Buy Some Milk

The piece of paper found inside

his heart was folded seven times.

We wondered at its mystery;

considered it a miracle.

Entrusted with this modern relic,

we contemplated wisdom’s reach.

But what we would have thought at reading

Buy some milk, I cannot say.

Replacement

If you removed the clock to take

its batteries out (or simply took

a hammer to its inner workings)

it would, the cliché states, be able

to tell the time correctly twice

a day; but where’s the fun in that?

Remove, remove, remove the clock!

Let’s say that you’ve removed the clock.

Graffiti circles on the wall

and fill each one with question marks.

No matter that you cannot tell

the time, not even once a day,

a question mark is always right.

Shark!

Apple have announced the latest must-have gadget: a shark.

“People are fed up with stupid little bits of plastic with a million things you could never possibly need. It’s time to get real,” explained new CEO, Man with Beard, “and they don’t come any more real than a shark. Just ask someone who’s been attacked by one.”

He went on to explain that the average life-span of an iphone these days was “only marginally longer than that of an ant.” At current rates, he said, Apple will eventually release a new iphone every seven minutes. To counteract this, they have come up with the new Apple Shark. “Sharks have been around for millions of years showing a far greater capacity for longevity than the iphone.”

Not everyone is impressed, though. Former Cornish international cricket star, Shane Brisbane, was very disappointed with the new shark. “It can’t even pour a pretend pint for me to pretend to drink. How shit is that?”

                                                                                *

[The first person I knew with an iphone showed me how I could ‘pour’ a ‘virtual pint’ and then pretend to drink it. The second person I knew to own an iphone showed me exactly the same thing.]

The Benefits of Boredom

“The sky was English sky that day:

A patchwork stitched from drizzled grey.”

With nothing else to do, we spent

all day riding different sound waves.

We started on a single note,

a C, to see if C-waves were

the same, in any way, as sea-waves.

They weren’t. We braved a leitmotif

and used it like a rollercoaster.

We surfed on awkward intervals:

augmented fifth; diminished fourth;

precipitously-balanced seventh.

Then, quite exhausted by the speed,

a silent wave of avant-gard

allowed us all to catch our thoughts.

Skylark

The “Variations on a Theme of Sound

Effects to Signify a Pratfall in

Tom and Jerry” is playing on a loop.

Or maybe it’s a skylark. Looking up

to scan the sky for signs of televisions

tuned in to Cartoon Network, all I notice

are clouds. I stare at one awhile to see if

it changes shape into a television.

This fails to happen, so I search the heavens

instead for evidence of skylark. None.

I stand and scour the sky and wonder how

this bird cannot be seen when there it is,

as obvious as laughter in a classroom;

as obvious as skylarks in the sky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dI0lH7_R_U

Butterfly

I kick the grass to make a clearer path

for me to walk along, and as I kick,

I see a butterfly, held prisoner by

a flop of grass. I use my foot to move

the grass to help the butterfly escape,

but when its path is clear to fly to freedom,

it stops flapping and bares defiant wings

in mute disregard of my mercy mission.

A butterfly that’s brave enough to try

and scare a man away deserves respect.

Enough

The reader might be bored or unimpressed,

or reading this at somebody’s behest,

a stranger to the wiles of Mistress Verse;

whose first response to poetry is terse;

who fears the shame of not quite understanding;

who fears that poetry is too demanding,

yet somehow dull and lifeless too. He might

(or ‘she’ if girl you are) be more than right

to say that poetry’s just silly stuff;

to say that ten lines constitutes ‘enough’.

“that joke isn’t funny anymore”

talking of clichés

you spin

in circles

all your life

round and round and round

getting track 1, side two, meat is murder

and still making

obscure references

to johnny marr

you missed

your first milestone:

too busy

to notice

that you had turned

turned turned

turned

thirty-three-and-a-third

forty-five

and of course

that joke isn’t funny anymore

spinning more

for less

and not looking forward

to the next milestone

we used to use 78s

as frisbees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIyXJxPFVz4 esp. 3.45 till the end