2015 Conclusion

CONCLUSION

Congratulations to everyone who completed this years challenge. I was just glad to make it to the end this time. Writing a poem a day is a great exercise but doesn't always bring out the best work. There were one or two pieces I was happy with and I guess that's all you can realistically hope for. This was my seventh year and yes, I am looking forward to 2016 and a new challenge next year.

Day Thirty

For Vivi and Sammy

SAMMY’S WAITING

Hey Vivi Vivi

So far away Wei Wei

Sammy jumped over the moon

And all Nanchang laughed to see such fun

Because Vivi is coming home soon

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Day Twenty Nine

Nearly there...

YOUR CALL

Every time she calls me up I’m sleeping

Weeping on my pillow the night time through

Rough as the proverbial you know what

Hatters aren't as mad as they've been painted

Tainted love jilted like John and his ilk

Silk ties are back in fashion at Oxfam

Families can't afford to shop there these days

Way too expensive for the average Joe

Joking aside why do they charge so much

Such and such and all her friends won't go there

Here I am still crying over spilt milk

Silk ties and fancy scarves will have to wait

It’s not as easy as some people think

Drinking myself to death over that girl

Shirley I’m too tired to answer your call

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Day Twenty Eight

BANANAS
There once was a man from Bahamas
who went everywhere in pyjamas
He thought it was cool
to look like a fool
But everyone said He's bananas
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Day Twenty Seven

BACKYARD BLUES...
barking up the wrong tree

the only tree that we've got

it’s mad to bark yourself

but we don't keep dogs

even if we did who’s to say

that they would bark

especially up a tree

just because we want them to

imagine that then

a dog that refuses to bark

refuses to go to the park

and play Frisbee

what sort of dog is that

he just sits in the backyard all day

taking in the winter sun

dreaming dreams about the pyramids

that they found in Tenerife

I bet he doesn't refuse to eat

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Day Twenty Six

FRANKED AND STAMPED

I drive past the church of complexity

They meet at ten and eleven a.m.

Every Sunday and sometimes on Monday

That’s it they go back to work when they're done

They're franked and stamped they're wrapped and packed away

Except for the odd Thursday once a month

Or is it every fortnight or six weeks

I don’t really pay that much attention

But lately it seems they've got more robots

They just stand in the car park getting wet

I do hope that they don’t get too rusty

I was a rusty robot once myself

They put me in the shop window to sell

No one bought me I didn't look too well

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Day Twenty Five

NICOLE (BAN)

Not many people know that

I’ve got a secret twin

And that she comes from China

The Great Wall and Beijing

When I look in the mirror

I'm a dead ringer for her

Not really really really

Our birthdays we just share

Now everybody knows that

Nicole’s my secret twin

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Day Twenty Four

BANGING

BANGING

Head’s banging like drums and dreams

Drumming for dreams that keep on banging

They're inside his head now trying to escape

Insisting that he bangs on the pipes too

The pipes where they dry the orange peel

That they roll with tobacco are always hot

Another tattooist a needle another tattoo

One last cigarette before they cough  

He sells his last pair of shoes for something to eat

Pulls the wet curtains around him and tries to sleep

The curtains that double as a towel and a sheet

Hanging from the landing dangling out to dry 

Banging the drum for the western dream

To croak in the land of the soft ice cream

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Happy St. Georges...

CONFOUNDED
Dawn and Dave and their pet robot
went walking along the old railroad.
But the track ran out at the roundabout
across the street from Lidl.
They went round and round the confounded
thing then got stuck in the middle.
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Day Twenty Two

NOT KOSHER

The train like time waits for no man

Coffee and cigarettes and wine

All banned by the white tooth brigade

If it’s not kosher don’t it eat 

Please don't breathe in secondhand smoke

Telling pork pies not eating them

Wishing I wasn't a fat pig

Gluttony will get you nowhere

Unless you buy the next size dress

Sitting there waiting for the train

I heard a little boy shouting

Mummy I’m too big for my shorts

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Here's a little something for Holly : Holly's Fine

Day Twenty One

OTHER CAKES
Lots of things to do
Sudoku and all that jazz
Other cakes to bake
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Day Twenty

MADEMOISELLE 

Down in her basement kitchenette

Across the street from Lafayette

Healing kittens

She was smitten

She thought she was some kind of vet

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Submitted to Mad Kane's blog the word this week was VET.

Day Nineteen

PASTA

Some say

Marco Polo

Brought it back from China

Others that that was just a myth

Pasta   

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Day Eighteen

MAGNETIC DREAMS

Flying tricycles

In the same airspace as drones

Like magic carpets

The Rickshaw driver

Chasing a penny farthing

Only he can fly

Here comes the future

Forget about yesterday

Stick with the present

The home aerodrome

In fields of magnetic dreams

Not in my backyard

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And here's something for Shirley!!!

Day Seventeen

The prompt was to write a cinquain, here's my attempt:

HAT TRICK

Lily’s

always smiling

with wonderful blue eyes

that trickle well up waterfall

sometimes

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Here's one I did in 2008 Secret Seat

Day Sixteen

TALL
Why does everybody look so tall
even when I'm standing on the wall
Please don't let me slip
I can hardly grip
Flippin' 'eck I think that I might fall
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Day Fifteen

MUSHROOM PICKERS

somebody’s walking in the woods

who’s walking in  the woods

worse (verse) still who’s talking

talking is not permitted in the woods

we have rules in this country

they must be strictly adhered to

under punishment of decapitation

or electrocution if available

remember those little children

that strayed into the woods one day

they were never to be seen again

so keep out of the woods

or the mushroom pickers will get you

and if you go there don't talk

or they may cut out your tongue

perhaps worse much worse (verse)

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Day Fourteen

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

Love that’s unconditional sweeps over us in waves

we don't hear much about that kind of love these days

it’s all about the dollar and how much we don’t have

we all love money don't we we need it anyway

even if it’s evil we still have bills to pay

take the emphasis off we and heap it onto you

don’t hide your light under a bushel or your loot

sell your house and car and your caravan of wives

so that you’ve got something to give to those poor slaves

when love that’s unconditional sweeps over you in waves

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Day Thirteen

sleep makes everything alright until you feel tired oh so tired again

MISS BROODY

moody funday monday moody

after dark won't bring back sunday

what think you ‘bout that miss broody

don't you worry it’s nearly tuesday

saucy suzette can be so rude

if she wants to be to me blue

and she do so don’t give me no

rabbit hutch to munch for lunch girl

fish day friday at the chippy

don’t go smother mine with curry

sleep makes everything okay though

until you feel so tired again

moody funday monday moody

after dark won't bring back sunday

what think you ‘bout that miss broody

don't you worry it’s nearly tuesday

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Day Twelve

DEPRESSION

After a great high comes a massive fall

the brick wall that I just hit is still up

and standing apart from a great big hole
but I'm not I'm flat out pushing up bricks

crying myself to sleep under the quilt
trying to tell the Doctor in my head

she's gone when she's gone there's no banging on

no hanging on to the world or that girl
because she's gone when she's done and she's gone

 no harping on for the world when they've won
we scored the first and last goal and the rest
oh so absurd I confess I'm depressed
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Day Eleven

OLD FOGIES

The evolutionary omnibus

I’m not going to go back all that far

The clippie shouting out fares please at us

And people jumping off in front of cars

No not a shameful thing to catch a bus

You’re not a third or fourth class citizen

The shame is in the prices they charge us

It’s cheaper sharing taxi’s with your friends

This deregulation generation

Have never seen a corporation bus

Only confusion at the bus station

There that’s why us old fogies make a fuss

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Some other posts of mine where I mention buses: Getting Wet, Bus Degradation, What really annoys me #2.  Overheard (in the bus station), Love on the bus, Even Bradford, The Grass is Greener, Nobody Cares, Blank Verse, Fashionista, Haiku, Round and Round, Last Stand, Cowardy Custards, Everybody's Mad,   

Day Ten

ACHES

my head aches so much I can hardly walk

talking about aches I've got lots of pains

pins and needles in my leg sometimes too

two or three steps uphill and that’s me done

once upon a time I used to walk miles

miles and miles in fact last week with a smile

smiling at people everywhere I went

entertaining them when I fell over

over and over again but laughing

things aren't the same now that my leg’s swelled up

head up it could be worse my right big toe

don’t you know gets a bit of gout in it

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Day Nine

SWIMMING

She really made me feel so young and free

Her hair so black that it looked almost blue

I met her on the beach down in Torquay

Oh how I wish that our love could be true

She was the girl that I knew from my dream

And what a dream it was when I saw her

Her eyes were dark like chocolate without cream

If life was just as real as my dreams were

She was the girl of my dreams don't you know

That sang a song in a whisper to me

If only I had been allowed to go

Off swimming with that mermaid out to sea

She was the girl of my dreams don't you know

If only I had been allowed to go

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Day Eight

PAY AS YOU GO

Hate computers Microwaves Mobile phones

Weren't they meant to make our lives so easy

They do and they don't it’s how you use them

Or so it says buried in the small print

The worst thing I hate though is that robot

That faceless robotic up in the cloud

He or she or perhaps it always wants

To sell you/me something that we don't need

Five dollars a week for so many megs

Twenty will buy you at least ten times more

That’s what the salesman told me at the shop

But I’m happy with my pay as you go

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Day Seven

UNMUSICAL ROSES

Uppishly thinking they cannot be seen

Numb as a numbskull on bacon and eggs

Monday became Tuesday with brand new tyres

Useless as troglodytes without a cave

Sobbing for Paddington and for Poo Bear

I don’t know how these things happen so quickly

Crazy as spaceships that clouds ride upon

Anyhow that’s the way things are these days

Leaning on lampposts waiting for mother

Rickshaws were never that fast anyway

Others are spending their money with us

Sooty and Sweep and Christopher Robin

Egging on robots and aliens too

Saving for days when the rain might not come

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To see how I did this mad acrostic you can visit my other bloggage Dream Genie and read the post 'Miraculousness'.

Day Six

CHIN CHIN

Christopher, Christopher, where have you been?

I have been dreaming a fantastic dream.

Chubby chops, chubby chops, chubby chin chin?

I started smiling, when you tucked me in.

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Day Five 2015

OTHER WORLDS

Get back in your makeshift spaceship and fly

I don't want to go to your other worlds

Other worlds where the two suns always shine

Shining down on Brown Sugar Beach all day

Day after day and all night too of course

Because there is no night where you come from

Fromage et frites are for Mooner’s only

Lonely people that populate this Earth

Earthlings are not welcome where you go to

Too many of us have been robotised

Robots running round doing dirty work

Working twenty four seven three six five

I've got an idea you've got a tin pan

Man Friday that looks much like me get back

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Day Four 2015

NaPoWriMo 2015
Day Four
I took the end line rhymes from Shakespeare's Sonnet XLI and created this:

GOD’S SON

And nothing of salvation's down to me
all of the praise God's son we give to thee

It doesn't really matter who commits

The sins the desperate sins of our heart

We all think youth and beauty well befits

And on this stage we all perform our art

We are players and some of us once won

By slight of hand and sometimes we assailed

The one who came to save us God’s own son

But thankfully no matter He prevailed

And through temptation He did not forbear

Oh we will reign with Him as in our youth

And like the thief we’re going to be there

In paradise and then we’ll know the truth

All of the praise God’s Son we give to thee

And nothing of salvation’s down to me

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Day Three 2015

JESUS CHRIST

Jesus Christ, if we had known who He was, would we have crucified him?

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Day Two 2015

NaPoWriMo 2015
Day Two

NOT SEXY

She’s barking she’s half mad insane

She won’t even tell me her name

She gets really flirty

Not sexy just dirty

Again and again and again

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Day One 2015

SNOW HAT

Lily with her snow hat on

Who said the winter’s dead and gone

Snow hat on and Welly boots

Wearing her all-weather suit

Some people told her it was spring

With all the daffodils and things

But she was right it poured with rain

And after that came snow again

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NaPoWriMo 2015 Introduction

NaPoWriMo 2015

This will be the seventh time I have entered the NaPoWriMo Thirty Poems in Thirty Days challenge. It will be difficult to find the time as it always is and the quality of the work is never the best, but the amazing thing that I have found in previous years is that I always manage to write three or four pieces during the month of april that are really me. If you've not tried NaPoWriMo before, give it a whirl this time, I know you'll enjoy it either as a reader or a writer. Happy NaPoWriMo everybody!!!

Here's a brilliant site for you to submit your bloggage to: napowrimo.net

Poem for Claire

VEGABLE FAIR

On the way to Vegable Fair

I met a girl whose name was Claire

I said to her do you eat meat

As she was dancing down the street

She said oh yeah my name’s Claire Bear

Yeah yeah Claire do you eat it rare

And do you really eat bear’s feet

For lunch and breakfast just a treat

Does anybody really care

A vegetarian yeah yeah

What do you do with all that meat

It’s much too much for one to eat

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Happy St. David's Day

St. David's day springs

After the winter was not

WICKED WINDS COMETH

After the winter was not

St. David's day springs

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Give us a twirl!

PROPER GIRL
Other girls look such a mess
in their summer cotton dress
but Lily's such a proper girl
when she does a little twirl
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