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Best Poems Written by Alan Douglas

Below are the all-time best Alan Douglas poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Seniors Olympics

SENIORS OLYMPICS

Images of fearsomely fit youth everywhere,
healthy people, all bronzed, featured
by the second, on screens and public spaces : 
fit and flash, but always  young, Olympians.

I protest, for we seniors are just as sporty;
we recycle daily, suffer running noses;
fallen archery’s no problem at all - well, it is -
as we routinely wrestle with living.

Best not to even mention water sports.
Weightlifting self out of armchair is hourly,
when diving for the loo, as is rowing back
from much too easily expressed criticism.

We ping pong daily with potions and pills.
Sailing close to the wind, shooting mouth off, 
leads to embarrassed synchronized grinning.
Annoy us and you will get a right kayaking.

Much of our lives consists of sundry hurdles;
shops are like a cross-country marathon,
or a steeplechase broken into relays, 
bench to leaned-on wall, to bench again.

And, we’ve all done pent- and heptathlon,
with the dec- coming in to (or out of) focus,
we need not discus these ageist Olympics, 
I have hammered my point enough ....

Alan McAlpine Douglas

Details | Alan Douglas Poem

Best-Kept Secret

I know - I’m supposed to keep this secret
easy, by month one nothing’s visible yet

in month two damn sickness greets morn
and I’m wishing I’d never been born

by end of third deep serenity’s applied
and all appears to be settled inside

with the fourth my bump starts to show
and I wonder ... when will parents know

in the fifth my movements stop still
while the baby’s march up and down hill

come the sixth I rest both bodies a lot
and this secret’s become more of a plot

tell Mama - with her help I struggle from bed
for the joyous day that I am to be wed

in my seventh the secret’s quite clear
well, I'm married, so ignore “Dear oh dear”

greet the eighth with a football enhancing
boy or girl, baby’s into break dancing

meet the ninth with many a groan
when will this huge bubble be done ?

At start of tenth with a push, screams and shout
finally my best-kept and worst-kept secret is OUT 

right now, I want all the wide world to know
football’s burst, and it’s ON with life’s show

bubble, champagne and hubby all Pop
though whacked, where I’m in the world is on top !

Alan McAlpine Douglas

Details | Alan Douglas Poem

Achtung, Mes Amis

ACHTUNG, MES AMIS

The islands resolutely isolated from the shore
had atmosphere : they were redolent of an insolence
which betokened ‘Do come and get me, if you damn well dare.’
Its minor mountains, be amazed, look, of an eminence

protruding from deceptively calm waters past La Manche,
scant altitude, but attitude, enough to sink their fleets;
with birds whose complaints and laughter would fill the Sunday rags,
and tempt to silly invasions - all coupled with defeats.

Come, ask yourselves, oh Latin Ones, on what does this depend ?
You win with words, or food; pr’aps you’re not right, quite, for the fight ?
Ye Krauts, at our shores your ambitions flounder to their end,
perhaps it’s time that you give up, kowtow, and see the light ?

For friends, that’s what, deep down, we know you really, truly are,
of course we’ll squabble, we’re close, that goes without being said.
Just as long as you give us space - without the laws you need -
with you we will even break our white, sliced, and pre-packed bread ....

Alan McAlpine Douglas

(Challenge words : island resolute isolated redolent
mountain amazed water birds laughter flounder)

Details | Alan Douglas Poem

You Say Tom-Aaa-To

YOU SAY TOM-AAA-TO

Never ever say sorry.
No matter how put,
a meagre sorry tastes

like yesterday’s curled sandwich,
obstinately irrelevant
to any serious discourse.

Instead, play for effect;
make your mark
with the equivalent

of a six course lunch,
a gourmet spread
of words, allusions

and classical reference;
then profusely apologise
with discipline and skill.

When sitting down
on completing this task,
you may append, quite silently,

the word asshole, if American,
or the much more redolent British word
arsehole, even if American !

(Challenge words : sorry taste obstinate relevant serious play lunch gourmet apologise)

Details | Alan Douglas Poem

About Time Too

ABOUT TIME TOO

Create a universe with space,
and stars and suns, then planets.
Add some life and watch it grow;
almost nothing to almost something.

Implant a need to change, evolve,
until finally one arrives at sentience.
We now have human, which thinks,
therefore it is, but often chooses not to.

Our very human need brings order into,
and from surrounding chaos,
or so we imagine. Hence years, seconds
and so forth will codify time.

This time is *very *important;
brought in to rule over us all,
while some changes of time
are turned into veritable deities.

One grand god is to be worshipped
when he grants us his New Year,
for joy and wild celebration,
and sundry bacchanalian pursuits.

But, dammit, an invented construct
starts whether we're awake to scream
or not, so this one thinking human
prefers pursuit of non-bacchanalian sheep,

and sleep ....

Alan McAlpine Douglas

Details | Alan Douglas Poem

Goose Bumps

GOOSE BUMPS

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j231/the...ean/dtgeese.jpg

I'd thought I found eternal rest
cold hands folded, still, on my chest
but I hear echoes from the past
the trumpet's sound, fierce bugle blast

Coming alert, I look around
burst out laughing, see the sound
source - back to sleep with merry wave
at geese, goose-stepping on my grave ....

Alan McAlpine Douglas

Details | Alan Douglas Poem

The Wiliest Bird

THE WILIEST BIRD

My hero is a wily bird,
so gutsy, he's thought quite absurd,
for when he's down and almost out,
he's up and fit for six more bouts.

He'll be blown up, he'll be blown down,
whatever, it is turned around
to energize another go;
through all adversity, he'll grow.

Ever onwards, never wilting
at Roadrunner ever tilting
like his hero, Don Quixote,
my hero, Wile E. Coyote !

Alan McAlpine Douglas 
(in response to request to write about my hero)

Details | Alan Douglas Poem

Another Psychiatric Success - Oakland

ANOTHER PSYCHIATRIC SUCCESS

Man feels guilty, thus Man feels bad :
conscience halts “pleasures” to be had.
Psychs seek cure - Man must not feel bad,
with drugs remove what make him sad.

Good, lucky Man is free from guilt :
no shunning of what shouldn’t be built.
He’ll use base feelings such as hate
to revel in his psych-made state.

Oh happy Man, let it all hang out,
you’ve been ill-treated, there’s no doubt -
go get revenge, go get your gun,
go get plenty of psych-fuelled fun.

Go shoot kids in a blameless school,
they won’t ever call you a fool.
As shots hit home, watch them all run,
thanks to the psychs, Man’s having fun.

Now he’s the target ? ‘Why target me ?
I’m only on a guilt-free spree.’
Those bastards’ guns, they won’t kill him,
one shot to head, success, psych’s whim !

Alan McAlpine Douglas

Details | Alan Douglas Poem

Inconvenience

INCONVENIENCE

Home :
Take one cube of gravy essence,
stir it fretfully, if I still dare,
into boiling, or at least hot-ish water;
such senior movements made with care

Care Home :
Drizzle ointments, yea, and potions
onto wrinkled tangerine skin
of arthritic hands, hips, knee-bones,
prey to crocked aches, and pains within

Hospital :
Please do ignore me gaily, while I toy
with food, well, pap, served up each day;
don’t tie me into bed, I’m already tied to head.
I pray, sometime soon that I’ll be on my way

Thereafter :
Finally to discard this worn-out old suit
trade incontinence for what seems the same,
but with new ability : to bawl up a storm,
and minor inconvenience - this fancy new name

Alan McAlpine Douglas

(Challenge words : cube gravy fret with drizzle tangerine prey arthritic toy tie)

Details | Alan Douglas Poem

Shakers and Stirrers

SHAKERS AND STIRRERS

To illuminate the extraordinary goings-on 		
in our so tense and deeply twilit terrestrial sphere, 
it is necessary to take a long and unhurried		
celestial view, one stemming from the stars as it were.	
As a bare minimum, observers should note the presence	
of a perhaps quite small number of shakers and stirrers,	
mixers maybe, groups of men whose secret and sole purpose	
is to seed chaos, stymying able mens’ best efforts.
Man is imaginative, a mover and creator,		
one who sees a problem, then a myriad solutions,	
who sees mud as an opportunity, never a mire;	
someone willing, who can and does shape his own destiny.
Good men, who see much, are also blind, for they find it hard	
to ascribe destructive motives to the bad of their kind.			

(Challenge words : illuminate extraordinary tense 
terrestrial twilight celestial stars minimum presence)