A hidden talent beneath the toadstool.
You are summer sunshine
Warm and smiling
I am the wind and rain
You come out
The clouds disappear
I go back in again.
Oh is there no room
In our little house
For you and me together
For when I am out
You are in
We’re never in together.
I steal a kiss as you swing past
Out of the winter’s rain
I cherish the moments
But they never last
Oh when will we meet again?
Oh won’t you share
My little house
Lend your warmth to me?
For there’s room enough
By my house’s hearth
For you my love and me.
The photograph above was taken by Dnalor_01 and released under the license(s). Source (Wikimedia Commons) and the license (CC-BY-SA 3.0) close to the image.
One I ‘prepared earlier’ but sits with Eugie’s weekly challenge ‘Cherish’. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amanpan.com/2020/05/18/eugis-weekly-prompt-cherish-may-18-2020/amp/
Check the image link for weather houses available from Amazon.co.uk
Welcome to Pay It Forward Thursday. All Go Dog Go readers, guest writers and baristas are invited to post one link to one specific post (750 words or less please!) from someone else’s blog in the comments section below. We encourage you to give a shout-out to someone who has wowed you as a reader, creatively inspired you, and/or to introduce a new writer to a wider audience. We will be choosing a Weekly Barista Favorite and inviting the author to have their piece published in full on the Go Dog Go Cafe with a link back to their personal blog.
If you post a link below, be sure to read some of the other great writing people have linked to.
There’s an ache at the heart of nations
An urge for better times
An urge to pull up the drawbridge
Safe from the battle lines.
There’s a yearning for someone to fix things
Right everything that’s gone wrong.
But time doesn’t stop for no one.
No one can turn back the time?
The world can’t you see is shrinking?
No good shutting your eyes.
You can slam shut your door if you want to
The problem’s not going to go.
You can’t ignore others’ problems
Or all too soon they’ll be yours.
The stuff you were busy avoiding
Turns up in your own backyard.
Time to be parting our curtains
And taking a peek what’s outside
Are we part of the solution
Or just along for the ride?
I don’t mind where we go to.
I don’t mind what we do.
You decide, you make a plan.
I’ll go along with you.
I’ll leave you to plan it
Cos I don’t care.
You decide on what to do
I won’t complain, may not engage
But I’ll come along when it’s time to go.
Can’t understand why you get so cross?
I let you decide, you’re always the boss.
I have no opinions, I have no view.
I’m always happy; go along with you.
I’m such a very accommodating chap.
Who on earth could be annoyed by that?
You say there’s a place for everything
And everything has its place
But the trouble with that
For me you see
Is I don’t know where that place is.
I know it goes here or hereabouts
And this goes over there
But I still don’t know the exact right place
Though I really try to care.
You seem to care so very much
And are driven mad by me
Everything I ever touch
Goes where it shouldn’t be.
It could be a man and woman thing
Or perhaps a missing gene?
I’ve looked for that gene all over the place
But it’s nowhere to be seen.
With apologies to Simon and Garfunkel and to Twickenham’s favourite Irishman Noel Murphy whose parody the Folkster gave me the idea. Dedicated to my son Dave who is a promising comedian (unlike the one in the poem) and has been featured in Time Out magazine as ‘one to watch’.
The Stand Up
I am just a comic
Though my gags are getting old
I have squandered my material
For I just stand here and mumble, I lack much promise
Such ancient jests
Still I keep the gags they want to hear
And disregard the rest
When I left my home and my family
I was working just for free
In the company of strangers
And the silence of a laugh-less room
Really scared,
Sinking low, seeking out the lousy rotten gigs
Where no-one else would go
Searching all those places
That no-one else would know
Ha, ha, ha, ha ha ha ha he he
Ha, ha, ha, ha ha ha ha he hey ho
Asking only for expenses
I went looking for a gig
But I got no offers
Just a come-on from the shows
That never pay their acts
I do declare
There were times when I was desperate
So I took some comfort there, he, he, he, he, he, he, he.
Now I’m pulling on my winter draws
And wishing I was warm
Earning money
Where comedy promoters
Aren’t bleeding me
Grieving me
Going home
On the stage there stands a jester
And a comic by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of the heckles that they made
And they cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
“I am leaving, I am leaving”
But the comic still remains, mmm mmm
He ha ha, ha ha ha ha hi he
Ha ha, he ha ha ha ha he he
Etc, etc……
Liz from up the hill
Have you met my neighbour
Liz from up the hill?
She likes to walk her corgis
Husband’s name is Phil.
Curtsy when you meet her;
Seems that is the drill.
She may not have her crown with her
But ask her and she will.
The Castle’s really handy
For all the Windsor shops.
If ever she runs out of stuff
Across the road she pops.
She likes to wear a headscarf
It acts as a disguise
In case the folk of Windsor
Disturb her while she buys.
Her favourite shop, just near her
Is Windsor’s new T. Max
You’ll often find her in there
Going through the racks.
She never carries money
Or so I’ve heard them say
I guess they have to send a bill
For someone else to pay.
If ever you bump into her
She’ll ask you what you do
They’re short her conversations
And very quickly through.
It’s not that she’s unfriendly
She’ll always give a wave
She’s up for doing walkabouts
But privacy she craves.
You’re always very welcome
If ever you’re in town
You’ll have to pay and join a queue
But then she’ll show you round.
You’re free to poke around the place
Gawp at what they own
The only thing you won’t see is
The Queen upon her throne.
Phillip can get grumpy
And doesn’t find it funny;
Visitors bursting in on him
But he knows they need the money.
The castle’s nice and roomy
But that means lots of bills
The other royals pitch in to help
And take turns on the tills.
Sometimes it can get too much
And out the back Liz slips
The Long Walk down to Ascot
Is Liz’s favourite trip.
She really loves her horses
And used to love to ride
The family’s somewhat horsey
That can not be denied.
She’s got too old for riding
She’s ninety so I’m told
Would love to saddle up again
But ninety is too old.
She won’t think of retiring
Though Charles thinks that she should.
They badly need her salary
Or else perhaps she would.
They’re quiet considerate neighbours
You seldom hear them row
There’s lots more I could say of them
But that’s your lot for now.
Still no word from the Castle about my offer to be the new Poet Laureate. I didn’t mind too much about being left off the guest list but I think they should take me up on my offer of a poem. As I said to Her Majesty, in an earlier letter, the proper poets have all turned it down but I could turn something out at the drop of a hat and it wouldn’t be half as stuffy. I’m local too. They should give me a try.
A Wedding
There’s going to be a wedding
Just up the road from us
I could have written poems
They only had to ask.
They should know
I’m up for Laureating.
I offer often enough.
I’m their local poet
But seem to get forgot!
You can fuss around
With diamonds
Worry about the dress
But there ought to be a poem
I’m really quite distressed.
You can leave me
Off the guest list
I know it’ll be a squeeze
But don’t forget the poem
Call me quite soon please!
I live in a village sandwiched equidistantly between royal Windsor and Slough; famously slighted in Sir John Betjeman’s poem of that name that began, “Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough, it isn’t fit for humans now”. The two towns are geographically close but miles apart in every other respect.
Slough folk hate Betjeman’s poem and there are endless competitions, one of which I won, to write a response. ‘Living Breathing Slough’ won a competition to mark Slough Borough Council becoming a ‘unitary authority’ responsible for it’s own education and social services. My poem mimics the style of the original and is a direct response. It was broadcast on Radio Berkshire and Radio Four’s You and Yours programme.
Living, Breathing Slough
Fie on you Betjeman for sneering at Slough
As unfit for humans or grazing of cow
A town for its people it stands alone now
Inured to your snub.
Not picture book pretty or claiming to be
But living and breathing and if you could see
A town that is working, not pretty or twee
Industrial hub.
See all the commuters in smart office suits
Come in from the motorways various routes
Who queue for a sandwich in Marks or in Boots
And hurry it down.
An industrial estate, the largest around
Grew from a dump on a piece of waste ground
Now names that are famous and factories abound
Enterprise town.n
See where the people from shopping arcade
Spill through the streets that bristle with trade
Sauntering, seeking till purchase is made.
Then off they roam.
Diverse the town’s people
each race and hue
From mosque and gurdwara, temple and pew.
From each end of the earth its people it drew.
All call it home.
Andrew Green's Poems 