Leaves and clouds and sky and stuff,
like my words and rhymes
the weather can be rough
or smooth;
and I can either move to the groove
or shelter from the storm
(or the excessively warm)
in the garden
where the pottery of poetry
is often found
by looking skywards
at the ground.
For fools rush in
and knock over a stand,
a floral display, a waste-paper bin;
loiterers loiter (as is their wont)
by the sign shouting “Silence!”
and only returning
from whence they came
at cloning time.
A book upon the Mafia,
once taken out,
remains taken out.
And the crumbs of information
gleaned from the Reference Section
are a scant comfort to readers
far and wide.
What can you make out of letters?
Words?
Words of complaint,
bold enough to make you feint
this way and that;
thrust, parry, Jerusalem Larry;
creative types straight from the font,
you make them do what you want
and curse them when they won’t –
because often they don’t;
you can’t alter their wont,
they’re not yours alone,
and though you try to atone,
I’d give it up for Lent,
if you know what is meant
by a life more or less well spent.
Words don’t come easy
peasy, lemon drizzle cake.
Out of letters come my words,
please make of them what you will
make.
‘Everything up north is monochrome’
I was told this by a chappie who lives there;
‘It’s all black and white,
but we like it, alright;
and it helps us to sleep well through t’ night.
Though… ‘ he said, having thought on a bit,
‘If we are the claret and blue loyal…’
and here his argument fell into pieces,
‘Dang! I’d have got away with saying it, if it hadn’t have been for those darn meeces!’
It was there that I realised
he had mixed up his kids’ TV references,
and I left the conversation at that.
I don’t have letters after my name,
nor bailiffs after my goods and chattels;
I am solely to blame
for any skirmishes and battles
that I have entered into
with the dubious intention
of staking my claim
to the wealth of a nation;
and I have ‘never’ liaised with the Devil;
though, to give him his due,
he has ‘never’ ‘ever’ asked me to.
I don’t receive many letters
with my name emblazoned
upon the envelope;
I live in hope,
not literally, but laterally,
and how long is a piece of rope?
What is there left when all soap is gone?
Why do rhetorical questions matter so little to me;
the former? The latter?
the letter of the law is unsure upon this point,
and, so, I anoint myself with the moisture of sweat,
or, better yet,
a lack of physical and mental debt.
We are ‘all’ living in a material world,
and I am a material;
well, maybe knot.
My D.I.G.N.I.T.Y.
becomes less ev’ry day.
PS Good Luck with the above.
Letters
make the words
that make the sentences
that make the words go round
the world.
And I bet,
that an alphabet
is better at aiding that
than a black cravat.
Which is kinda weird;
but, as I’ve said before,
it’s what I do.
I must go down to the words today,
the lonely words in the wood;
the ones that just aren’t used enough;
and not because
they are no good;
but, because they are so shy;
and no one goes to visit them,
and if someone does, they cry.
The words all hide
amongst the trees,
they keep themselves unspoken;
solitude is the thing they crave,
a silence likened to the grave,
or a morning quite unbroken.
I must just go,
to see they’re safe,
check they haven’t wilted;
for they had worth
in better days
before their use was stilted.
I must go down to the words today,
the lonely words in the wood.
