You are the audience

You…

are the audience;

and

I

am the poet

(If you are, at any stage of my act, amused – please show it –

if you have any overripe fruit

I ask you, please,

‘not’ to

throw it),

and we should get on fine.

These poems,

that I am about to perform,

are all mine;

unless they stink,

in which case, ‘Wordsworth’ wrote them in indelible ink.

I begin this evening’s performance

with a poem that has an overlong title;

but considerably few ‘actual’ words in it.

This poem is called, ‘What chance have you got, when the world gives you lemons, and oranges are the only fruit?’

Vitamin C

means

‘little’

to me.

And here I do the universal gesture for ‘my current poem has finished’ (puts arms to side like a poorly Harrier Jump Jet), please be clapping or raucously ‘cheering’ but only for two point four seconds, as I have a schedule to keep to’.

Thank you.

My second poem… of twenty – just joking! – is called, ‘Whither did you come from, my love; and was there a stork or a gooseberry bush involved?’

I looked upon your face,

and paused;

three hours later, sad to say,

I remembered what it was I’d caused,

found the remote control,

and pressed ‘play’ –

you were not at all impressed.