Scale

Some clever people in this world,
with too much time but little sense,
can carve The Gettysburg Address
into a tiny grain of rice.

I had a go at this myself,
but chose a more familiar piece
to begin my carving career:
track seven from The Queen is Dead.

And things went pretty well, at first:
I bought my tools, I bought my rice,
then checked the lyrics just in case
I'd misremembered any lines.

But then I started on the carving,
and this is where my scheme collapsed,
not once, but every single time
I hit the chisel with my hammer.

The rice would snap, or sometimes crack,
and thirty-seven minutes in
I had my carving revelation:
embrace defeat; at least you've earned it.

I threw away my bluntish tools,
I swept up all the broken rice,
and wrote Bigmouth Strikes Again
across the sky, with my finger.

(17th July 2013, Hythe)

Song of Afternoon

The air is thick with Bitey-Bastards,

   Bitey-Bastards throng the air.

I riled them with a Mighty-Parsnip,

   “Come fly towards me, if you dare!”

The Bitey-Bastards buzzing madly,

   Buzzing madly through my space.

I’d swipe at twenty dozen gladly,

   I dare you – fly towards my face.

One Bitey-Bastard buzzed a-facewards,

  Buzzed a-facewards, Bastard bit!

And angry, like a de-fuzzed race-horse,

  I Mighty-Parsnip-walloped it!

Aubade

(i)

It’s 4 a.m. (again) and sleep is over

until I need to be awake, when tiredness

will try its best to knock me out (again).

(ii)

Before the dawn, the night is at its darkest:

the place where life’s demented moods are rooted.

(iii)

Hurrah! How splendid! Morning light is here,

along with all the lovely morning thoughts it spews.

(iv)

I’ve waited ‘til the sun appears,

to seek the shade of daytime fears.

A Flat-Earther Writes

The world, as I see it, is flat. Not funny flat, like pancakes, but simply flat, like all of those things which, you now notice, have lost their shape.

Back Seat Writer

I bet you’ll try and overtake that van,

Along this winding death-trap of a road.

“Well, well,” you think, “I wonder if I can.”

And lo, you try and overtake the van.

It merits not a formal driving ban,

But maybe you should read The Highway Code?

I hold tight as you overtake the van,

And make a winding death-trap of this road.

Horse-Face Parade

Your horse-like face is worn with pride,

Your empty- head is occupied

   With thoughts which other people wouldn’t think.

It’s time to cry, it’s time to laugh,

It’s time to climb the rhyme giraffe,

   Which lives inside a stained-glass glass stained pink.

Your hindsight sends the signal out:

Don’t mess with me or else I’ll pout,

   Or maybe not, it really doth depend.

And as you reach the final mark,

Your empty head lights up the dark,

   Reveals the message “Welcome to The End.”

Buried Treasure

Just this morning, as I am walking past a field of no cows, I spy a man with a metal detector. This rather proves my theory that the cows had planned to return to the field in order to dig up their buried treasure.

   “Are you looking for buried treasure?” I innocently ask the man.

   “Ha, ha! Yes, let’s hope so, eh?”

I don’t wish him an insincere Good Luck , but rather carry on walking with what I hope is insouciance.

So – I was right all along. But what to do? Try and find it myself? Alert the authorities? (But which ones? The authorities on Ming Dynasty vases? Maybe not.) Apprehend the metal detecting man?

   I decide, after much deliberation, to do nothing, as this is what I do best (apart, possibly, from making toast). It’s an easy course of action to follow.

   Whilst doing nothing, I inwardly hope that the man is unsuccessful in his bid to locate the now legendary/mythical cow treasure. I’m also wary of badgers trying to steal it for their own well-established, nefarious pastimes. Badgers are secretive, untrustworthy creatures, always trying to short-change any passers-by.

Where was I?

Post-pop

There was a day. There was an hour. It vanished,

quite simply. Drip-drip-drip. My interest in

the charts (you know, The Charts) slowly ran dry

until the time arrived when everything

I heard was alien and all the same.

The Magnificent Seven Cows

As my regular reader will know, I live near a field where seven cows reside. I walked past said field last week only to notice that they had staged a daring escape. I say ‘daring’, but these things are relative; what may be commonplace for you or I (opening a gate) must have taken my erstwhile bovine compatriots months of preparation and planning (opening a gate without any kind of thumb, even a disposable one, must have taken some forethought).

   This explains one previously unsolved mystery: the unreliability of the bovine rain-gauge. Clearly they were too busy discussing escape strategies to have time to consider meteorological forecasts.

   Their one oversight was to leave the gate open. This surprised me, as I had thought that all rural dwellers adhered strictly to the countryside code. The cows seemed to stick to the other articles of the code (for example, they didn’t leave any litter behind at all).

Thus, I stand by the open gate and ponder. Either they were too excited at the success of their plan that they forgot to close the gate (v. unlikely) or they were planning to return at the dead of night to dig up their buried treasure (a far more reasonable explanation, given the meticulousness of these particular cows).

   Perhaps it is the first step a “Planet of the Cows” scenario?

  

It’s 3.34 a.m. and there’s still no sign of their return (I even brought my spade). What can they be up to? It’s been nearly a week.

For Lungs Read Soul

I’d like to reach my hand inside my lungs and scoop out all of the filth that has accumulated there over the decades. Then I’d clean it (maybe with a toothbrush) until it was glistening pink, like the day I was born.

The Horse Shit of the Year Show

The judges all gathered round the latest fine offering  of thoroughbred equine defecation. Big. Brown. Lumpy. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” they announced. “We have our winner!”

Wild, ecstatic cries rose from the crowd as the Horse Shit of the Year Show reached its thrilling conclusion: watching Heston Services Bloominghell transform the winning entry into a three-course dinner for the Channel 4 documentary Heston’s Horse Shit Challenge with invited guests from The Guardian newspaper as the lucky diners.

Ain’t Not No Nothing (Nor Nowt)

There is no weather out in space,

   There are no flowers on the moon,

There is no saving without grace,

   There are no winter storms in June,

   There are no mornings after noon,

There is no warmth in Death’s embrace,

   There are no fashions in maroon,

There is no life without a trace.

   Announce it in a southern drawl:

   There ain’t no dinosaurs at all.

There is no heaven in the sky,

  There are no magic beanstalk beans,

There is no ‘not’ inside of ‘why?’

   There are no stains in that which cleans,

   There are no wrongs within our genes,

There is no ‘welcome’ in ‘good-bye’,

   There are no ills from eating greens,

There is no answer when we die.

   Please say it in the Voice of Doom:

   There is no exit from the tomb.

There is no window to the soul,

   There are no miracles, in fact,

There is no substance to a hole,

   There are no spaces when we’re packed,

   There are no sins which don’t detract,

There is no view inside a bowl,

   There are no codes which can’t be cracked,

There is no noise like rock’n’ roll.

   Declare these words in crystal tones:

   There is no life when all is bones.

Envoi:
These things should send you round the bend,
   For life's a joke and should offend,
And surely even children know,
   There is no nothing in the end.

Meandering

Escapee number forty-seven stood

aside to let the moment pass, before

resuming with his walk. His destination,

as yet unknown to him, was just around

the corner. “Soon,” an uninvited voice

inside his head announced. A wave of endings,

defying every rule of common sense,

first rose then fell upon a shore of bones:

the bones of ages underneath his feet;

the bones of all departed souls spread out

towards each compass point as far any

sharp eye could see. This sea: a silent violence

of suffocating surges, swells and warnings.

“The time is now,” the uninvited voice

proclaimed. “The time is now.” And every not-

yet-breathed breath pushed itself towards the here

and now, for there it stood: his destination.

‘Twas both as large as life, and small as death,

encapsulated in a final breath.