A Pretty Kettle of Poetry

Imaginary World (2024)

Up in the menu is poems written this year. Some have been published in the course of the year, others haven’t, but I have put them into a new collection or, as I like to think of them, a new album. A double album in this case! Nearly all poems have brand new collages to them. And it’s all called ‘Imaginary World.’

Garden Maze

More & more in a muddle
Somewhere in the middle
You turn in on yourself
where’s there’s no-one else.

You don’t know where to look.
Autumn leaves left underfoot
& a green-finch on the path
you remember seeing in the past.

A snail-shell weighing you down;
All your possessions lost & found.
Slow-worms & slugs that go on slow.
Blackbirds & thrushes lying low.

Taking a right, you get it wrong.
Spontaneous mistakes never take long.
It’s getting dark and much too late
To run out of time and hesitate.

Dickensian Kenneth

Dickensian Kenneth as is his ilk
In pyjama regalia picks up the milk.
Slippers quick-march hup hup one two
Back at the double to Breakfast HQ.

Where in her eggcup marmalade empire
Tea toasted soldier paraphernalia,
Victoriana’s rule of thumb clear;
He’s under hers “Yes love, no dear”.

‘X’ marks the spot on his Union Jack bot
Where the canvassing Conservative candidate stopped.
His face, like the rosette, turned Tory Blue
Securing a seat in the polls ‘92.

Dickensian Kenneth as is his bent
Eyes left parades outside the gents.
No medals for lateness; Victoria’s cross.
Despatches excuses; Careless Talk Costs!

A pie eye for a pie eye

Drunk on revenge
See them square up to each other.
The same old scraps.
The same old bother.

They hold their minute of silence
while bad-mouthing and incapable of keeping silent.
One day, both sides might come to their senses
as amateur giant-killing peacemakers beat professional war mongers in a cup tie upset that sends dailies into delirious cup fever excitement.

Meanwhile, the school blackboard is blank.
What have we learnt in centuries of learning?
Give as good as we get?
Leave revengers and pie-eyed war party disco dance floor revellers disco burning?

Very wordy.
Too much so.
Simple message:
Let it all go.

giving the ‘v’ sign is half the battle

life is hard
like a war
i’m no bard
that’s for sure

bombs and bullets
tears and torment
blood and blitz
is what I meant

every day
turning to night
come what may
before the fight

fearing a loss
you pray for victory
but who gives a toss
down on one knee?

Tricks of the Mind

Plate-spinners spin tales.
Jugglers juggle coincidence destinies.
Acrobats do tumbles and cartwheels
while banging against skull cavities.

What people said and what they did
gets distorted in a hall of mirrors
as escapologist brain cells
vanish and disappear.

Trapeze artists in high-low mood swings.
Clowns doing slap stick comedy routines.
Dwarves playing pranks round and round in rings
as magicians cast spells to magic away and free lions and horses and childhood dreams.

As tricks of the mind cloud fuzzy senses
big top heads get lost
in thick theatrical smoke that billows and tent-denses
while thought lines get telepathically crossed.

add another death of a loved one to the toll

like a piece of you has gone
gone into another life cut short and wrong
i’m standing mime-drumming on my balcony
and the next day is as tomorrow as far as I can see

football is the theme tonight
a match between my heart and soul
everything I love is out of sight
and trying to understand is the goal

Cats’n’Dogs

Teatime rain brewing in teapot clouds,
powers-that-be dunk their big biscuits in their big cup.
A pretty kettle of fish and bones boiling in up-the-revolution kitchens with rights overlooked and doffed hats centuries kow-towed:
something’s getting somewhere like a cat from a kitten or a dog from a pup.

Legendary ties get consigned to history,
to be dug up again and again in eternal rematches that get postponed due to rain in waterlogged trench pitches.
Fighting cats and dogs, with little mercy,
a paw, a whisker, a tail, a skull, bubbling and steaming like being promise-vowed and brewed by 16th century revenge accountants and little quill-pushing civil snitches.

Meanwhile cats and dogs in many households
live together in peace or blissful non-aggression pacts, at least.
Time’s getting on and it’s getting muddled and old
as future generations drink and guzzle and party-revel, oblivious to a copy-cat unneighbourly dog-barking politely-camouflaged unidentified cat-dog mechanical biscuit-eating Yeatsian beast.

Bus Route 1 Revelations #9

Writing this on the Number 1 bus.
Late meeting my instant love for dinner.
Met by chance lingering friends drinking to us
and, having to get away, made excuses like an original sinner.

Today I’m in such a good mood:
I might have cracked the meaning to it all.
Be cool, don’t fret, avoid any feud
and, if possible, stick to routines that punch the clock or knock down the wall.