Literary Critique

The smell of frying burgers brings her sharply to the square
she cannot help but buy them – even knowing they are there
is enough to send her diet to paroxysms of fear --
the hiss of soggy onions and the mustard yesteryear.

The sound of stringless cellos burning brings her out in hives
she isn’t sure just why that is – perhaps it’s other lives
that punch and poke and prod her when she’s lying in the sack
and not the cat that’s nestled in the curving of her back.

Her dancing days are over though the fighting’s still to come
there’s many April midnights yet before the day is won
So many books are slaughtered in the war to justify
the New York Times bestseller list though many critics try.

Overdue Account

Dear Mr. Waterman I think it’s time to say
you’ve had your fun; the jig is up, there has to be a day
when contracts taken out in faith are payable at last
without the need for personal aspersions to be cast.

You’ve had your three score years and ten and then another ton:
It’s time to visit us in Hell for pokers up your bum
we really have been patient as I’m sure you will agree,
but your final wish for extra time was never cleared by me.

I’ve been very understanding and a giver of the doubt
but after all this time I think it’s time I gave a shout
and called your soul from mortal lands where you have been carousing
and strip the soul from mortal flesh it up till now called housing.

Now if you come here right away and do not make a scene
I’ll make sure that your seven wives don’t find out where you’ve been.
I’ll throw your friends a party, there’ll be upping of the knees
RSVP, if you would, signed Mephistopheles.

Harold's Bookshop

Sat before and apple-mac, the figures scrolling past
a loss-and-profit masterpiece he’s lashing to the mast
of the bookshop Alexandria, sailing in the lea
of a bowling-ball recession in a skittle-laden sea.

A numeric metamorphosis in on the books, he thinks
jettison the Blighton’s first, before the bookshop sinks
sailing into tax years with a cellar full of dust
holler, Mr. Waterman, before the shop goes bust!

Winston, Dreaming (tanka)

Alone, Winston sits
in café, overlooks the park
and dreams of sun.
No absinthe to bend the mind
but poetry is composed

Router Demon

When the final battle ended there was just one demon left
he shuffled round the sparring ring, alone and quite bereft.
“Where are all the succubae?” he said with a balloon,
“I was promised trumpets but I cannot hear a tune.”

“Where is God? May I not have a vision of His face?
For though I run a thousand miles I cannot leave this place.
Heaven was a dream of mine, to hope that one day I
might redeem my mortal soul and earn my wings and fly.”

“I saw the angels garbed for war and one by one they fell
upon the earth their bodies lie, the opening to Hell
is choked with blood of demon and with mortal soul as well
so I’ll just play with my balloon until the final bell.

Witchery!

The restless dead are all around
in the air and on the ground.
It’s just as well that Julie’s here
to chivvy spirits and bring cheer
to all those long-departed souls
that haunt the park and graveyard holes
without her there would never be
a spiritual cup of tea.

Gloaming's Child

Emily Partridge was a broken writer
no words came though deadlines got tighter.
Her mystery novel ‘A Shot in the Head”
had gone to the morgue, the storyline dead.
Her fantasies vanished, her cowboys went west;
her FBI hero still lounged in his vest.
Her demons and angels had gone for their tea
and her double-O agent had nowhere to be.
With no plot in her pocket; no words in her head,
Emily wrote vampire romance instead.

Jimmy on the Wagon

Quite why he thought the need to diet, nobody could say,
but Jimmy Parker bought a book – began that very day
“Away with burgers, chips and fries and all that stands between
the healthy and good looking chap that my mum had said I’d been.
From now on I’ll eat carrots and a cup of steaming rice
I’ll stay away from chocolate bars and everything that’s nice.
When I go out to restaurants, a salad I’ll devour
instead of birianis and a nan with leavened flour.”
His mother asked the doctor who responded with a sigh
“He misread my report,” he said. “I wrote that Jim should die.”

Chap's Book

A modest run, it seemed to me
to suit my meager purse
twenty books of poetry
in haiku and blank verse.

The printer was as pleased as Punch
to take on my request
so eager he ignored his lunch --
assured me of the best.

“A three inch margin all around
your pretty verses here,”
he said but couldn’t hear a sound
with carrots in his ear.

“No no,” I said “Too big a gap
will leave no room for lettering –
I am not your average chap
who doesn’t know typesetting.

I sent a letter to redress
and start it all again
for the man who owns the letter press
is marginally insane.

Doubting

Thomas Aquinas
peered out from dark glasses
at his descendant.

“You must have a thousand questions,” he said.

Harold smiled.
“Not I,” he said,
“though I have many waiting
in the back room.”

And he led
us through a grating
in the gloom
to a narrow door once painted red
but now scuffed and peeling
where a flock of notecards
launched into the air.

“Pick one,” he said,
and Thomas Aquinas caught the nearest,
a blue one scented with violets
and laughed.
“Like a duck out of razors.”

Haiga - Twilight

The Appetite of Edward Edwards

Edward Edwards loved to eat
the sweetest things of all
he wouldn’t touch his veg or meat,
his mother wouldn’t call
young Edward to the table ‘til
the pudding was set out
(though bread and butter made him ill
and custard gave him gout.)

Edward ate ice-cream and fudge
and toffee in the wrappers;
for cake and biscuits wouldn’t budge
and milkshakes like the clappers.
You might be worried that his teeth
would rot from all the sugar
he had them taken out beneath
a dental surgeon mugger.

He’s more than happy with his gums
to suck at sweets and cakes
He still lives at his dad and mums
and current buns he makes.
A heart attack at twenty four
a news reel on the telly.
They would have saved his life before
but couldn’t pass his belly.

Ode to Tea.

Suck a simple drink, it seems
and yet the stuff of many dreams
the tea I drink is not the stuff
of supermarket cheapy stuff.
Assam for strength is always nice
or Chai if you prefer the spice.

Often ‘Rington’s’ brand suffices
to keep my hedonistic vices
though a sample of the green
or white leaf tea is often seen
to grace the after-dinner table
I like my tea whene’er I’m able.

Herbal teas are well and good
when aches and pains, misunderstood
are desired to go away
and not return another day
but given choice I’d rather drink
the Rington’s brand until I sink.

Discerning Customer

She stands at the counter
holding two plastic meter cards
and a packet of gum
and a twenty.

“Forty Bensons,” she says
with a nod at the cigarette stand
“and a packet of king-sized rizlas.”

She looks at the total displayed on the till
in black-against-green LEDs
“and five on the gas,” she says,
“and four on the ‘leccy,
and a sherbet dip
for the babby’s tea.”

Dying Trade

Clocks tick in the House of Dread
as Samuel Holdstock irons a shirt
a little starch to lift the head
and keep it from the graveling dirt.
The corpse embalmed and fit to view
and dressed in stern Victorian fit
So relatives can gape anew
and talk of death and stand, and sit.
But such a waste of work it feels
to scour the dead below the ground
better still to fit some wheels
so clockwork motors whirl around.

The Teamaker

Dead five years this coming spring
he still remembers tea
grinding acrid leaves in pots
just like he showed to me
Steeped with the hours upon the rim
of coal-fired Aga stove,
a brew to stand your spoon up in
and watch it soon dissolve.
Is that sound a burglar rattling
the hinges on the door?
Or the ghost of Uncle Frederick
making tea at four?

No 33, Jeeves

Inspector White took half an hour
to bring the man to trial.
Mr. Jeeves of thirty-three
stood in the dock and smiled.
“I’ll admit to nothing, sir,”
he said when asked his plea;
the trinkets in my house were all
just given me, you see.
“The watch you found of diamond face
for services I rendered:
the rings and necklaces of jade
were pay for bills I tendered.
Every bit of jewelery,
when pushing comes to shove
was given me by ladies:
I think, therefore I love.

Lucy

In a little house in Laverstone,
a little girl has grown
without a mum to guide her
she was left to play alone.

Bullied by the boys at school
she couldn’t help but weep
her daddy did his very best
and rocked the girl to sleep.

When she was only seven years
she saw a poster for
a martial artists teaching group;
there wasn’t one before.

Her Aunty Julie took her there
on a Tuesday night:
within a year she had no fear
and never shirked a fight.

A black belt by the age of twelve
a terror with the stave
now all the boys are extra-good
and never misbehave.

The Terrace, Laverstone

22, The Terrace
is where a mean old lady lives.
She throws stones
at cars parked in front of her house

24 – there isn’t a 24.
Dad says it burned down
when he was a boy.
“Don’t play with Molotov cocktails.” he says.

26 is a young couple.
They’ve just had a baby
and they called it Emo.
Something like that, anyway

31 used to have zombies
but they rotted away to just bones
and the man that lives there now
buried them in the coal shed.

Taste Sensation

"Tell me something true,” she said
as if my tongue
were Pinocchio’s nose
and I had just lied my way
into her pants.

“You taste of violets,” I said
“Musky in autumn as the leaves fade
and the wind holds the scent of snow.”

It was a lie, of course;
she tasted of blood
as they always do.