A Pretty Kettle of Poetry

“Next to mine own shippe I do most love
That old “shippe” in Exon, a tavern in St. Martin’s Lane.” (Francis Drake, 1587)

Sir Francis Drake supped
With sixteenth century swank
As his naval ship-mates tottered with rum-tots
On oaken floor-boards, walking the plank.

I wonder whether he boozed harder
As his Elizabethan world view blurred;
Head spinning, he spun the one about the Armada,
Slurring the Spanish as his English words slurred.

A Very Important Pirate, he autographed beer-mats
For West Country folk, his Exeter fans
As in his favourite watering hole, he happily spat
Making merry in Merry England.

Meanwhile, having had no success with the weaker vessel,
His crew poured out of the tap-bar, lamenting Hello me Hearty!
Having had their melancholic fill
They set off to drown their Tudor sorrows at sea.

Hunchbacks give hunchback rides
round la fontana dei matti
as round the cloisters st francis goes batty
talking to birds of the feathered variety.

You can easily vanish off the face of the earth
where you’re lucky to be born with your date of birth;
godfearers in umbria in unforeseen trouble
get gobbled up by earthquake rubble.

Gargoyles at the churchside
come a poor second in the village’s annual gurning contest
to your neighbours, gap-toothed and goyaesque,
pulling faces that knock spots off the rest.

From their hovel next door you hear one of them sneeze
as rats race round forcing the working population to its knees;
the whole continent in sepia, and a plague painting each town red
you hang on to your dear ones, and bring out your dead.

tomorrow morning you’ll get;
an e-mail in your mail-box a pigeon at your sill
a letter through your letter-box a fax on your fax
a memo on your desk an arrow to your tree
an SMS on your mobile a brick through your window
flowers at your door as overhead you’ll see
a private plane with a banner trailing
all with the same message;
was our losing touch written in the stars?

Cheeriness and depths of doom cavort
In the same tavern.
Brains distil any thought
That heads might turn.

If I really have to live my life alone
I’d rather not see anyone.
They can all come out to pay their respects
Just seconds before the referee blows another 90 minutes.

Darkness is very black
with eyes open or closed.
100 years after an attack
where dead men marching wearily dozed.

You’re going to have to take that back
or else there’ll be hell to pay!
You’re going to have to take that back!
It misfires and could blow your head off one day!

Ah, sod this for a game of soldiers. Let’s turn back!
Let’s shine up our buttons for a parade
and line up for the final push or massive big button whack!
Kids, learn history by heart ‘cos memories fade.

Illustration;

My blog with original poems, illustrations and songs was put in at number 16 of Top 100 Poetry Blogs at https://blog.feedspot.com/poetry_blogs/ in December 2019.

Why? Feedspot explain;

“Feedspot editorial team extensively searched on Google and social media websites to find the best Poetry blogs and ranked them based on several factors such as. 

1. Blog content quality
2. Post consistency
3. Age of the blog
4. Average number of shares on social sites for your blog posts
5. Traffic of your blog and more…

And if you keep posting quality content regularly and get more shares on social sites, your rank will improve with time for sure.”

Will do. Very proud to know my work is appreciated.

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Buoying up what should only be anchored on a seabed,
launching horizon thoughts from a beachy head,
polishing off planks running red in gallons on bloody Mary galleons,
mutinying off bilious dream decks into wavy waters off Albion;
a pirate seagull takes a selfie from a cliff ledge.

Out-of-breath knee-rug centenarians in their Sunday best
blowing out as many candles as possible to show who’s the eldest,
sudden street-sleepers rolling out nicotine-rolled mattresses,
metal-detector treasure-hunting wanderers wondering where it’s at is;
a hypochondriac pigeon twigs it and drops down dead on its chest.

Shuddering scaredy-cats fidgety-pecking bread-crumbs,
cry-baby pram-pushing toddlers make-believing their mums
perfect perchers on rain-dropping bunting over wet pavement stones,
nesty fledgling prodigies playground-beaking on xylophones;
an Olympic swift breaks the all-time record at 32 metres per second.

Up-in-the-branches and away-with-the-fairies for whatever it takes.
a modest million-strong division of camouflaged ambushers awakes,
budget-totting scrimpers’n’savers blowing it all in one fell swoop,
flashy film producing flashers put away for a long time in a chicken coop;
a skylarking starling in mirror-sunglasses sweepstakes.

I hold back more words a day
than I ever say.
Spout off more than my fair share
to people who don’t know me or care
just to entertain.

I go back home, open the door
and close it behind me once more.
Go to my park bench with its personalized plaque
in my sitting room and sit back
and watch the day’s passersby once again.

The moon outside is a little empty head
glowing in the dark as I go to bed
with the whole world wide web as a speech-bubble
with 7 billion mouths presumably in a bit of trouble
to get what they think heard
or get voices they hear not written off as absurd.

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