This way,
or that way?
That way,
or this?
I never can tell.
And, sometimes, I miss
a chip being dropped,
a pasty passing by,
or an old man with an ice cream.
I sigh.
This way,
or that way?
That way,
or this?
Pen*s
is just an anagram
of sp*ne
and p*nes,
sn*pe and sep*n –
and if sep*n
isn’t a word
then it d*rn well ought to be.
They are just w*rds,
l*tters on a p*ge,
so what are you all that worr*ed about?
“Plant your seagulls early,
and plant them in a row;
then they’ll be ready for Spring Harvest!”
said nobody I know.
Fred Herring? He didn’t have a clue. Never knew that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time – time after time – and was so often mistaken for a case of déjá vu, that he seemed to be what he was, in fact, not.
.
He was a poem in the midst of purple prose, wearing a yellow tie. Why? Nobody knows. In his buttonhole a blue rose, and in his top pocket, a handkerchief, upon which he blew his nose. Then again, he was wearing a T-shirt and shorts in the coldest of days; imagination plays with the senses, you see a ship jumping fences, which sends you to sleep; and you slip between the sheets of a thousand page essay upon the subject of abject subject poverty in the time of the Russian Emancipation of the Serfs. And, what’s worse, nobody cares.
.
Theirs is the rub. A Dub-dub is just as extinct as a Dodo; but, to hypothesise is a no-no.
.
Where, you may ask, is this going?
.
I have know-no way of knowing?
.
I only right the things – rite?
Posted in Poetry
Tagged #dialogueforaplay, #FredHerring, #poetry. #poem, #RedHerring
‘Let’s meet up for a coffee!’
Said nobody, ever, to me;
so I said, ‘Okay, let’s do it do this thing,
let’s meet up for a coffee!’
to nobody, that I could see.
.
So we met up for a coffee;
no, we did not do any such thing,
we didn’t meet up for a coffee,
and you never gave me a ring.
.
‘Let’s meet up for a coffee! Again!’
Obviously, from the first,
this is not going to happen.
.
‘Let’s meet up for a coffee!’
.
It’s never gonna happen.
The worm, said to the fish,
‘I really, really wish
that this hook
wasn’t stuck up my bottom.’
.
The fish said to the worm,
‘It must make you squirm;
by the way that you look
you could be mistook
for a worm who has … worms!
Have you got ‘em?’
.
‘No.’ said the worm,
‘And, another thing I wish,
is that you didn’t pop me on your dish,
as it won’t do
either of us a favour or two.’
.
The fish could see
the point of the words
that the worm spoke to warn;
and if it hadn’t have been so hungry
wouldn’t have treated them with scorn.
.
The worm and the fish
we’re both caught in a trap;
fed the same old line,
and never let off the hook –
always predestined to endure a final mishap.
I was walking along,
when a leaf, from off of.a tree,
landed upon my head,
damaging me –
I was concussed?
Nobody fussed
over my supine body,
but, other leaves soon joined in,
tapping a cacophonous threnody
upon my broken pate;
at this rate, I’ll be
the mound of the fallen zero –
more a landmark,
less a hero.
One day,
a whale
decided that
it wanted to learn Brail;
but, the whale
was in a bit of a bind,
as, not being blind,
it was difficult to find
a reason for doing so.
The whale talked to a friend,
who had been to school,
and asked, ‘Am I being a fool?
Wanting to learn Brail?’
The friend thought a bit,
about the learning of Brail,
and declared, ‘If you don’t try,
you are destined to fail’.
Which were wise words indeed.
‘But …’ was added at last,
‘I think that that you’ll find
you’ll need fingers to read
the language of the blind’,
and as the whale was deaf,
it signed the words
in BSL as well.
You’re not a Vegan,
and I don’t want to hear
the excuses you have;
the way you wheedle makes me cringe;
and the carnivorous greed,
that fuels your need
sickens me to the core
of my apple.
And, what’s more,
you must surely be aware by now
that you are killing them and yourself
by eating
that pig,
that chicken,
that cow.
I’m too old
for T-shirts.
It hurts me
to say it,
but I don’t want
to look like a hypocrite
or sound like one, too;
but, I am,
and there’s not a lot
that I can do
about the fact.
So, please show tact
when you laugh at my slogan,
and the size of my paunch;
launch into laughter
if you must,
but I’m getting the feeling
that my T-shirt days
are bust.
Graeme Sandford 