Football

Can you kick a knickerbocker-

Glory in a game of soccer?

Sundae leagues have lots of teams

That don’t use balls, but large ice-creams.

 

My Teenage Brother

My brother used to smell of sweat

(He never, ever washed, I bet).

He moped around, and all our rooms

Were filled with noxious toxic fumes

So evil that I’m quite surprised

We weren’t quite simply stenchified.

But then that smellster had the nerve

To find a girl and fall in lurve,

And now he’s going out he stinks

Of aftershave and stuff called Lynx.

Chips for Life

When Peregrine Percy was only just three

His mother said ‘Right, no more chips for your tea!’

And so he ate bread. But now he is older

He always goes round with a chip on his shoulder.

No Brain, Again

Sometimes my brain will start to complain

And say to me firmly ‘Not school! Not again!’

Then it waves ‘toodle-oo’ and ‘bye bye’ to my head

And it stays for a snooze in my bed.

So I sit in my class and I can’t do one sum

As my lazy old brain is refusing to come.

And I do tell the teacher, I try to explain

That it’s really not my fault I’m missing my brain.

I say I’ve cajoled it and urged it and pleaded

And said to it ‘Brain, don’t you know that you’re needed?’

But what can I do when my brain lies there snoring

And tells me that schoolwork is useless and boring?

I tick my brain off and I’m cross and I moan,

But really, my brain has a mind of its own!

I know it’s annoying, it’s such a big pain,

But please don’t blame me – blame my brain.

 

Bull

A bull is full of mockery

For pretty things like crockery.

And when it’s in a china shop, a bull will almost never stop

Until the fancy figurines

Are all smashed into smithereens.

 

Lest We Forget

Here in the UK it’s Remembrance Day, so for once here’s a serious poem (written rather hastily this morning). I make no secret of being either politically-minded, or a pacifist.

 

Lest we forget. We do, of course;

Those sepia smiles, and then the hoarse

Screams of men, mired in mud,

The shattered shrapnel’s shuddered thud,

The piercing pain of mustard gas,

Are ticked and done in history class.

Do we imagine, when we wear

A plastic poppy (look! it’s there!)

That we are being, somehow, more

Respectful to those men of war

Than if we called for wars to cease

And, joining hands, all pushed for peace?

Politicians, faces grave,

Suited, sombre – they’re not brave

Or honouring of millions dead

By simply wearing scraps of red!

Still the wars go on, while yet

‘Remembering’. Lest we forget.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheese Scraps

I’m always forgetting the feta. It’s better

If feta is never forgot.

As feta forgotten is horrid and rotten

And gives off a pong in the pot.

As for Caerphilly I’ve been rather silly

And never take very good care.

I carefully fill up my fridge, and yet still

I will somehow forget that it’s there.

This lump of Red Leicester’s been left here to fester

It’s ‘best before’ date was last year.

The ricotta has got a whole lot of old mould

And it’s not very tasty, I fear.

The brie’s not to be, and the cheddar is deader,

They’re both rather chompy to chew.

But we’ll finish these scraps for our dinner perhaps?

So please – are you fond of fondue?

 

 

 

Weather Writing

 

On every dark and stormy night

An awful author starts to write,

To look outside, and then compose

A piece of such horrendous prose

Involving wind and driving rain

That no-one dares to read again.

Oh Gentle Wind, please stop this curse,

And don’t you bloody dare get worse.