
In order to keep parchment-gnawing mice in line
Exeter Cathedral back then had cat flaps to let mousers freely roam
and even documented the maintenance costs of these saintly felines.
So, Netflix came up with a load of papal bull!
Or google searches wrap flocks in cotton wool!
The only way to really know is to read up on it through authoritative literature.
The easiest thing though will be to just carry on with my poetic license, claiming (with a purr):
If someone had stopped
Pope Gregory IX persecuting cats
the plague may never have happened
with all those rampaging ‘cat’s away, mice will play’ flea-infested rats.
Join me down the waterfront at The Prospect.
Millions of memories going introspect.
Well maybe not millions but quite a few.
We’ll have a couple of pints or the proverbial one or two.
The world spins round at such a pace
with its starter pistol at the start of its rat race
that before you know it, your day is already what happened yesterday
and what you thought would last forever has gone and buggered off to a time far far away.
You’re an elegant woman and a handsome one too.
That’s nothing new.
Bad angels curse good angels and good angels give as good as they get.
Fancy smashing up some glass mansions to let?
Just a little word in your ear.
Shall I whisper it so you can’t hear?
I suffer from nostalgia.
And if my memory serves me well, Miss O’Connor gave me a sticker star for it.
Are you still there
walking the pier’s wooden boards?
Sat in your deck chair
with your wonderful theatrical frauds?
Anyone’s word counts for the number of letters in it.
Scripts thrown into the sea.
Armbands round little arms doing their bit
to keep a silent movie pianist afloat above anonymity.
The sawdust footprints
match those left in the sand.
Under a punch ‘n’ judy policeman’s helmet, each blue eye squints
as the sun shines on the open-mouthed corpse with its last laugh canned.
Send away for a bullet proof glove
to catch every bullet, yeah.
Turn every head, yeah
and fall in love, yeah.
Somersault underwater
and walk in a straight line, yeah.
Turn back the clock, yeah
and wind it forward to skip bad times, yeah.
Subscribe to a new club.
Blush and get a buzz, yeah.
Get discovered and make loads of money, yeah.
Disappear and give everything away, yeah.
Save a mouse from a mousetrap
and give an injured bird wings, yeah.
Brainwash yourself to say what you think, yeah
Give nobody nothing to say no to, yeah.
A Pretty Kettle of Poetry 