A Pretty Kettle of Poetry

in my own little world
i’m not such a nerd (as i can be)
in my own little world
what you’d call absurd becomes reality

all the girls fall at my feet
and pop stars are just people on my street
i don’t want no more
whatever i fancy i click my fingers for

in my own little world
i get fame and fortune (a star overnight)
in my own little world
what you’d call a silent film isn’t black’n’white

no-one acts their age or knows what it is
no-one who shouldn’t gets into showbiz
only those i like get on top of the pops
no-one feels any peer pressure and if they do it stops

in my own little world
tight-fisted money-grabbers get their hands chopped off
in my own little world
what you’d call people who don’t listen get a van gogh

i’m a poet of international renown
wherever i recite i’m the talk of the town
half the beatles aren’t dead and didn’t split up
and george best could drink what he liked without a hiccup

in my own little world
there’s a price on my head (and i get it!)
in my own little world
what you’d call ‘everything‘ turns in my favour (bit by bit).

The teachers sat on the same table.
They had no choice, however undesirable.
We always sat next to who we wanted to
and budged up if we got next to anyone who

had nowhere else to sit or wasn’t it
Or had fleas or some social disease.
You took your plastic white tray
And perused the menu of the day;

Whatever went with mash potato.
Rice pudding for afters and away you’d go.
The dinner ladies would daily serve
the same thing every week. No-one had the nerve

to say; Liver again! I didn’t. It was my favourite then.
I got my share as everyone gave me theirs.
Away from parental guidance, we’d just talk.
No-one ever gave a fork.

Dedicated to Paolo Rossi who died this week

As Geoff Hurst plays a blinder against Germany
The home fans rub their eyes in disbelief.
Italians take their hats off to Paolo Rossi
As scoring a hat-trick, he brings Brazil a bit of quarter-final grief.

In a World Cup of national stereotypes
Only lager louts and greaseballs qualify;
Gazza gets into aggro on the terraces, beating up the wife
As slimy Silvio Berlusconi gets behind Forza Italia in his football scarf and tie.

Mafia bosses with back-handers in their pockets
Grease the palms of players playing on the other side.
A pre-match talk on how they can throw it
Cashing in on slotting the ball wide.

As Sicilian mammas in funeral black
Cry out Avanti! football-stripped to kill,
Elderly English Roses, in baggy pink underwear, go on the attack
Winning the Widows XI, with Stanley Matthews skill.

The Beatles line up against Battisti
Chorusing Hey Jude ; naa-naa-naa, na-n’-na-naa, na-n’-na-naa, Fab Four!
Meantime, Lucio chants, sick as a parrot over the moon with Emozioni,
Liverpool Mop-Tops, non incazzare, l’importante partecipare! i.e. You’re not singing anymore!

Over ninety minutes, pasta and pizza beat traditional eggs and bacon
But a cappuccino doesn’t go down half as well as a good old cup of tea.
Umbrellas in the rain and parasols in the sun
Defend in numbers ‘away from home’ tourists from The English Riviera to Rimini.

Bobby Charlton queues up in the box
As Gigi Riva pushes forward to get in a header.
Union Jack the lads with brewer’s droop have to pull up their red and white socks
As Gli Azzurri as Latin lovers hold a press conference with dressing room tactics on how to bed ’er!

So, with the Heroes of ‘66 matched against Beckham and Owen
And Gli eroi di ‘82 drawing a comparison with Baggio and Del Piero, It’s Bye Bye and Ciao;
I blow the final whistle on my latest poem;
The readers think it’s all over! It is now!

Tall Tales
When Amy Winehouse died, Conix was distraught with grief. ‘I was with her a few days ago, and she seemed fine.’

This was typical of him. Making out he’d been anywhere of importance when news broke. When questioned about how he could have possibly been with her, he looked up from his tears in disbelief as if to say How dare you not believe me! And then very calmly said: I went to Camden Town last week on a uni trip.

Everyone got used to Conix’s tall tales. And went along with them. They were so far and few between that his tall tales actually became entertaining as he added more and more unlikely details to what had happened.

No one ever believed him even when he was telling the truth.

Greeting cormorants as I kayak past
I make seagull noises not knowing theirs.
They look at me with distain
wary of this weird paddling thing that stares.

They nest on the rock face
under a white moon and a pink sky.
Fish fleet-jump up in a sea-skimming race
that they do in seconds as they fly.

The sea as heavy as oil wells up.
At least, it feels like it does. But it’s pure sea.
Seagulls vie with cormorants
but it’s the dark birds that claim victory.

I’m unpacking the bags from under my eyes
And had a good night’s sleep, thank you.
I hardly ever used to remember my dreams
But, now and again, now I do.

I’ve not always had my best interests at heart.
I often wonder whether I ever knew.
Not learnt lessons by saying sorry quite a few times
Even though I was told early on not to.

I can be a bit harsh on myself
But then let myself off the hook.
Throw myself back into my moon river
Dipping into an Audrey Hepburn photo book.

Just bought a couple of books actually.
One by a photographer with my same birthday.
And the other with pictures of species near extinction.
Not for nothing do I have nothing to say.

The birds are back in the square
and my flat cat would love to attack for a dare
as they swoop from the skies to the tree.
But he’d find it nigh on impossible to be fair
to make any kind of capture or kill in his lair
even if out on the streets. No chance of doing his devilry.

The birds are starlings.
The poor dear darlings.
Mediterranean magpies on rooftops watch
and crank it up a notch
for my flat cat that would love to try
taking them on too but he’d probably come off worse and die?

I’m on my balcony quite serene
with a bottle of white watching the scene.
The chances of murder as slim as my cat’s
though in my head there’s imminent attacks.

For example, this very day and the washing
machine technician who didn’t bother to come.
You kept me waiting despite the frigging
appointment for four hours, son.
I’ve been without a washing machine three weeks.
It’s under guarantee and, but for hand washing, my clothes would reek.

Meanwhile, the birds are making a racket in the tree.
My flat cat has gone to sleep off his disappointment in dismay.
And I’m left having to chase up that technician between a rhyme like third degree or foul play.

Blood and guts over a solicitor’s quill.
Skeletons in the cupboard in for the kill.
Eyes in dark mirrors.
Theirs staring socketed together at each other.

All olly-topped, the zippy freebed
With ogles in its chack
And then it tuttered by the worg
And orped beneath the clap.

Now, unbescotting to our ploff
A camanoogle hocks.
It’s piffing round the floofy jicks
And blonking round the sox.

And oh alas! It poops the zip
And timpers like a moosh
As meanwhile unbejugging pocks
The zip beneath the woosh.

The camanoogle corky licks
It’s pishy pallerclotts
And then it gammerpangs the zip
And flots its waller off.

And so no more the zippy blogs
And no more shall it gliff
Because the camanoogle plonks
With zippy in its wiff.

Had worn her heart on a sleeve.
Had hid it when she’d had to grieve.
She’d cried for much less since
for every unworthy prince.

A moat of tears had flooded her moat.
Her draw-bridge had buckled under the messages she’d wrote.
One winter morn, the snow had settled, and lay
where she would a following summer’s day.

America loomed large, as Ireland became a speck
in the distance, and on deck.
She drank to the emerald isle
and fell asleep with a smile.

A grandmother she would be
over years and years, over that sea.
It may last for just a minute, or at its own pace
but if it’s the latter, fairy-tale tellers will veer from liqueur to lace.