A thing,
that you think might be obvious,
not to do,
is to drink tea with the crocodiles.
It’s almost like the term,
‘Swimming-with-the-fishes’
but more so.
And, never, ever, should you,
unthinkingly,
dunk your biscuits
in the water –
even if they are digestives,
because snap decisions
can bite back.
I went fly-fishing,
and, as the joke goes,
caught a four pound bluebottle –
but I had to let it go.
I wasn’t actually using a hook,
or a line, or a Rod, Jane, or Freddy.
To be honest,
I never actually went fly-fishing,
as I have no desire to capture
or cause injury
to a huge wingéd insect.
The crow crew
didn’t want to row to Crewe;
so, they took the train instead.
Perched upon the roof
three seats to the wind,
they watched as the world went by;
from the buffet car they fed.
Truth be told,
the crow crew
didn’t really want to go to Crewe,
but they had to go
as they’d been sent
off to crewe,
and so off to Crewe they went.
I’m not going out on a limb,
but I think I can see him;
he’s the county in the Red and white stripey jumper,
and the red and white stripey bobble hat,
on the far left, to the south west,
also out on a limb –
as it looks a little bit like a leg.
A tiny bit of rainbow
there before my eyes;
after the rain,
with a little Sun,
I see a partial rainbow rise.
The colours not so vibrant,
flickering in doubt,
as to whether the Sun had started
before the rain had fizzled out.
“I am not a Guillemot!” said the Guillemot.
“I am The Guillemot!
the last one standing,
flying, swooping, anding;
and after me there will be
no other.
I have no partner
to be a mother
to our chicks;
so when I’m gone,
it’s, ‘Fiddlesticks!’
‘Gladys, there is a leaf on the lawn!’ Norman said, all forlorn.
‘Oh, wait till morning.’ said Gladys, ‘Come back to bed.’
But Norman was getting dressed,
With such speed that Gladys was impressed.
He put on his coat, his hat, and his clogs – he did it quite quietly not to awaken the dogs – and out he went into the dark
with his eyes unaccustomed to a leaf in his park.
And there he met Mark.
Mark was a man from the Leave It society,
a group of concerned arborealists,
with a certain notoriety.
‘I want you to leave leaves alone! Let them fall on your garden, give them chance to be grown.’
Norman was no man to be told what to do,
he modelled his lawn on the nicest in Kew,
and at this time of night,
what was this young fellow about,
it was Norman, enraged, who started to shout,
‘Get off of my land, yon leaf, and young man!
You wouldn’t get this disrespect in China or Japan,
where they grow things quite tidily,
and treat them with care,
I don’t expect you’re annoying anyone there!’
At that moment, along came a policeman, who sorted the fuss.
Then three in a row of the neighbourhood bus.
It was at this very moment that they all started to scream.
And, sweating, I awoke, from an unsettling dream.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged #poetry. #poem, #Leaves, #Lawn, #Norman, #Mark, #LeaveItSociety
A bee
buzzed at my window,
‘Let me in!’ said the bee.
‘Why do you want to come indoors?’
I asked,
‘There are no flowers in here,
the outside is yours.’
The bee replied, as only bees can,
‘I want to go,
where I never have been,
to gather information,
to instruct the Queen,
on all that there is,
and all that is done –
and, to be honest,
twenty-four seven,
hour after hour,
buzzing from flower to flower to flower,
is not my idea of fun.
To take some time off
from gathering food,
keeps a bee hungry,
stops a bad mood;
and inside your house
looks a place I should go…
and it’s getting quite cold,
and it’s starting to snow.’
The words here
and below
all come to you
courtesy (not ‘curtsy’)
of yours truly (me).
If you have read
any of my poems before
(poor you)
you might know
that
WYRIWYG.
And, yet,
there is so much more
to ignore…
if you choose
to pour
over another poet’s offerings.
I wouldn’t blame you.
Anyway,
what you read
is what you get,
and I haven’t finished writing them yet.
He said, ‘Does the monkey mind?’
And the organ-grinder replied, ‘How should I know, he’s the brains of this outfit.’
Graeme Sandford 