A Pretty Kettle of Poetry

A Pretty Kettle of Fish

I’m impossible
Wanting the implausible.
Is it me or is it you?
My fishing boat on blue.

I’m unshakeable:
My resolve unfathomable.
Why can’t I sleep?
My heart wrecked down deep.

While hearing the siren
Bait underworld men
Old boys in cafes
Think out their days.

I’m so impregnable
But indefensible.
When will it ever finish?
A pretty kettle of fish.

Roundheads and Cavaliers

I’m for Parliament. You’re for the King.
It’s more important you lose than I win.
Taking a stand, there’s no sitting on the fence.
I’m for Cromwell. You’re against.

Your men, for their cavalry commander, bark.
Cocking their legs at Pym, jumping at Charles.
Capturing Rupert’s black mongrel, we cut off its lugs
And make it a Roundhead; A pox on you Royalist dogs!

At Nottingham, you raised your standard.
The blackest year I’ve ever had.
While chaos in the countryside continues to grow
Landlords, levellers and clubmen come to blows.

If you’re not on my side, you’re on the other.
Dividing the loyalties of wife and mother.
You’d think we could find some common ground
But the world and our hearts are turned upside down.

At Edgehill, bitter rivalry finally got the better of us
With russets and browns, greens and buffs.
As all turned grey in the gunpowder smoke,
Field-signs set us apart on our coloured coats.

We fire our matchlocks, attack and retreat,
As pikemen form hedgehogs, and die on their feet.
Though they may number four score and ten
We bury more toes and fingers than we do men.

You take the piss out of our New Model Army
Coining it The New Noddle in taverns round the country ;
But with your Queen’s Pocket Pistol renamed as Sweet Lips
We taste revenge with every sip!

I’m so under the influence, I can’t see straight.
Marching a vicious circle that just won’t break.
I’ll be fucked if I give up on this uncivil war!
That tyrant and traitor will pay for it all!

Traffic News

In a snap-happy speed-camera cop paradise
‘Just Married’ motorists are caught with confetti and rice
as, pulling over to the side of the road,
The tug-of-war team coach breaks down and is towed.

Meanwhile, But I was just about to excuse-makers
become traffic-warden fined For fuck sakers
with Inland Revenue tax-dodgers on double yellow lines
and Monopoly military vehicles landing on land mines.

So, as extremely sensitive and vulnerable artists
write off their Rolls Royces in psychedelic fashion
Zebra-crossing senior citizens wave their fists
at the boy-racer no-respect generation.

Meantime, as taxi-drivers hit the disco streets
Hailers chuck it down, and up, in the back of their seats.
When, on an icy cold morning, the car won’t start
country folk take their horse and cart.

Prohibition Times

Cracking bottles open is over
and them crashing down is on.
Days of letting the wine flow are here
but those of drinking it have gone.

There’s a lot of cleaning up going on in this Hoover era
as barrels spill their guts out on the floor.
The anti-saloon league forbid the knocking back of beer
but bootleggers are pouring in to spite spike the law.

Song ‘Prohibition Times’ by me and Chicco Fresu

Pre-Season Friendly

He met her
And when he did
He felt he’d met
The girl of his dreams.

It was early days yet
But he wanted her
And was already
Scheming his schemes.

He was over the moon
Sick as a parrot;
Couldn’t believe his luck
But stressed by the intrigue.

One thing he knew;
He needed the points
And promotion quick;
She was out of his league.

Myself to Myself

I’m beside myself
Mass-producing miniature clones.
Papier-màche marionettes
That look just like me.

A matching set of gamblers,
Gamesters, holding a handful of playing cards.
Poker face opposite poker face
I call my bluff. I don’t let on.

Fairground mirrors stretch
Out-of-shape my figures of fun.
With inward-looking in-jokes
I mockingly rib myself.

By myself; inside my bedroom,
Bizarre boredom multiplies.
Working on my tiny toys
Making my own company.

Manufacture my latest line
In clockwork replicas with fitted voicebox.
A walkie-talkie robot that repeats;
“Who are you looking at? Who are you looking at?”

Often, I open my mouth
Fall headlong into my huge trap;
Make my role-model a purse-lipped puppet
And keep it to myself.

Coffee by the Ghost Office

Other people’s pop lives

Jealously unjealously thanking unthanking lucky unlucky stars
Never got to make it to that revolving earthquake stage of rubble amplifiers and smashed up guitars.
Carrying no cash, cooped up in city hotel rooms, the drugs, the sex, marriage breakdowns and rock ‘n’ roll.
That’s the life to look up to, down on, know and not know.

Then there’s the art, the self-expression, the do whatever you will.
Far away from those jailer fans and the media front page kill-thrill.
No punching the clock, no money to save, no answering to the department head
and being free to die a quiet death to obituary broadsheets in your own bed.

All those part of the 27 club can’t get into old people’s homes with their membership card.
All those who lived long enough to sell out had to draw up a marketing plan on how to sell into being some sort of aging bard.
It’s still the dream of dreamers dreaming out their dreams
That, just like in other people’s pop lives, their biography will need reams and reams.