Poetry for men who look at old Mechanical things

The great mechanical Marvel

With its dual time elapsed

Escapement movement

Turns slowly on its axis

Gears spinning driving its

Built in helical spring

And with its divergence inverted organ pipes

It can be taught to loudly sing

It truly is a wonder

As grown men drool

Over its polished Brass pipes

And not just old men in rain coats

But even younger well suited types

And they will look and point

And nod in a knowing way

A way that women don’t understand

Even in the more enlightened times

Of the modern day man

You see

The great mechanical Marvel

Is a product of the past

And modern ones are all plastic

And never ever last

As bits fall off

And the escape value sticks

And the all important

Trestle adjustment screw

Keeps moving

So you stick it in with glue

But  

The great mechanical Marvel

Grow men looking at its polished Brass

Supping on an ice cold pint of beer

Will always reassure a chap

After being trapped in a large supermarket

With his wife

And a supermarket trolley

That will not

Steer 

The terrible curse of the selfie

Yesterday or maybe it was the day before I did something terrible, I took a selfie. One of those things that folk do so much that some cunningly clever chap invented a stick so you could take selfies from slightly further away. Now you might be thinking WHY (no not the stick but me taking one of me) and I don’t blame you, but there is a reason. You see what with drawing more pictures and then admittedly tweaking them a bit with some rather basic and very old software, plus writing a bit of dodgy poetry I thought I need a suitable image.  Until recently I have avoided using images of myself as much as possible in cyberspace, but if I plan to be some sort of mad dishevelled cult artist poet, then image is important. So I dug out my Tesco prescription sunglasses pointed my little digital camera at myself and attempted to smile then pressed the button and hey-presto . . . .terrible. Yes no matter how much I try to look slightly cool and moderately chirpy I always end up looking dead grumpy, OK I am grumpy most of the time but not all of it.

Now one of the key things that has brought this to the fore is that my old pal Mr Charlie said I needed a manager so that rather than just drawing stuff and sticking it into the voids of cyberspace to be lost forever, My manager could manage me. Actually I am probably not an ideal candidate for a manager because I am grumpy and a bit maverick (as has been proved by photographic evidence).  So I said to Charlie OK then Charlie you can manage me, and then he went off and told folk I was drawing again and that he was going to organise me and attempt to get me to create enough work for an exhibition. HAHAHAHha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haha haha ha hahah a ha ha I thought; I am far to maverick to be organised into something that organised these days, surely such a thing is impossible. I suspect I am right but in order to help my new manager I have promised to create some hanging on the wall art so it can be hung on a wall and folk can look and say. . . . . . . . O my god that’s terrible, that is the worst art I have ever seen. . . .

I did say too Mr Charlie in a slightly enthusiastic way. . . I could add some of my poetry to the artwork. . . . But he looked panicked and said he thought that was a bad idea . . . that means I almost certainly will.

Now I don’t know if this will happen and if it does when, but if it does I will let you all know. What I will say is it will not be in a leading London gallery, for one thing London scares me to bits, it is full of folk running about and huge as in really huge.

In the meantime here is my selfie. . . . . . . . . . .

     

Poetry for Unseen Extinct Beasts

Behold the Greater Spotted Paraphrase

Which moves in stealthy and beguiling ways

And it is said it is a beast that man can’t see

Because of its camouflage and complex geometry

And fantastic as this beast may be

It will spend its entire life in a single tree

Or so we think, but do not know

Because despite chopping down all the trees

We have not seen it

Which is a bitter blow

As it now appears the beast

Is probably extinct

And we might just have seen it

If we had not blinked

Nature is like that

Fickle

Bad Poetry for Snakes

Snakes are happy

Snakes are cute

Snakes like to play

A minstrels Lute

They are rather good

At impersonating a deflating tyre

And a well played Islamic flute

Will always

A snake inspire

But they don’t like tap dancing

For reasons I think we all know

And they don’t chew their food

But just swallow it

All in one go

And a snake can be a bit of a charmer

But should not be trusted

As one once ate

The Dalai Lama

(You see snakes do have rather complex religious beliefs)

Some snakes are friendly

Some snakes are not

And I think we all know

Which one of those

That Cleopatra chap got.

But snakes have their uses

If they try

And a well-trained snake

Makes a jolly good tie

(Although I would not advice using a Boa constrictor)

Yes sorry I was in a bit of a rush tonight and the mind is still as blank as can be at present, you know what it’s like you just start thinking you are getting the hang of all this poetry lark and then it all goings wrong. Luckily I drew a picture of a chap annoying a snake (as you do) and thought hang on it must be possible to write a snake poem dead quick. . . . . . . . . . . . OK I may be wrong.  

How I never became a Hero

Today I plan to tell you a true story of a heroic nature, OK I think it was heroic because I did the heroic deed. It is an event that happened many many years ago as in a seriously long time ago when I was about twenty or there about.  At the time I was an Electro-Mechanical engineering apprentice, well either that or I had just finished my apprenticeship and I worked in a lab in a huge engineering business in one of those post war new towns. The fact it was a post war new town is important because this particular one had a network of cycle paths and footpaths that weaved about under the roads with nice wide sloping grass banks to keep the cars and pedestrians apart. All part of the optimistic design ideas for post war towns at the time.

Now living in this environment it was not uncommon when the weather was nice for me to walk home from work even though it was about a mile and a half. It was still quicker than driving due to volume of traffic. Well one particular summers evening as I was wandering under one of the pedestrian/ cycle underpasses which went under a dual carriageway a rather formally dressed chap in front of me who was just emerging out of the subway set off running like a bat out of hell. Not something you see every day and that’s for sure, well as I was a few feet or so behind him as I emerged to my left coming down the hill and bouncing out of control on the grass banks was a large truck with no driver. Luckily as I watched it heading towards me it ran up one of the grass banks stopped and then rolled backwards before starting to continue its trip down the hill. This gave me the opportunity to run up and leap into the cab before it gained too much speed and I was able to hit the foot brake to stop it just before it attempted to go under one of the pedestrian bridges. That was just as well as the truck cab was about three feet higher than the bridge and I might have got a bit squashed. Well as I sat there pondering where the handbrake was the driver turned up, apparently he had got out of his cab to ask directions and his truck set off without him. He was very panicked so I had to sit with him to get him back on the road and to the factory he was delivering too.

Once I got him there I then wandered back home thinking OOOOooo very heroic maybe I will be in the local paper looking heroic. . . Well about half an hour later the police turned up at the scene of the accident as it was visible from where I lived, so I went and said I had stopped the runaway truck and had taken it and the driver to a local factory, they then sped off without even asking my name, and that was that.

I never got to be a hero. . . and although it sounds a bit scary to tell the truth I did much scarier stuff when I worked offshore in the very early 1980’s when it was still a bit gung-ho.

But if that had happened today it would be all over YouTube and social-media and I would be able to look heroic and say . . . No it just all in a day’s work.  Being somewhat old and knackered now I suspect I would never catch a runaway truck these days and folk would point and laugh, But I did have the satisfaction at the time to note that everyone else ran screaming and panicking and I as a stubborn rebellious bloke (always was and always will be) did not.

Now this story is entirely true in every detail it all happened as I have detailed and I never became a hero, which makes you wonder just how many folk do heroic stuff and never get any recognition for it, I bet it happens most days.

Poetry for not having enough time

It seems now that summers here

I have so many things to DO

Like feed the birds

Feed the cats

And stick antlers on them both with GLUE

And the grass grows faster

Than any man would like to SEE

So I have to get the lawn mower working

As well as trim several bits of TREE

Plus make a cardboard Trojan horse

Which I said I would do ages AGO

And hunt under rocks and stuff

Looking for newts and frogs

And other amphibians

To paint strange colours

For the local village summer SHOW

And who has not got a tortoise

Stuck on the garage ROOF

Or problems in their attic

From some demonic monster

With a cloven HOOF

Or a dripping TAP

Or aphids taking a little NAP

While sucking SAP

On the rose

Which was a gift from

Your favourite (scary) gran- neeeee

Because as we all know

When she comes to visit

It’s the first thing she wants to see.

And the greenhouse needs water

As the tomatoes start to WILT

And my working model

Of the Grand Union Canal

Is filling up with SILT

And I do need the odd cup of tea

And a bacon butty or maybe TWO

And the leopard has escaped again

From the local ZOO

And if it attacks Grannies rose

She will be in a terrible RAGE

So I will run off now for a bit

To help get it

Back in its

CAGE

A chaps work is never done

Maybe a cup of tea first.

Right that’s THAT

The leopard has been caught

Using my gardening HAT

. . . . . .(yes if you wondering, it tried to attack my head)

And now I must finish my poetry

Because tonight I am off out to see

Friends and to have a Chicken Dhansak

Which they will run off and buy

And then bring back
to me

Hang On what do you mean

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The poetry is rubbish . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I don’t think you appreciate

How much I have to do

I still have to paint a

Zombie Gnomes wheelbarrow

Bright blue

I know what you think

But it is quite true

He is a friendly chap

And I have called him

Hugh

OOOOoooo time for another cup of tea…

Poetry for the Diet of a Dragon

Tarquin the Dragon

Likes ice cream on toast

pizza and pie,

Rhubarb crumble made by a ghost

Followed by a nice Sunday roast

Deep fried

And marinated

In liquidised corpses of fly. . . .

And he will eat pumpkin seeds

As long as they are a bright bright red

And he once ate baked beans

By did not like them, he said

He likes iron filling with a hint of rust

And salt on his porridge is an absolute must

He will even eat tin

If it is served right

Wrapped round a grumpy medieval knight

Who as you might expect

Will complain when the dragon

Takes his first bite

He once ate three witches

From a Shakespearian play

And would have eaten the prince and the princess

But they both ran away

And he is partial to Poet

And says they taste of snow

And who could resist glow worms

When they start to glow

And every dragon

Likes toad and frog soup

Some anchovies and garlic

With an accessional Spaghetti hoop

And a big bowl of hot wizard stew

And a nice bit of Harry Potter gristle

On which to have a good chew

All washed down with some camomile tea

Accompanied by a bit of

Rancid fermented Bree    

   

More Pirate Poetry

Everyone loves an eccentric wise Pirate

With his pirates swagger

As he sharpens his cutlass on a cuttlefish bone

And his parrot sings of the sea

In a raucous belligerent tone

The crew dancing on a dead man’s chest

Stolen in the dark of night

From its hidden place of rest . . .

Pieces of eight

Gold doubloons

And glinting silver coins

Slipping through the crews fingers

Mistrust brewing through their desire and greed

The eccentric pirate captain and the parrot

Watching and chewing caraway seed

Be gone me hearties

He shouts with his cutlass drawn

Greed will destroy ye all

Like a poison thorn

And with that he throws the chest

Into the sea and says

I be ye greatest Pirate Captain

There will ever be

Because while on my ship all the crew

Are treated equally

HAR HAR HAR

Now where be the rum.

And who

Is going to dive in to recover that chest

Tom the cabin boy ye say

Well give him a cannonball

To help him on his way

HAR

Whats that you say Skippy

Tom can’t swim

DAMN

This by the way is what happens when you choose to strim the grass at the side of the drive within view of a few cows. Cows are like cats, give them a cardboard box and they will get in it

An almost rational reason why I plan to vote to leave the European Union

I thought I would have a quick break from Poetry today and do Politics (sorry about that).

Have you noticed that here in Britain the great debate about should we vote to stay in or leave Europe is starting to look slightly silly as each side raises the stakes like a mad game of Poker. . . . I will match your World War Three and raise you pestilence and Armageddon as a result of aliens from Venus.  It is getting harder to get any real idea about what the best thing to do is. Certainly the stay campaign has the greatest clout because the bulk of the establishment are scared of change and the unknown, so they are doing a great job of ensuring that leaving looks like total madness.

Well it may surprise some, but I plan to vote to leave and there are rational reasons for this and also one very non-rational reason. Firstly I need to say as I have said before I am a bit left wing (not very, just a bit) and unlike a lot of the out voters I would be happy to let more refugees into the UK, particularly from Syria. Ooooo I get annoyed by British politicians and now the EU with feeble excuses not to help people who are fleeing a terrible war, most of whom are just decent ordinary folk.

In theory the principles of the EU should appeal to me, I mean I voted to join in the first place (OK yes I’m a bit old). I believe in equality and a level playing field in life for all, and that we should protect the vulnerable and the weak. All stuff which the EU is meant to stand for. When I voted to join all those years ago I was hoping we would be part of a single currency, and that it would be possible to travel about in Europe as easily as nipping up the road to Scotland. We would be one big happy community, smiling hugging each other and having a good life.

But is that what happened No the EU  has turned into a huge bureaucratic semi opaque monster, I don’t know if money is spent wisely or not and there seem to be more dodgy deals and . . . I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine stuff going on than one can shake a seagull at. The politics of Europe are becoming polarized and based on self interest with the Euro on the brink of yet another crisis. In fact I suspect the Euro crisis may have been delayed a bit until we have our vote, or am I just being a bit cynical. . .maybe.  So my main reason not to remain is that I do not believe that the long term future of the EU is looking good. The stay in campaign say we would enter a recession if we leave, but if the Euro starts to fail and we are part of Europe then that will happen anyway. Right now I just feel Britain may have more control of its economic future and the well being of its population outside the European Union. I am just an ordinary man on the street I may be wrong I don’t know, but I can only do what I feel is right long term.

I did also say I have one very irrational reason why I am voting Leave, it is a very simple one. Both David Cameron and Tony Blair have said they intend to vote to stay in . . . I do not know them personally but Oooooooo they both annoy me with their smug I am better that you attitude

OK there you have it I will vote Leave I don’t know it that is right or not but I suspect Britain will Stay in just on the shear amount of doom stories the government is managing to get into the news. And even I am not of fan of the . . .  . We don’t want all these foreigners over here . . . . attitude of some of the Leave supporters. Why is there a them and us approach to all this; Britain will not sail off into the sunset and we will still be part of Europe come what may.

If we do stay in and the EU economy very quickly starts to go into crisis I promise not to say I told you so. . . . . when I say promise I am in fact lying. . . . I will  

More Poetry for Dragons

Before going to look for a dragon

Folk will often drink a double flagon

Of extra strong homebrew beer

And as they enter a dark gloomy cave

Feeling apprehensive but somewhat brave. . .

This as we know, being the traditional dragon’s lair.

They will often wave a large sword about

And then very loudly loudly shout

By all alas to no avail

Because quite frankly

The dragon

Will not

Care as it sits preening its scaly tail

Because as we know

Dragons are extremely rare

So are now a protected species

By law

So even as the dragon

Flicks out all the talons on its

Extremely large scary claw

It will remind you of this fact

Before it then attacks

And you end up

All sore red and raw

Scratched from head to foot

And to the core

And its all the fault

Of those knights of old

Who were unaware of

The implications

That would unfold

Of killing Dragons

On their quest

To do knightly

Things
Bringing the life of 
Dragons
To an untimely

END

Poetry for why I should Rule the World

How small is the smallest, small is small

When compared with

The very, very big and tall

Like a large sailing ship

Or even the moon or the earth

Or a huge undefined indefinite article

When held against

The smallest sub atomic particle

And who decides what’s wrong

Or what is right

And where we can go

And what we can write

And nothing is, as we often know

As simple as plain Black and White

It is clearly (to me) all very odd

And I don’t think we can blame it

All on that chap . . . . . . . .  

You know the one . . .  God

Although which God is God is God

Can be a rather heated debate

Leading to war death and destruction

As state fights state

So who or what can resolve

All these issues for man

Well I suspect

Maybe

It might be possible

That Poetry

Can

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

DAMN

Maybe Not

What we need is a jolly good world leader

I am available for a small fee

No refunds if you still carry on fighting.

Poetry for a Superhero in a Pink Tutu

Gerald was a journalist

Who thought he had super POWERS

And would hang about at stations

Trying to stop trains

For hours and hours and HOURS

And was often told by the police

This was a silly thing to DO

And he was often caught

In telephone boxes

Changing out of his formal suit

And into a rather fetching pink TUTU

You see

He could not wear his superman outfit

Because his fellow journalist

Bruce Kent said

In a formal letter from his solicitor

He would SUE

And it is hard to believe and keep faith

When you are trapped

On that speeding train

Hurtling along the railway TRACK

That the superhero in a Pink tutu

Will stop it and safely get you BACK

But he did once save a cat

Trapped high up in a TREE

And the picture in the local paper

Was an interesting one to SEE

Is it a Bird

Is it a Plane

No its

Tutu-Man . . . . .superhero sort of?

Poetry for a Vampire and a Mummy chasing an Android Zombie Cat

A Vampire and a Mummy

Chased a large black cute fluffy cat

They chased it up a lamp post

And past an Ex-London borough council flat

They chased it past the chip shop

And under a railway bridge

And into the recycling yard

Where it hid behind a fridge

They chased it into a cul-de-sac

Past a pound shop and a café

And into a posh restaurant

Where the cat knocked over a carafe

They chased it onto the artificial ski slope

Past a man singing songs and drinking Gin

And round and round a roundabout

Until they all got in a spin

They chased it into the cinema

Which was showing the movie

Catch 22

They chased it into a railway station

And then into the public Loo

But they soon all ran out again

Because there was a penguin

Doing things it should not do

Then they chased it past a statue

Of Queen Victoria holding a Stratoscope

Chasing the cat for hours and hours

Until they had almost given up all hope

But when they finally caught up with it

It seemed the cat just did not care

Because the cat was in fact

An android Zombie Cat

Which cut the Mummy clean in half

With its android Zombie Cat laser eye stare

Which as you might expect

The Vampire proclaimed was ever so slightly

Rotten and

Unfair

And the cat smiled

And said it didn't care

Typical cat 

Poetry for a Woman who Writes Wizard Stories

You know that chap

No hang on it was a woman

Who wrote those books about a wizard

You know the one; they were turned into films

Or was it a TV series

And it had that chap in it with a pointy hat

And those hobbit things and an odd cute rat

What was her name

She has the same initials as that other man

The one in that 1980’s show who got shot

You know it was on the box quite a lot

Back then

What was his name

In sure it stated with a J or M

It was Jack or Jim or was it Dave

He was in that film about a slave

Which I’m sure had a dinosaur

Like that 1960’s thriller called DAMN I forget

No hang on I remember now it was Godzilla

Yes you know him.

Well he had the same initials

But a different name

Oooooo this is enough to drive a chap insane

If only I had a better brain

Anyway I saw her once on a bus

Or was it a train

No Hang on it was on the television

she wrote all that stuff in a café you know

Which really only does go to show

What a good cup of tea can do

Anyway she has wrote this play

About the same wizard chap

Who asks about the Thirty Nine Steps

Or so they say

And he has to find them as he goes on his way

Or he will end up covered in custard

No hang on that’s not right

He will end up in a curse

Which is quite frankly easier to get into verse

Ooooooo dear what is her name

Because whenever I wave now

While on the bus or train

She whispers to her husband

O god its that poet chap

You known the one

Whats his name

That poet who is

Quite

Quite

Quite

INSANE.

You know who I mean

The one who’s cat sleeps on his head

Yes the black cat called

Thingy something or other

No I’m sure it is not a dog

Hang on why has he drawn me poking a wasps nest?

And his poetry is rubbish.