Washing Day

I’m hanging up the washing

And I put it on the line,

And I think ‘How very lucky

That the weather’s nice and fine’.

I hang socks, pants and knickers

I hang blouses, I hang shirts,

I hang sloppy floppy jim-jams,

I hang stiff and starchy shirts,

I hang trousers, towels and pillow slips,

Sheets and spotty shorts,

I hang drip-drying dresses,

I hang jumpers of all sorts.

And I say it doesn’t matter

When the wind begins to howl,

But then it flurries in a hurry

And it whisks away a towel,

And the trousers and the blouses

Are blown all around the houses,

And the pillow slips do backward flips,

The socks zoom off on foreign trips,

The jumpers jump in wonder where

They’re joined by lots of underwear,

Then lightning flares and flickers

As a gust blows off the knickers,

And the jim-jams jaggle jiggle

And they do a little wiggle

Then they fly off through the sky.

But at least my washing’s dry!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wanderlust of a Leaf

Many of my more adult poems are personal, but this one isn’t, so I thought I’d shove it on here.

 

She’d led a quiet life.

Which was not her fault. And there had been

Comfort in the tall solidity of trunk,

Silent, unmoving.

You don’t get that from gadding about.

And then the necessity of watching

The impudent thrust

Of young shoots through soil, and of turning

Raw sunlight into food.

She has not had time for thought.

And yet now, as her edges brown and wilt,

As the cold shakes her veins, she wonders

What the world is like, and longs suddenly

To feel fingers of breeze ripple her skin,

And the twirl and swirl of the dance as she

Flies through the air in furious freedom

High, high above houses, borne

On a current that makes her cry

In sudden gusts of joy and pain.

I long, she thinks, to be me.

For weeks she wonders.

She becomes browner, more brittle, dry,

She is shrivelling.

And then one day, she knows

That it is now or never, and she leaps

Into the unknown wind.

 

Work, Work, Work

I knew this young bloke,

Who never once spoke.

But all he did was work.

 

He didn’t take breaks

For coffee or cakes.

But all he did was work.

 

He didn’t take leave.

‘I have work to achieve!’

Yes, all he did was work.

 

He never once slept,

But instead he just kept

On doing the same old work.

 

And after a while

He lost his smile,

As all he did was work.

 

His bum became stuck

To his chair (what bad luck!)

But all he did was work.

 

And where his seat ended

His butt sort of blended.

But still he did his work.

 

Then one day his rear

Seemed to quite disappear!

But all he did was work.

 

And his little-used legs

Became stiff wooden pegs.

As all he did was work.

 

Months later he said

(With a nod of his head)

‘I think I’ve finished my work’.

 

But he cried in despair

‘I’ve turned into my chair,

And all because of this work!’

 

Now on dark stormy nights

By the moon’s pale light,

They say that he still does his work.

 

And the chair-ghost types piles

Of irrelevant files,

And wails as it still does its work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comet Landing

What does a comet sing of?

What’s in the hum and the thrum of its sound

As it blazes its way through the black all around?

Does it sing of the empty and infinite night,

Of the vast lonely void stretching far out of sight?

Does it sing of the fury of fire? Does it cry

Of the awe and the wonder of star-studded sky?

Does it roar at the terrible beauty? Or chime

With the long-distant music of time before time?

What does a comet sing of?

Does it sing of new worlds as they sizzle and spark?

Or only of nothing, a fathomless dark?

And then, as it speeds on its journey through space,

Does it sing of the tickle from earth on its face?

 

Bus Run

Walk down street.

Engine thrumming.

Look behind.

Quick, it’s coming!

Drumming, pounding, hurry, hurry!

Feet a flapping frenzied flurry,

Slapping concrete, whooshing, whirring,

World around a blinding blurring

Rush of air and engine roar

And run and run and run some more

And faster, faster! Quick now, whizz!

It’s nearly here, yes here it is!

Just one more step, we’ll soon get on

But no

The bus

Has been

And gone.

 

 

 

Yodel-ooooooooooooooooooo

Heidi took a huge great breath,

To do a bit of yodelling.

Unluckily, her breath ran out,

And now she is explodelling.

The Joys of Toast

You know what I love? The taste of toast.

The easy, make-it-in-haste of toast.

The none-of-it-goes-to-waste of toast.

That’s what I love about toast.

 

You know what I love? The crunch of toast.

The chewing and chomping munch of toast.

The makes-such-a-very-good lunch of toast.

That’s what I love about toast.

 

You know what I love? The crumbs of toast.

The stick-on-your, lick-at-your thumbs of toast,

The feeling-of-filling-up-tums of toast.

That’s what I love about toast.

 

You know what I love? The price of toast.

The cheap-but-ever-so-nice of toast.

So please will you give me a slice of toast?

(Or four)

You see, I just love eating toast!