SETTING AN EXAMPLE

For The Sunday Whirl: Go, Again, Fuss, Straight, Wish, Miserable, Interest, Prove, Sweet, Bust, Figure, Enough.

PARENTAL GUIDANCE

Here we go again...!
But what's all the fuss about?
I'll tell you, straight up...

You wish I'd lay off...
You're miserable as sin...
Show some in-te-rest!

Just to prove my point
I'll give you some sound advice
Got to keep things sweet!

It's not 'shit or bust'!
(to use a figure of speech)
...Have you had enough...?

PRIDE

For Haiku Heights

BEFORE THE FALL

First round - proud as punch...
Ten rounds of 'rum punch' later
Punch drunk by proud boast

BEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE

For Three Word Wednesday

OFF SCHOOL

Drab education
Tendril-like arms slow to rise
Classrooms don't pulsate

LOW NOTES

For dVerse poets pub

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

nothing much changes round here
and to qualify that score
after having been away
for a dozen years or more

everything looks exactly
the same as in days of yore
while appearing completely
different compared to before

so welcome home to blighty
I missed the old place for sure
cold wet windy day and night
anyone care anymore?

triple dip deep recession
here in the land of the poor
normal service won't resume
are we rotten to the core?

relationship's uncertain
but all's fair in love and war
there's just two things I ask for
one thing I'd like to ignore

same note different handwriting
hanging on the kitchen door
'your dinner's in the toaster
dirty washing's on the floor' !

River Muse Winter 2013

Here's my submission for the recent contest at River Muse:


CHICK-ING OUT

 

First one, looking my way!

…or the highway

Chicks just can’t multitask!

…or was that a

deliberate blank?

 

I shrank, frozen solid

Her skates were on!

One more, this time for sure

…or maybe not

Drew a breath… exhaled

 

Kerb crawl cabbie needs fare

In… With a grin!

Tonight! …Took forever

Great! ...Veil of tears

The tears of a clown!

 

Broken white now constant

Fused to blackdrop

No hide to wear, I’m glued

to fake tanned seat

goofing… Urban flare

 

inspires inadvertent

royal-esque wave

aided by the texture

of midnight breeze

Chauffeur’s lunar gaze

 

a phase I want to please

On the dashboard

metric display informs

the fare to pay

Twitching optic says

 

“Later…”

DUST

For The Sunday Whirl: Mirror, Straw, Curved, Edge, Raw, Scale, Vast, Skirted, Mist, Scattered, Tattered, Chimes.

0

Took a look in the mirror...

Straw that broke camel's curved back...!

Liked living right on the edge...

On a diet of Raw Meat...

On a scale of nought to ten,

vast majority of plans

skirted the periphery,

dissolved to zero... Scotch Mist...

Now the ashes are scattered,

only tattered dream remains

of the dead good times, and

strange voice that chimes.

And that face...!

Is it

mine...?

BRAG, ICY, POLITE

For Three Word Wednesday

BRIT IPO LEGACY

Don't like to brag but
while I was warm and polite
You remained icy

WAKE UP!

For Sunday Whirl: Skin, Bone, Filament, Charge, Linen, Air, Call, Cell, Pearls, Art, Knocks, Sticky, Beware.

COOKING THE BOOKS & WRITING ON WALLS FOR THE BONE IDLE

You're all skin and bone.. you should
find a filament of strength
positively charge yourself
and pull back that bed linen

If you can spare the air time
call me on you cell phone for
precious pearls of wisdom pure
direct from the school of hard knocks

where they teach Art... for #Revs sake
and
sticky wicket cricket scores
but...
beware cheap imitations...

DISMAL, LUSCIOUS, WAFFLE

For Three Word Wednesday

THOUGHT FOR FOOD

Reviewed as 'luscious'
Exaggerated waffle
Our verdict, 'dismal'

WORDSLURRED

For The Sunday Whirl: Steps, Poetry, Virtue, Drunk, Room, Ditch, Bends, Wish, Palace, Breaks, Diminishing, Burden.

LATER THAT SAME EVENING...

Three steps forward, two steps back
Poetry in motion... not!

But patience is a virtue

So bear with my drunk attempt
to make it back to my room

...without falling in a ditch

...and waking up with the bends

But at least I got my wish
when I drank The Palace dry

Breaks my record for boozing

Senses diminishing now...

Am I being a burden...?

VACANT, FOCUSED, PAIR

For Three Word Wednesday #301

FAT DC CAN VAPOURISE

• Vacant

Nic, vacate pad for us...

• Focused

Repaid VAT; can focus...

• Pair

Duo faces PC variant

ON THE TWELTH DAY

For Sunday Whirl: Clarity, Practice, Listen, Breath, Giddy, Step, Bitter, Venture, Tumult, Fire, Within, Awake

ROUGH TRADE

Vocal clarity, standard practice
What you preach is pitcher perfect
They listen to your every breath
Getting giddy at each step
Ever better, never bitter
Venture forth, create a tumult
Light a fire within their hearts
Awake a passion... Sell it hard!

OUT OF TUNE

For The Sunday Whirl: Pop, Stars, Ice, Flame, Strewn, Deliver, Tangent, Creek, Knead, Brood, Against, Point.

PENNY DROPS

surely
even ancient pop stars
must have memories...

perhaps of
a now ice cold old flame
...or two

strewn across the remains
of brains
that fail to deliver

just shoot
off at a tangent

minds addled
...no creek to paddle

no bread to knead
no brood to feed

...then suddenly

against all odds

...point taken...

NOT THE END OF THE WORLD

For The Sunday Whirl: Seemed, Insistent, Clench, Rapid, Burst,

Rustle, Rare, Hurl, Through, Spacious, Spasm, Enigma

MASTER, CHEF...?

Seemed insistent; 'There and Then'
Clench those fists and count to ten
Rapid burst of gaseous flare
Rustle up a steak, grilled rare
Hurl the plate through spacious hall
In a spasm, hit the wall
Stooge? Enigma? Who can say?
Don't rub him up the wrong way

2012 REVIEW

2012 – A YEAR TO REMEMBER

 

By now, everyone knows that 2012 was the year when ‘impossible’ things happened.

For a start, The Stone Roses famously said that the day they’d reform, would be the day Man City won the Premier League… didn’t they…?

Well, here’s a less well known, but equally inadvertent prophecy that follows a similar vein to theirs… And just in the same way that The Stone Roses are bigger than even The Beatles, this one is more serious even than… Football…!

Yes, believe it or not, I actually said… in public… and on more than one occasion… “The day I return to Manchester will be the day The Stone Roses reform…”

And just as everyone laughed… everyone who’s a red, that is… at the thought of City winning the Premier League, so everyone laughed at the thought of me returning to Manchester… Well, you know what I mean, some people giggled… a bit…

But we all know how truth is stranger than fiction… don’t we?

And still the laughter continued… and still the die-hard believers, not only continued to survive, but also continued to believe…

And then…

2012 happened… And believe it or not… City won the Premier League…! And the Stone Roses reformed…!

And I returned to Manchester…?

Yes! Believe it… it’s all true…!

And in Manchester, the crowds lined the streets, and cheered City, and everyone said “Nice one… about time…!”

And also in Manchester, the crowds filled Heaton Park… three nights running…! And they cheered The Stone Roses, and everyone said “Nice one… about time…!”

And also in Manchester, the crowds filled the lobby in Terminal 1 at Manchester Airport… and waited patiently for their planes to take them away on well-deserved holidays… while I got off my plane… in Terminal 2… smoked the last of my Khrong Thip cigarettes, and waited… impatiently… for the 105 bus…  to Moss Side, in Manchester. And I cheered when, at last, it arrived, and I alone said “Nice one… about… time…”

So… just to re-cap… We all know that 2012 saw City win the Premier League… We all know that 2012 saw The Stone Roses reform… thus fulfilling the prophecy that the two ‘impossible’ events would occur, (almost) simultaneously… And of course, now we all know that 2012 saw me return to Manchester…

But hang on a sec… did some of us forget something…?

On May 13, did anyone actually do what I remembered to do…? (In the Claremont Pub, on Claremont Road, Moss Side, Manchester 14) What I’d so vehemently and vocally promised to do, for more than 30 years…?

Here’s what I did… I looked back… admittedly not over my shoulder, to the person sat in the stand, behind me… as the song indicates… because I wasn’t actually at the match, at the Etihad Stadium, was I…? I forgot we’d moved from Maine Road… honest… ;) so I was just sat in the pub, watching it on the telly. But did anyone, anyone at all, apart from me, actually “…look back and say ‘There’s no-one quite like John Bond, he has helped us on our way’…?”

If you didn’t… and I’m pretty sure most of you have forgotten the promise you all made, amid the euphoria of getting to the 1981 Centenary FA Cup Final… there’s no need to worry. We’re still Champions, and there’s still (at least) the whole of the rest of the season to go, in which to clear your conscience…

So, next time you’re at the match… preferably during a quiet period (if there are any), just stand up, and ‘look back’… wistfully, if you can (if you know what it means…!)… over your shoulder… to the person sat in the stand behind you… and say “There’s no-one quite like John Bond, he has helped us on our way”… Just like you always said you would… ‘one day… when we’re Champions’… And even if for no other reason, it’s well worth the funny looks you get…!