Sunday 29 March 2015

Squashed Frog Rondeau Redouble

I hopped along the stoney road at night.
This was my whole raison d'etre, all I'd planned.
The time had come and everything seemed right.
I saw my love hold out his tiny hand
He swore his love,"I'm yours dear to command."
"Then climb aboard, I love you at first sight."
I crouched down low and rested on my feet, outfanned.
I hopped along the stoney road at night.
For spring, and love were here for my delight
And underneath my toes was mud and sand.
I felt no fear beneath the silvery light.
This was my whole raison d'etre, all I'd planned.
I knew my duty though I did not understand
How urgent was the need to act: inspite
Of all my instincts, time slowed down and nature's scheme was grand.
The time had come and everything seemed right.
Then on an instant all my skin felt tight
The weight upon my back was more than I could stand
And then I burst. This was my final sight:
I saw my love hold out his tiny hand,
I saw the look of terror which I could not stand,
I saw a car retreat into the night,
And then no more and time seemed to expand,
And then my soul took flight
I hopped along.

Saturday 28 March 2015

Squashed Frog Villanelle


I hopped along the stoney road at night
And waited for my little froggie man.
The time had come to spawn. The moon was bright.

I waited in the eerie, silver light
I knew he’d come, for this was nature’s plan:
I hopped along the stoney road at night.

He climbed up on my back, I felt no fright,
He was so thin with such a tiny span:
The time had come to spawn.  The moon was bright.

Some other girls close by started to fight,
I wasted no more time, I almost ran;
I hopped along the stony road at night

And then it seemed that something wasn’t right;
My love had gone:  the shit had hit the fan.
The time had come to spawn.  The moon was bright.

He laid squashed flat beneath a bike, his plight
The same as many fellow men.  Oh damn!
I hopped along the stoney road at night.

The time had come to spawn.  The moon was bright.

Squashed Frog Sonnet

I hopped along the stoney road, the dark
Black night was silent and I knew that soon
I 'd see my love beneath the crescent moon.
I sang a little (something dull by Bach)
And listened to the other frogs remark
Upon the season's weather as my tune
Chugged on and grew quite riveting, 'no lark
More blithe than me.'  No lark more deaf and blind.
I thought it was my love at first, but no
What touched me was not his amphib'ous hand
He did not speak nor climb up from behind.
It was a car that mounted me and so
I lay, squashed flat and ground into the sand.

Saturday 14 March 2015

Libertarian Cat

My first life was nasty,
I didn’t live long.
My second was brutish,
I did much that was wrong.
My third life was short,
But not sweet, like a song.
My fourth life was better,
I was fed and grew strong.
My fifth life was hasty,
The sixth was quite Pooterish,
As I grew self-important,
Eating all that was tasty,
And came to ‘belong’
To some well-meaning people,
Who still couldn’t prolong
My existence, and so,
I was squashed by a moped,
Or something else scooterish.
My seventh passed by in a blur in Hong Kong,
Where the people themselves were not really free,
And seemed rather jealous of pussies like me,
My eighth was no blessing, as I lived among
People who had their ideas all wrong.
But the ninth is a wonder,
The best of all worlds,
I have shelter, protection and food and small birds,
And yet I can roam, far away from my home,
Pleasing myself like a Dong,
Without a luminous nose.
And although I suppose
That this life is the last,
I have learned a great deal from the ones that have passed.





Thursday 12 March 2015

Prudence in Particular

So much of what I love is just the essence of your kind,
But it's the way that it's made manifest in you
I seem to find,
Is so perfect and so lovely,
But can it be defined?

I suppose you're there yourself in the love light in your eye,
When you place your velvet nose upon my knee.
And in the way you seem to dream
So very humanly, 
As you stretch out, quite abandoned on the bed.

And it's in your silent wisdom, when you try
To warn me, with a look,
And the way you keep on trying,
Though you know I won't take care
Because I'm deaf and never notice,
until reviewing what I said,
I sense your sage-like presence 
And a caution in the air.
But your ears seem to have a lovely,
Complex, turning language of their own,
They hear, they think, they speak, they seem to see
They indicate you're comprehending 
All the meaning in the world,
Not just that silly part which is revealed to me.

Tuesday 10 March 2015

Lent

The Judas trees are blooming at the sewage works,
And the process of filtration works its wonder,
And the shit breaks down and leaves the clear waters
And they flow back through the sand beds to the river.
And the sun shines on the Cercis Siliquastrum,
And the oyster catchers shriek their whistling cries,
And the egrets white as purity go fishing,
And nobody admits to telling lies.
Though we witness, devastation, murder, plunder,
And the vile rape and usage of our daughters,
Still the process of filtration works its wonder,
And the lipstick pink blooms under clear blue skies,
As the Judas trees drink of the clear water
And the ducks feed in the reed beds all a quiver.
And instead of acting we have only wishing
And instead of truth we just have what's thought wise
To believe in after process of filtration,
And there are no absolutes just compromise.
For moral relativity's our nostrum
And the cockerel crows once more at degradation
As the sun shines on the Cercis Siliquatrum
Where they grow around the tanks where all the filth lurks
And the process of filtration works its wonder
And each day's bright, not building up to thunder,
And the egrets white as purity go fishing,
As the Judas trees are blooming at the sewage works.

Saturday 7 March 2015

On Anger

Is anger really worse than the cold drip
of constant criticism from a calm
voice seemingly with patience filled? Words trip
away to thin air, all of them. Is harm
that is a greater harm, caused when, they're sent
upon their way with blasts of heat, or when
they're baseless, cold, and carping and incessant?
Does gentle rain in its relentlessness then
not erode in time the hardest stone?
Does ice not gouge out valleys where it crushes,
its temperature not bring pain into the bone
of those exposed to it?  Fire where it rushes,
though it scorches as it passes, soon blows out:
better then, than carping, is to shout.


Wednesday 4 March 2015

Don’t Let Reason Win In Every Case

To reason is our highest human gift,
to let our lesser qualities have reign,
and to promote our intuition, lift
and elevate our instincts, is to stain
our characters by giving vent to thought
that is not thought at all.  And yet we’re made
with instincts for a reason, they’re not taught;
they’re reflexes, to keep us safe, displayed
to us in crises when the mind is weak
and reason takes too long.  So when they shout
inside your head, do not delay, don’t speak
to them with patience; act and hear them out.
And panic when you see the swirling vortex,
ignore the rational cerebral cortex.