poetry

The Bachelor: a sonnet

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I really want to be The Bachelor,

Inviting morsels for me to trawl,

Flicking them off, so spectacular,

I wish I could taste them all!

 

And I find The One, The Only One,

“My love is like a red, red, rose”,

The final, millions watch, she’s won,

A moment in time that froze.

 

But is it real this game of love?

Is it only a scripted illusion?

Parts are acted, the producers shove,

All in all, a romantic delusion.

 

To be The Bach my looks will hinder,

I’ll go back to finding real love on Tinder.

 

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Phubbing

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When you’re in a crowd

And someone comes towards you

And ignores you

On their phone…

Phubbing

Phone Snubbing

 

When you’re on a night out

At a restaurant

And your date

Constantly goes

On their phone…

Phubbing

Phone Snubbing

 

When you want to have a conversation

With your teenager

And they just have to go

On their phone…

Phubbing

Phone Snubbing

 

When there are laws about not

Phoning and driving

But people

Still drive

On their phone…

Phubbing

Phone Snubbing

 

When you’re reading this poem

On your phone…

 

The Lone Star Motel

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One Star Motel

The sun was setting in the west,

I could not drive much further,

My eyes were bleary, to stop was best,

“Safety first,” my mum I’d heard her.

 

I then drove through a tin-pot town,

You know the type with tumbleweed,

But lack of habitation made me frown,

All I wanted was a sleep and a feed.

 

There was nowhere to rest my weary head,

No Bed and Breakfast, not a hotel,

The next town I thought I would head,

But then I spied the ‘Lone Star Motel’.

 

Excited I knocked on the reception door,

Looking down I noted the ‘Welcome’ mat,

Finally a lady ambled across the floor,

Rollers in her hair, ciggy and a tatt.

 

“Are you on your own?” the lady said,

“I have to check if there’re vacancies,”

I pleaded, “Please only a feed and bed,

Your sign did not say ‘No Vacancies’.”

 

She checked whilst sucking on her smoke,

“Our tourist trade is running pretty hot,”

This comment almost made me choke,

As there were no cars in the parking lot!

 

“You are lucky, Luv,” the lady conceded,

“Number 5, you’re certainly in the hunt,

It has more than you would have needed,

But I need the money paid up front.”

 

“A restaurant?” my gut was starting to ache,

“Only room service,” the lady pursed her lips,

“For dinner, we have got chips and steak

And for breakfast it is steak and chips.”

 

It would have to do, I proceeded to pay,

And as I went out to await the tucker,

Plain as day I heard the lady say,

“Hey Harry, it is another city sucker.”

 

The first thing I noticed as I opened the door,

Was the smell, not that of lavender,

And was that tomato sauce on the floor?

I was hoping to not find a cadaver.

 

What’s more the TV was very blurry,

The AC didn’t work, the heat intense,

And around the bath was mould so furry,

‘Lone Star’, meaning one-star, was making sense.

 

“Room service,” the lady was at the door,

My chance to complain about the place,

As I was about to argue with great candour,

She said “Enjoy” closing the door in my face.

 

Alone I whiled away the hours to bed,

My phone had no signal, I played Solitaire,

This place was starting to do in my head,

It was like in a cell full of fetid air.

 

Sleep was how to deal with the yearning,

The bed bowed in the middle like a valley,

Midnight, one, two, me tossing and turning,

I felt destitute in some backstreet alley.

 

The chips and steak gurgled in my gut,

Sleep virtue of some painkilling drugs,

I had found respite from the Lone Star rut,

But then I dreamt of some giant bed bugs.

 

Groggy in the morning I handed in the key,

Too tired to rustle up any type of complain,

I was just glad to escape, be finally free,

And drive quickly across the wide open plain.

 

“How was it? I hope you enjoyed the room,”

She must have thought that I was a goon,

“I am sure you will be back here real soon,”

She smarmily sniggered as I left the room.

 

“No way,” I thought as I got into my car,

Pondering her final words would not be smart,

So I turned the key to escape the Lone Star,

But for some reason my car wouldn’t start.

in The Cloud

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I wandered lonely in The Cloud,

I was trying to find some meaning,

Sifting through Big Data as allowed,

Searching for our very being,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of faces in The Cloud.

 

The faces were ordered like a book,

They stretched in never-ending line,

Hard to comprehend at first look,

Continuous as the stars that shine,

Faces promoted through pure vanity,

A clear insight into our humanity.

 

But as I stared I spied a face

That suddenly grabbed my attention,

You had the visage of good grace,

Inspiring my immediate retention,

Your eyes, demeanour, so refined,

I quickly opened your Timeline.

 

And there you were for me to see,

Friends, interests, your life laid there,

I gazed – and gazed – how could it be?

That I would find love in the air,

I then reached out to touch your face

But you evaporated without a trace.

 

(Apologies to William Wordsworth for the use of a few of his lines from the poem ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’)

Fried Beauty

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Oily fies

Glory be to God for all fried things –

For well-done patties full of whatever;

For savs encased in thick, crusted batter;

Oily fish and chips; chicken wings;

Chiko rolls – folded, aromatic, full of flavour;

And other beauties, how can they make you fatter?

 

All fried things crisp, ooey, gooey, strange;

Whatever raises cholesterol (who knows how?)

With ingredients that must keep you trim;

Let’s buy another scallop with the change:

Praise him.

 

(Author’s note: Apologies to Gerard Manley Hopkins for the take on his poem ‘Pied Beauty’)

Whittlin’ our life away

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Whittlin

See me and me cousins – old Daryl and Bede,

We sat on the porch at the front of our home,

We used to laze ‘round, have a drink and a feed,

Coz we had to make sure them cows didn’t roam.

 

Some say folk in the sticks have so little to do,

They say we have plenty of time on our hands,

But now we are part of the active crew few,

Coz for whittlin’ we are the biggest of fans.

 

We started to whittle the odd gum tree stick,

Carvin’ them sticks into nothin’ much at all,

But then after a while we gave sticks the big flick,

Coz there weren’t any more on the trees to fall.

 

We then took to whittlin’ all the wood that we found

(I know you must think this is pretty outrageous),

And all that was left were some chips on the ground,

As whittlin’ for us was becomin’ highly contagious!

 

So we called for whittlin’ help from all of our relos,

(There are lots, as not much happens in them hills),

Whittlin’ was now a big job for gals and the fellows,

Coz we were sellin’ more chips than them log cuttin’ mills.

 

Now as we’re all whittlin’, I gets to do some thinkin’,

Started to make up a tune for all of us to know,

A song ‘bout whittlin’ that would get us all a hootin’,

Let’s call it: ‘From Big Things, Little Things Grow’!

 

And thought all big words could do with a whittle,

Cut them down to size, get rid of the word pith,

It would make them word books be ever so little,

For doin’ this craft, they’ll call us a ‘wordsmith’!

 

Back from my thoughts to our whittlin’ adventure,

There’s not much wood left as you look around,

Gone are fences, the house door and its wood floor,

And there’s none of them trees still growin’ on the ground.

 

Hey, we might of overdone the extent of our wood work,

May be we couldn’t see ‘the forest for the trees’,

But we’ve just heard some news that made us all smirk:

There are lots of big trees in Brazil that are free!

 

My Mullet

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Mullet

(Author’s note: To be sung to that classic ‘Achy Breaky Heart’)

 

Don’t shave my mullet, my lovely flowin’ mullet,

Just watch it swayin’ in the breeze,

And if you shave my mullet, my lovely flowin’ mullet,

I’ll fall down cryin’ on my knees.

 

You can stand and bellow that I’m not a modern fellow,

That my hair is shorter at the side,

But lookin’ at my mane that’s givin’ me my fame,

There’s no need to make it go and hide.

 

Now you can trash my trailer, yell it from a loud hailer,

Laugh and joke at my retro look,

But Billy Ray perfected it, why are you rejectin’ it?

I’m proud of it and will not be a sook.

 

I can say it’s fair that the girls just love my hair,

They stroke and fondle it like a cat,

But there’s an older dame who really adores my mane,

It’s aunt Raelene with her ciggy and her tat.

 

So you can look like new and grow a mullet too,

There are styles that never ever fail,

Now there‘s one with a perm, with bleach to make it firm,

Why not that trendy ratty tail?

 

Don’t sneer at my mullet, my lovely flowing mullet,

It’s the greatest hair-do by a mile,

And if you sneer at my mullet, my lovely flowing mullet,

It might soon come back into style!