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.
Graeme Sandford 