Thursday, 16 January 2025

Puanteurs cruelles

Chloe and Naomi were throwing around
some favourite words

aerial eiderdown iodine outfit
aaeeeiiiooouuu move it up

furious apnoea delicious oeuvre
quietly pious serious chapeau

aaeeeiiiooouuu turn it up
aqueous sequoia plateauing pharmacopoeia

they can spend hours like this
you casually offer 'deer' 'goat' 'lion' 'bear'

and are roundly mocked
as a wooing pipsqueak

they have another word for you
but won't tell you what it is

or who the they of the them or what it even is
are you with me? no I don't even work here

Sunday, 12 January 2025

Fat Druids

Fat druids can't give advice, fat druids can't give advice
Abloo bloo bloo, Abloo bloo bloo

When I watch fat druids trying to swipe some crap
or paladins tanking, or paladins tanking

I'll prolly be farming fat druids' loot
Desu Desu, Desu Desu

Nothing ahead of us but untamed wilds,
and desperate tundra, desperate tundra

Keep your eyes out for triangle pendants, and
big ... red... megalomaniacs

Cattleprod said: What are you talking about?
I replied: This is Mason Nelly and the Fat Druids!!

Their rosettes quickly acidify a textual tooth
especially male humans and blood elves

...PIT!

- from the Union Daughter songbook outbreak c.2009

Saturday, 11 January 2025

Reunited, and it feels so good

Fast forward 10 years and me and Staggers are sharing a bed not like that
like Laurel and Hardy, Morecambe and Wise
but without anything remotely funny happening his words not mine
a mistake on the hotel's part it may be fixed tomorrow
just like the Olden Days I offer
finding the mise en scène funnier than him

As desperate renters back in the day I used to choose the floor
but not any more, not with this back etc

Last week he needed to get his photo taken for the new Bloc-iD card
and shows me the result
    Look it's so bright you can see the outline of my contact lenses
    they make me look like a right gimp

He's sensitive about this area on account of the lazy eye corrected by surgery
which we have to pronounce sugary, you wouldn't get it, in 1991

So he wants the photo retaken and to hell with the cost for the new Bloc-iD
we were both in a rush after the double decoupling resulting in our recoupling
but not like that and nothing wrong with that
I don't have to explain to you people about
Laurel and Hardy, Morecambe and Wise and
I'm not sure who's the straight man here
I have no vanity about my frankly alarming iD photo

    Do you think we might go down to the beach together, he asks 
Come on buddy it's 2034, no one cares about this anymore
    All right but first could you please help me with something
    embarrassing, my contact lenses are stuck
    and I can't slide them out with my [ageing shaky] fingers
    do you have any tools?

Well I have my tweezers of course but they're very harpy sorry sharp
I forgive my words sometimes
    I am among my ages

   Sure, give them to me 
   I'll do this in the bathroom you don't want to watch
   and then we'll go the beach and I can get a new photo taken

And we can be the gay old bachelors again
just like in our golden college days, yes?

Wednesday, 8 January 2025

Yards

While I was at work my yards were busy a nameless, white flower plucked from my front garden lay on the brick shelf by the gate wrapped in cream silk its stem inserted into a (dry) plastic flower tube

A gift set down in forgetfulness

or just discarded


While out the back a soft touch indoor football

orange against the fake grass

lies lost and over wall booted


c.2015

Victor Hess says

Presently the Patriarch asked again: Why was M.
He drew near awkwardly, put on his glasses, and examined
the list of syrups with great care. 

The elder was not in the best of humor when he arrived,
and his state of mind had not improved.
There was a glow upon his cheek-bones, and a faint tinge upon his prominent nose.
Never before in all the long years
it had served him had he seen it in such shape.
The minute passed, and four more joined it. 

Go to the head of the class, Josselyn, said the venerable patriarch.
Well, youre whistlin now, birdie;
thats my intention; set em all out.
You never see a frog so modest and straightforward as he was,
for all he was so gifted. The other was 

tapping with his pencil upon the little shelf
lying across the rail. Sassprillas good for the blood
this time er year, an strawberrys good any time.
Wherever there is an italic, the hickory descended.
An I dont want noone-hoss bonnet neither. 

The next Inmate looked as if he might have been a sailor formerly.
Elder Brown beheld for an instant the familiar scene within.
He then threw open the double gates for us to ride through.
Elder Brown beheld for an instant the familiar scene within.

At sight of the glistening bar
the whole moral structure
of twenty years came tumbling down.

Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev.
Mebbe youre right, my dear; mebbe I oughtnt.
Like to oblige you, but cant right now;
will fix it for you later on.

Good-mornin, good-mornin, said the elder, piling his
bundles on the counter. Smiley, I would feel
under many obligations to him. The man of business
had already lost interest. Just you tie them
stockins up an lemme have em. Elder Brown held it out,

upside down, at arms-length. I havent looked
at the cattle, he answered, dryly. The beaver was his special
crown of dignity. To lose it was to be
reduced to a level with the common woolhat herd. 

The old gentlemen who had been shoved about
enjoyed the pun too much to be angry.
There was a glow upon his cheek-bones,
and a faint tinge upon his prominent nose.
The old man laughed until his cheeks were wet.

And Elder Brown had to resume an upright position
until his paroxysm of laughter had passed.
An I dont want no one-hoss bonnet neither.
He drew near awkwardly, put on his glasses,
and examined the list of syrups with great care.

Now here is one; pink silk,
with delicate pale blue feathers. 

c.2015

Monday, 6 January 2025

fog.teeth.gifts

Fog
Impatient, filthy
Creeping, sleeping////prowling
Ever so misty
++++++++++Dour

Teeth
Frosty, spiny
Frightening, lightening////greasy
Ever so decayed
++++++++++Pines

Gifts
Packaged, uncertainty
Hopeless, fretful////opening
The flavour of giving
++++++++++Celebration

The Kind Stranger At The Corn

One day at a dress shop,
I met a man selling chips,
For money he wanted to swap,
But I really wanted some fellowships.

"Got any fellowships?" asked I.
"For that's how I'll spend my money."
"No fellowships here!" said the guy.
He seemed to find it quite funny.

"We've got some lovely crisps,
I'll give you a very fine price."
"I'd rather have some lisps."
The man blinked rapidly thrice.

The man seemed exceptionally impatient,
And his manner was strangely amused.
He wasn't what I would call abortifacient,
Great disdain he noticeably oozed.

Like others, he thought I was odd,
Some say I'm a bit kind.
Still he gave me a courteous nod,
As if he thought I was plenty crined.

So in search of my goal I departed,
But before the dress shop could I leave,
The man came running full-hearted,
"I can help you I believe."

"Chips, fellowships, you shall find.
Crisps, lisps, you can get.
You must now open your mind,
And get down to The Corn Market.

So to The Corn Market I decided to go,
In search of the fellowships I craved.
The winds it did eerily blow.
But I felt that the day could be saved.

There were stalls selling socks,
Apples in many shades.
There were even stalls selling aftershocks
People were scattered from many trades

I was greeted by a peculiar lady,
She seemed to be rather kind
I couldn't help thinking she might be quite shady.
I wondered if she was at all crined.

Before I could open my mouth,
She shouted, "For you, I have some fellowships!"
I headed towards her, to the south,
Past some crisps and chips.

"But how did you know?" I asked,
"Do you want them or not?" she did say.
Silently, the fellowships she passed.
Then vanished before I could pay.

As I walked away I hard a crackle
Or was it, perhaps, a hushed cackle?