No Need To Lay The Table
My dining room table and chairs
Have been fraternizing at night
It started inadvertently
With a chair pushed in too tight
I come down in the morning
To the smell of table wax
It sits there fully opened
The chairs all on their backs
I blame myself for buying them
Should really read the labels
It's reproduction furniture
Now I've got a nest of tables
New Car
I can let you have that one for two grand
The smarmy salesman said with zeal
I only came in for directions
But that does seem a very good deal
The only problem I can see is
I don't know how to drive
His look of disbelief is total
How on earth do you survive
Obviously very good at his job
As, after words with him I chose
To buy the car and drive to B & Q
For a length of garden hose
New Flame
Ashley was an arsonist
As was Bernadette
Each had ceased some time ago
Long before they met
Ashley was a chimney sweep
Keeping clean your flu
Bernie worked up at the crem
Checking you'd cooked through
Ashley knew he'd meet his match
And loves spark would ignite
His ears would burn
Whenever Bernie spoke of Mr Right
They met at someones Bar-B-Q
Their eyes blazed with desire
And when they started talking
They go on like a house on...
Oh dear can you smell petrol
The Exe
The Exe makes me smile
I have not been in the Exe for a while
The Exe I can't forget
Was always there and always wet
I am flooded with emotion
At your gentle flowing motion
The Exe, I love your mouth
And watching you go south
Having been on you and in you
You excite my every sinew
Some bits of you are tight
And some are open wide
I like that little boat
That flits from side to side
I have swallowed more of you than I should
Which is never good
You make my bits freeze
You're probably full of disease
As shallow as I feared
And occassionally weired
I know parts of you are rotten
Though I still strive to touch your bottom
The Exe will always be
The one that holds the quay
Mess 'O' Beans
Beans On Toast
A host of lost souls
Fake tanned and abandoned
Floating on a soggy raft
Thwarted by
Their very blood
Half Baked
He kept his jacket on
Though he was baking
Now he is colder
We are the warm orange blanket
Over his knob of butter
Not Green Beans
Harry is not one for greens
If Molly is peas
Then he is beans
Within The Tin
The future is bright, for
The naked corner of my plate
I request a dab of colour
For my palate
A splash of orange
To offset my fishfingers
Enhancing the golden
Hue of my chips
My dad's hand
With opener within
I hope it's not
Carrots in that tin
A Bloody Mistake
The meat screams
What on earth do you think you are doing here
This is no plate for you
Not even in your wildest dreams
Thick cut chips are witness
To this most unsavoury of scenes
As an embarrassment of beans
Gatecrash a meal
That the rest of the plate feel
Is beneath them
But the meat that spake
Knows what's at stake
It's rare
But no excuse
Blood is spilled
And mixed with juice
Beans know they are the source
Of this main discourse
Then some bloke sticks the knife in
The steak is cut down to size
Before potatoe's eyes
The beans sauce becomes thinner
There is now winner
Justice is served
And so is dinner
Following/Not Following
Professor Brian Cox is on Twitter
He seems worth following
Though some of the scientific facts
He feeds me take some swallowing
I eat up his knowledgable tweets
Like very clever sweets
Increasing my brain's mass
Much like Saturn's gas
Or maybe it was Venus
The intellectual gap between us
Is easily as large
As that valley on the surface of Mars
I am easily confused
My mind is battered and bruised
Like the surface of the Moon
Though it is less maroon
Maybe I should resist
These sweet tweet treats
What if I persist
And end up with an intelligence cavity
Where I forget my name
Whilst understanding all about
The elliptical orbits of Jupiter's closest moon
And the finer points of gravity
I hereby raise an objection
To this science confection
I am skipping class
To determine the mass
Of some sherbet lemons
Whisper
The Devil whispers in the little boy's ear
The little boy pulls the wings off a fly
The fly's pissed off as he can't go home
The boy feels guilty and starts to cry
The Devil starts laughing and whispers again
The boy flicks the fly like a little black ball
The Devil is pleased and laughs to himself
The fly wants to know why he just hit the wall
The Devil gets bored and lusts for excitement
The boy hears that voice again whisper inside
The fly gets squashed flat with a car from the toybox
The boy smiles and laughs and the Devil has pride
Toilet Wall
In a public toilet
Written almost childlike on the wall
My name is Wayne
I am 10 inches long
Not a mention of how tall
And will be here on Saturday at eight-thirty
I checked my watch
Considering how far away from this cubicle
I could get in seventeen minutes
Cheat
If you cheat you are only cheating yourself
My mum used to say
They see things differently down the benefit office
Taken to an interview room
So we can go through a few things
The nice lady with the files in neat piles
Says something else my mum used to say
Does not seem appropriate today
Why don't you take your coat off
Else you won't feel the benefit
A needless dig
Considering the hole I'm in
I am about to be put to the sword
It's a tiny word fraud
But when it is said
It has the weight of lead
And things got even heavier
When I realised that this wasn't even happening to me
It was something on the TV
But when I checked it was not even switched on
Silly Billy
I got a little inkling
As I saw her eyes twinkling
That I should make my move
She seemed eager to prove this assumption unfounded
By slapping my face
Hard
Much to the amusement of those who surrounded
I cursed her behaviour as abhorrent
When suddenly I let loose with a torrent of Shakespeare
As if to make myself appear some sort of thespian
She was not interested at all
Obviously a lesbian
Soup
My life is a bowl of soup
Lovingly served by you
A guiding hand
Helping spoon feed me
Teaching the tips
Of cool blows and small sips
For preventing burnt lips
I was enjoying my soup
Until you left yours
It then turned cold
Even the bread has gone stale
The spoon is rusted through
I don't want my soup anymore
I'm leaving to be with you
Crash
Involved in a car crash
Aware the front is smashing in
Inform the next of kin
The clear up must begin tonight
No one can make this right
The father told and fighting tears
Confronted by worst fears
Can't believe when he hears they died
Although the firemen tried
To save those trapped inside the car
His heart will bear the scar
A future not so far from ash
Buried Treasure
Write it down on scrap of paper
Hide inside a little box
Dig a deep hole in the garden
First secure with heavy locks
Cover it with lots of concrete
After casing it in lead
Safe inside will now reside
Three little words that won't be said
Dog
I have a dog that barks all day and night
Of silence in this house I can but dream
The constant barking of that bloody dog
Will send me to an early grave I swear
Continuously
It barks and barks and barks and barks and barks
My tether long sinced passed and lost from view
Is my decent to madness now complete
As I realise that I have no dog
Dark Roads
His past shouts in his ear, an alarming chorus of dismay
As an overbearing parent berates an underperforming child
Wrong roads travelled on a desperate journey towards success
Every person met another chance to be betrayed
Weighty footsteps carry a heavier heart ever onward
Relentless the quest to avoid failure of any description
Dark birds, with an aura of impending doom, watch his every step
Ready to flock upon the carrion of his corpse should he falter
But falter he will, as all men do
It is just a matter of time
And the clock ticks on
Happy Birthday Stranger
I've not so much as had a peek
At the face of the birthday girl
We have never met, we never speak
But for letters in a virtual world
We sit across a scrabble board
That does not quite exist
It seems each time she's just out scored
Even when I'm slightly....inebriated
Her cheery disposition though
Through almost daily tiling
Makes me picture someone who
Is mostly always smiling
But what do I know really
My life could be in danger
She could be a rampant serial killer
Still......happy birthday stranger
Cold Feet
A holiday last summer, a wet week in north Devon
I brought back happy memories and a verruca
It's troubled me for six months, in fact it's nearer seven
My hobbling pre-empts screaming like a Stuka
So finally and limping, the Doctors words I sought
We'll use Nitrogen, she said, in liquid form
This clever sort of thought is what could thwart the nasty wart
She sprayed it on and it was far from warm
It started like a tingle and tickled quite a bit
But after one long squirt it start to hurt
Though all that I could think as she sprayed the rest of it
I but this stuff would make your nipples pert
Say Aaaah
Morning arrives, walking through the mist hand in hand with hope
Hope goes home at lunchtime, something about a dentist appointment
The afternoon ambles by, mindlessly staring at it's shoes
Home is screaming out my name, willing me to return
A train overflowing with the tired and fractious awaits
Unhealthy food is consumed with a side order of guilt
As the Sun punches out for another day, I visit the world
My laptop a lifeline to a network of virtual friends
I visit sights I really should not see, my guilt repeating on me
Bed before eleven, a sure sign of an uneventful night
I drift off fearing that tomorrow will bring the same
Morning arrives, but hope has had all of her teeth removed
Dead Man's Hat
A charity shop impulse purchase
A passing chance of happenstance
Drawn to a titfer
As if fit for
Only this head
Previous owner dead
The elderly assistant said
With an air, it has to be established
Of genuine sadness
He was always to be seen
Wearing it out, before the fall
Which didn't quite explain
Why it wasn't worn out at all
He'd wear it whilst out shopping
He was a pizza with only one topping
But he had a thin crust
He was a gent you could trust
Always a smile and a tip of that hat
He'd always stop for a pointless chat
He sounded a sad loss to me
And his hat was easily worth 20p
By Those Trees
By those trees
Is where we used to play
We were just children
Earning bruised elbows
And skinned knees
By those trees
By those trees
Is where we met
Pretending we didn't like each other
You'd call me names
I said you had fleas
By those trees
By those trees
Was my first kiss
And so was yours
We held each others hands
And we squeezed
By those trees
By those trees
I took a knife
And took my time
We carved our love
Initially
By those trees
By those trees
I took your hand
And showed the ring
You made me wait
Just to tease
By those trees
By those trees
Is where we wed
Your beauty shaming all the world
The happiest of days
Confetti in the breeze
By those trees
By those trees
You broke my heart
And told me of another man
I fell apart
I begged you please
By those trees
By those trees
I took a knife
And kissed you once
As you lay still
Beneath the leaves
By those trees
Stripped
The trees relinquish their grip
On leaves with other ideas
Fire coloured, the carpet
Hurriedly fitted around each trunk
A rook noisily draws eyes
From a near sky branch
Where only a week ago
He was out of sight
Fresh winds strip bare
Until only wood stands
Naked for all to see
Until spring spares modesty
Martha and Me
This evening has drifted
Night time slowly taking over
Hours since children were put to bed
With no thought I can find
I lay listening to music
Frightened the telly will suck me in
The remote becomes my wand
Casting spells of different notes
I close my eyes for a time
As my bed calls for me
The songs become maudlin
Martha reminds me I am alone
www. petsinheadwear .com
Rabbits should not have
A monopoly on hats
If a topper's for a rabbit
Then why not caps for cats
Porkpie for your guinea pig
A fez for rats is nice
Ferrets in a beret
A stetson for your mice
If your budgie likes a beanie
Your parrot would adore a
Panama to perch in
Your finches a fedora
With my gerbil in a trilby
He's not a rampant stroller
My hamster's in a homburg
My goldfish in a bowler
Sunset, Dishes and Raymond K. Hessel
View of the world framed in the kitchen window
As an ever dulling orb gives up it's daily ghost
Guilty of a roast, I am sentenced to dishes
Hands enjoying the warmth of the water
I force a cloth to get intimate with a jug
Who's age is betrayed by it's worn lines
Unfinished orange juice is poured away
Down the sink, conjuring an image
Of starving pot bellied African children
A pavlovian response from a childhood
Where every meal was to be finished
If you knew what was good for you
A fact I quite wrongly use in my adult life
To excuse my clinical obesity
I wash a knife, sheathing it in sponge
Always imagining cutting my fingers
But rarely actually doing so
I gaze at my moving picture, as the sun
Sulks behind a poor excuse for a cloud
Brightness stolen briefly
I calmly await it's return
Calculating that the time it will take
To walk to the light switch, would be longer
Than this whisp of cloud imposter will take to pass
Especially by the time hands are dried
Or you will electrocute yourself
My mother's words echo in my head
And I am a child once more
So, still, motionless and staring
I witness a weakening blaze
Forcing an embarrassment
To the family nimbus, gently aside
And I continue my task
The Dust Brothers are accompanying me
Rythmic drums of Hessel, Raymond K.
Making me wish I had pans to wash
I envisage myself beating out a tune
On upturned pots, when I realise
I have finished all the dishes
Have to pace myself with the drying
So as to fit the rest of the album in
As if I would never be able to hear it again
If I stopped it now. As it ends, so rises
A sinking feeling, is it the sunset or the music?
Q & Eh?
My youngest asks me questions it's monotonous
No Harry, we can't buy a hippopotamus
Yes the moon's in bed
Yes you've only got one head
No the earth belongs to every single one of us
His thirst for knowledge would appear insatiable
Relentless probing he finds recreational
It does bode well for school
Although he plays the fool
At times I find him almost inspirational
My train of thought he constantly derails
The Harry inquisition never fails
I don't have all the facts
But I love how he reacts
After all it is dad's job to tell tall tales
Giant fans, I say, when it gets breezy
Fairy dust, the reason you're all sneezy
Sometimes I'm not so bad
How much d'you love me dad?
Come on son, I say, that one's too easy
True Grit
Salt is suddenly good for us again
At least whilst it's too cold for rain
Amidst an icy battering
Snow making roads hard to pass
I grit my teeth to stop them chattering
But I still end up on my ass
This winter's arctic heart arriving
Intent on causing errant driving
Lifeblood of the country freezing
Endless blizzards blowing
It seems peversely pleasing
Salt keeps these arteries flowing
Acorn
Insignificantly held, vice like
Evolved digits proving useful
Imagine a future as yet
Imprisoned within
Exploding natural strength
Light stolen from the dirt
A birthplace in shadow
Holding passers gaze
I will bear generations
Upon dense fingers
Scratching at the heavens
From a tiny brown grenade
Bedtime Story
I had a go at writing a children's story
About a lovely family of bears
Typically along the way it got a little gory
It's now called "Who pushed Teddy down the stairs?"
It all began so nicely just ambling along
I didn't think a kiddie's book demanding
By the end of chapter one it all went slightly wrong
As suddenly there's murder on the landing
I'm typing out the words but I feel a little wary
Events are getting worse with every page
I can't read this to kids it's violent and it's scary
As big Ted wields a hammer in a rage
Finally I'm back on course and no one will get killed
Teddy's hurt his arm but he'll survive
Until a little accident, a lamp has just been spilled
It's paraffin, and all are burned alive
Alphabetically Yours
Always Being Cautious
Desires Eating Food
Gentle, Humorous, Intelligent
Joking, Kinky, Lewd
Moaning, Nerd, Opinionated
Pensive, Quick to Rock
Some Times Underestimated
Victorious with a Wok
X is for a single kiss
Yearning to be the hero
in someones life, one day maybe
and not a big fat Zero
That Empty Chair
I don't visit my parent's house as much
As I did when mum was there
Weird to walk into the lounge
And find an empty chair
If I dare to sit in it
My sadness seems to grow
Closest to the fire
It's the coldest place I know
Where Are All The Custard Creams?
Dad goes in the biscuit tin
A search begins
His hand moves around like a mechanical grab machine
The kind you've seen, I'm sure, on a day at the beach
Turning each and every biscuit to find his treasure
Where are all the custard creams
He screams
With displeasure
I look at my brother and him at me
Mum looks at us both behaving sheepishly
I only had a couple we both say
And one the other day
Dad glares as we watch a fig roll disappear
Later we'll probably get a clip round the ear
The Man In The Woods
Me and my brother were playing in the woods
A couple of up to no goods
Carving bits off trees with knives
Having the time of our lives
Trying to find conkers around the bottoms of trees
Which would no more give you a conker
Than a piece of cheese
We saw a man acting odd
Probably a dirty old sod
He came closer and we got a bit freaked out
When he put his hands in his coat pocket
And pulled out a bag of custard creams
So that's where they went
Leaves On Line
My mind was wandering the other day
I imagined winning the Turner prize
Involving a tree and a fishing reel
People stood with staring eyes
Each leaf attached with care and line
Then as the season ended
The leaves denied of gravity's pull
Would all hang there suspended
Before you ask, I have no clue
Where an idea like that begins
But I do know if I entered
It's the kind of shit that wins
Pretty Girls Are Solar Powered
I wonder if you know
Pretty girls are solar powered
Clothes appear devoured
Short dress slightly flowered and shades
Protect her eyes from blades
Of light as she parades the street
Sexy sandals on feet
This angel drawn by heat and sun
As bright days have begun
The clouds leave letting fun begin
And every boy will win
As sunshine brings her skin on show
Cracked Up
With fears for the fractured state of my mind
I find myself more and more inclined
To visite a voluntary day ward
Intrigued to see my brain get scored
By experts with their curious tests
Where ink blots seem to look like breasts
But halfway up the winding path
I fall to pieces, start to laugh
The reason for this disdain
Doubled up in frustration and pain
Am I insane?, well not necessarily
Laughing involuntarily
I understand they wanted to make a saving
But who thought a mental hospital was a good place
For crazy paving
I Killed Evel Knievel...Twice
I was just kicking my football
Against the wall
My little brother had his Evel Knievel
I wasn't paying much attention at all
He'd fashioned a ramp out of a brick and some wood
It looked quite good
I seem to remember
He wound the little handle repeatedly until the bike whizzed off
Up the ramp and into the air
And my ball met it there
Sending Evel and his plastic bike crashing
And smashing upon the back of the house
He was not happy
My little brother that is
The second time I killed him was much the same
It became a bit of a fun game
He was a stuntman after all
Nearly always returning after a fall
His last stunt was a rather brave attempt
At jumping across the road in front of our house
With hindsight a bit too far
He didn't quite recover
From being crushed under the wheels of that car
