Senquernized like chrome on a cross
Feel the drizzle I just bought a pistol
It’s a crime to call the Laws on me
I got all these squaws on me
They don’t question me when they call me
I take em out to fahls each week
They buy some Nikes to put on my kids feet
eds are deadly dangerous
more people die there
no matter young or old
than anywhere
else in the whole wide world
(or so I've been told)
and if it's not too late
someone should legislate
to outlaw
and recall them all
then instead we'll sleep on the floor
so before you go
up the wooden hills to Bedforshire
and wend your weary way
to the land of Nod
if you wish to see another day
(after you brush your teeth and prayers say)
take care the place you rest your head
(a bunk-up in a hammock's best)
as the dreaded bed's where even angels fear to tread
SIX WOMEN PATIENTS
Six broken women lay down to rest
brown bodies all in a row
six long stories to tell with jest
six smiles with a million tears
race around ward releasing fears
just so
Six windows uncurtained offers
six sunny acacias buffered
trolleys reel, pills and bottles steep
surgeon makes his rounds with a nod
six students in tow
asking six silly questions to know
just so
Six hard beds high, sigh-slept many
linen stiff as a new penny
squishy meal of mieliepap mixed veggies
making six quite edgy
whose next for operation table no-one knows
they can though still touch their toes
just so
six sets of eyes close for night
dream of kids, chicken pie, golden flights
needles, nurses, morphine gone
no slips on escalator or hip joint pain
they reconnect their own wires, abiding fires
flowing into Aegian sea as African queens
awake back in ward, still here
wee patients not free, see ?
Matron says ‘Go pee’
just so
Babble on, Babylon!— The bell is bellowing
Its booming bane! Bastards and baseborn bumblers
Beware, and beg bitterly for better
Birth above! O’ you bashful, bawdry bunch!
Where we sleep there might be quilts
Or comforters or spreads
Or blankets made in varied styles
To warm us in our beds.
Some might prefer a cashmere throw
Or one hand-knit in wool,
While others cozy up to down
And can’t resist its pull.
A cotton blanket, or velour,
Keeps many feeling snug,
While weighted covers, loved by few,
In most evoke a shrug.
A coverlet atop a bed
Will make it look complete,
Yet lots of sleepers get along
With just an unlined sheet.
Still, no matter what your preference,
Any cover is okay,
But be careful that your partner
Doesn’t tug it all away!
I am enjoying a slumbering Ginger cat said to pumpkin vine.
A beautiful day it is to sleep of my jug of catnip wine.
Pumpkin vine understood and gave Ginger cat a snuggly spot.
On a warm October day when some other pumpkins did rot.
Why do you keep looking wonderful? Asked another pumpkin, Lee.
I think it is because I have become a cat sleeping berth as you can see.
How can I get that gig? Asked Lee. I want to stay fresh longer too.
Pumpkin vine did not know, but Lee became a sleeper so now there are two.
I am enjoying a slumbering Ginger cat said to pumpkin vine.
A beautiful day it is to sleep of my jug of catnip wine.
Pumpkin vine understood and gave Ginger cat a snuggly spot.
On a warm October day when some other pumpkins did rot.
Why do you keep looking wonderful? Asked another pumpkin, Lee.
I think it is because I have become a cat sleeping berth as you can see.
How can I get that gig? Asked Lee. I want to stay fresh longer too.
Pumpkin vine did not know, but Lee became a sleeper so now there are two.
A push-button blood alarm
scans the receptivity of softly ticking ears.
It is the ever-wakening
never snoozing
internet jungle calling.
Fasting birds as large as velociraptors
insist on being called parrots,
a raucous conversation hardly heard
as it filters through
3-D printed flugelhorns.
A cell awakes vibrates within an ear socket
demanding its early morning diaper change.
Little silver bells are clanging,
A sub-audial cacophony of eager voices
discharging their erotically-charged salvos
Devices cry to be fed.
Now subliminal texts tattoo
a finger pulsing moment.
Thumbs are itching to be mugged, in-plugged,
abused in a bath of warmed-over news.
The scaly parrots are now too loud to hear,
we are near
our minds nailed to a printing block
and tapping impatiently
as reality is swiped this way and that.
The racetrack is galloping,
white rabbits are being
yanked out of top hats so rapidly
we can only blink our replies
in a hand-held, wide-eyed chameleon sky.
Over little mothers fret:
Their babies who still beds wet;
Lionesses in A Net!
Its stoppage they’d celebrate:
High time their doctor they met
And out their frustrations let…
And Doc begins to Mum pet,
Drying tear-filled eyes long wet:
Some placebo drug would get
And Fine Solution is set!
“Babes shall pee; I did no bet:
Time frees them from The odd Net
Only trying to help eyes wet”
Doctors’ Credit Alert get:
They won’t reject them, I’d bet!
Diminished
but ennobled,
the soldier came home
his two limbs
traded for the
sanctuary
of a deeper peace
Broken
in completeness,
his braces held proud
each battle
medaled
in the memory
—of his finest hour
(The New Room: November, 2021)
Old beds reinventing themselves
as hammocks for the distilling
of sweat and foam
into an archive of dreams.
Sprung mattress’ sag like spavined camels,
or twist days and nights together
into sheets stuffed with mental laundry.
Some beds have fallen comatose,
they wilt like boneless owls
in slumbering hollows.
Beds keep their history recorded
in the brain-stems of a thousand bodily impressions;
beneath lumpy mattresses horror movies clump,
and pornographic images are laid
timorously to rest.
A young boy jumps up and down on his bed.
One day he jumps very high,
when he lands he is a teenager. By his side
a young girl (both),
not knowing what to do next, until the bed
begins to whisper to them.
There are oyster beds
at the bottom of the sea.
That's where we get pearls.
Men to step on
Cats beds
Floor mats
He slips on beds
It sleeps on mats
What a wonderful World?
the goslings have shed ochre puffs
which are no longer in vogue
they're wobbling toddlers now
too big for the snappers' jaws
they cannot fly at all- as of yet
but come fall they'll pierce icy skies
into warm southern comfort beds
Feather-weighted by leagues of slumber
old beds reinventing themselves
as hammocks for the distilling
of sweat and foam
into an archive of dreams.
Sprung mattress’ sag like spavined camels,
or twist days and nights together
into sheets stuffed with mental laundry.
Some beds have fallen comatose,
Only to wilt on the branches of time
like boneless owls.
Beds keep their history recorded
in brain-stems, of a thousand
bodily impressions; underneath some,
old horror movies, and pornographic clips
are laid to rest.
A young boy jumps up and down on his bed.
One day he jumps very high,
when he lands he is a teenager. By his side
a young girl (both),
not knowing what to do next, until the bed
begins to whisper to them.
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