Best Shillings Poems
AGE OF TEN
Way back then when I was ten
Things were so very different then
I wrote with ink in a fountain pen
Whenever we could we would build a den
And I loved to help my dad in the garden
Way back then when I was ten
I walked to school and was never late
Always ate everything on my dinner plate
Played hop scotch by the garden gate
And was not allowed to go to bed late
Way back then when I was ten
No television colours only black and white
Real Christmas trees and a glass fairy light
We all had a different size of trike
Then I got my first two wheeled bike
Way back then when I was ten
We had so much freedom to roam
But must be in for meals at home
Only a phone boxes with a dial phone
And no phone in many a home
Way back then when I was ten
Latest craze was roller skates
And hula hoop with your mates
Skipping ropes and Meccano gates
But lots of fun with wooden crates
Way back then when I was ten
Coins were in pounds shillings and pence
Mothers talked over the garden fence
Scooters that you could make go at such a pace
Noisy steam trains that always seem to race
Way back then when I was ten
With friends you played out doors
Toys for your imagination scatted on the floor
Skipping ropes, skates and many things more
Sledges of wood, a dolls house with opening doors
Way back then when I was ten
Fun was had with blackboard and chalk
Clay dolls that you could walk
And new plastic ones that wouldn’t talk
Then babies came by way of the Stork UNSUPPORTED CODE
Smith and Wesson’s cool steel kisses my right temple. I cock the hammer. The slow clicking of the cylinder’s turn is amplified through the barrel into my ear. Finger resting on the trigger; and I reminisce.
Striking that young maiden and the bright red trickle from her cheek, giving my flesh the appearance of eternal youth. How lovely it was to immerse in the warm blood of so many young virgins sacrificed for my vanity. And being left to die alone in my castle. What a waste.
In my lust for recognition I relished in terrorizing the streets of London. What a rush it was to baffle the authorities, putting my handy work on display; artistically arranging the bodies for my twisted desire. They say it was around twenty women strangled and mutilated, if they only knew the real number. But that passion weaned quickly. In my urge for a grandeur macabre I overdosed on heroine in hopes being able top that in my next incarnation.
As Feuer of an entire nation the delegation of wholesale slaughter didn't quite measure up to the ecstasy of someone else’s existence being extinguished through my own hands.
The era of free love lent to an easy spree of killings in northern California. In my need for some recognition, I teased the authorities with cryptic messages; to this day and my great disappointment they have not been able to decipher. The most that came out of it was a marriage of Clint Eastwood and Hollywood in the name of Dirty Harry.
Hugging my finger to the trigger giving it a strong, swift pull I can’t help but wonder, how do I achieve a higher satisfaction than when I delivered the Kiss of Death, sacrificing the Son of God for just a few shillings?
"Everything Halloween Contest"
Cunning like foxes,greedy as hyenas,they looked at me;
With widened eyes and wet lips,ready to grab me,like an angry lioness;
And tear me like a beast and swallow me like the shark that swallowed Jonah.
I had become a bad child; as bad as war,
And they could no longer tolerate my naughtiness.
They remained silent without saying anything like a word
But beneath their silence piled a heap of anger and rage
And they breathed with fury, wishing to only take hold of me,
And teach me a lesson,that I would live to remember.
My mother was against me,just like her dear husband
They said I was an ungrateful daughter,
Because I refused to eat from the same plate with him-
The man they had prepared to marry me off because of his money.
He was a Methuselah of the previous century;
And he had been classmates with my father.
My people wanted to sell me off,they were exchanging me;
Their blood; for coins of shillings that last not longer than lust.
They were determined to see me off like an unwanted visitor.
But, I stood my ground like any other person who desires to live.
I crossed lines to tell them they were doing wrong for the first time,
And they said I was disappointing and selfish.
They scolded me,yelling at me and calling me an evil child.
They were living their life,I wanted to live mine,
To be a better woman who could move many and change many.
I wanted to go to school for I was just fifteen and had seen little of the world;
If it was waters of the ocean,I had only tasted the surfaces;
If it was heaven,I had just started to climb Jacob's ladder.
I know not better than crying and licking my tears,
And that is exactly what I did, weeping like death was here to take me.
I called upon the ancestors of my clan to rescue me,
I looked up to the skies,tracing to find my redeemer.
I cried to my sister and brothers, I begged my people for help,
And I was willing to involve the authorities, for my education was my life.
The vows came with agony, the ring would come with suffering;
And I was not ready for any of this, I would fight till the end;
For this was my right as a modern girl child!
TOOTHLESS in 1927
Toothles her tail began to switch,
Tuppy said “you’re too old, just stay a bit,”
Tuppy rode away to where,
A knocking stick a Roo would snare,
Roo hides pegged upon the ground,
Pounds shillings and pence, to be found,
From whence.
She galloped down the boundary fence ,
Clubbed a Roo right out of sense,
Got down then to skin this Roo,
Who sprang right up and bit her too,
He grabbed her close and then,
Jerked up a foot to disembowel, when,
Toothless cleared the fence,
Toothless took the Roo by the throat,
Strangulation the intent, I quote,
Death did then commence.
Kangaroo would seem very nice,
Docile friendly, but watch twice,
If his female is in season,
You could be clawed, bitten and slashed,
And Skippy might.
Don’t let your dog in water with,
Old Skip will drown him till his stiff,
But Roo’s out there in millions are,
Springing bounding fences ha ha,
And following the grass Tom Tit…
Toothless was an old greyhound female used for catching Roos on the bound….Don Johnson
Five stones
closing times
radiograms and
seventy-eights
school caps
sticklebacks
saturday flicks,pooh sticks
Charabancs
steam trains
linoleum
oil cloth
mangles
fish paste
sandwich spread
Hot towel shaves
cut-throat razor
shopping baskets
paper bags
braces,plimsoles
short,back
and sides
Wizard beano
and hotspur
lending libraries
picturegoer,
road to
Bridget Bardot
Marilyn Monroe
Dripping
coal fires
antimacassars
nylons,suspenders
crumpets
and toast
Brown and mild
barrelled beer
conkers,school milk
blackboard rubbers
and liftup desk lids
times-tabled
school-kids
Draughts
and allotments
rusty bikes
roller skates
satchels and scrumping
pounds,shillings
and pence
I walked with heavy childish feet
Where galaxies of white Chervil towered
And asphalt ribbons did dance on air
dividing fields of early summer flowers
On that shimmering Tournant road
from Tynte Park cross to an iron hill
Blossoms in the June sunshine
staying so silent and peacefully still
Before me each cheating rise
a false promise to a child alone
With five shillings spent on a silver toy
to shoot black crows on my way home
Granite walls of the graveyard now behind
my burning feet soon rest on cooler slate
I will listen to the Stanley's hiss
and boil its sap with the last of that good light
I'd listen to the gentle swing, tick and tock
struggling to keep time on those balmy nights
While shadows eventually bury her black clock
As moths gather about her death stained light
Well, he's goofy and gangly and thin up on top
And his real last name once began with a "Cop"
But I don't give a hoot about all of that
'Cause his box office draw's made his wallet grow fat.
If you listen quite closely to how this bloke talks
And you then watch how oddly he lists when he walks
Why, you'd think to yourself he'd be good as a clown
But I'm not trying here to just put the man down.
He's admitted that comics were where he got "Cage"
And his movies have made that fake name all the rage.
I've not kept a close count on how many there are,
But I tell you, my brothers, his fame extends far.
See, he's got this charisma that can't be denied
Plus a talent for acting that's as high as it's wide.
And he likes to take risks, gotta respect him for that,
Using methods that sometimes will end up falling flat.
One is called, NOUVEAU SHAMANIC, a phrase all his own,
And, then, WESTERN KABUKI, at which you might groan.
So his style's informed by the books that he reads
And he'll work it to death, or until it just bleeds.
It's a high wire act but with no safety net;
His unwavering panache makes me jealous, you bet.
Though I've tried my damned best to perform like this jock
On the set I'm as lame as a bump on a rock.
See, I've wanted to act since I was in 5th Grade
But allowed time to pass, maybe one whole decade
Before trodding the boards once again on the stage
So far back in the days when there was no Nick Cage.
I was hamming it up before Nick changed his name
Unsuccessfully striving to get in the game.
But to date Central Casting is as far as I've gone;
About all I've done there is to camp out on their lawn.
So I've hatched me a plan, will you please hear me out?
Take the shillings you're saving for Nick's latest flick
And, instead of enriching that overgrown lout
Send them here to yours truly, and best make it quick.
Scrooge's Clerk, Bob Cratchit
Earned his paycheck, and hopes to match it
He needs to buy his Christmas dinner
But Scrooge just pinched his shillings thinner!
____________________________________
For Andrea's Contest: Christmas Clarihew
12/10/14
Limerick crochetés: Portrait of a Dead Brit Nazi, Lord of the Lollypoppians
Part One
Once an uppity man from Poland
Wed a stumpy wench from High Golan
Result: mangy mongrel
Was no way you could tell
His front from his toady tail-end
In Broughton raised as Mancunian
For his stature was Lilliputian
Sent up to hot Eton
To become smooth Briton
Of hoi polloi he nursed low opinion
There at the clubby institution
Three thorough-breds of noble distinction
Chased him in quadrangle
Stuck dildos up sockle
In his hock-filled mouth sans elocution
Lacking shining past in his pedigree
Made him mug up facts in history
Shot up into Oxford
Father grandeur afford
Marks and shillings through frilly lingérie
At New College what spoke most was money
Free drinks all around and clothes so horney
So things ran with his ilk
Reeking of mothers’ milk
Ere going down he rode high and pretty
Once down he was not down and out either
With free hand in till of his step-mother
In book trade old mongrel
The art of the scoundrel
He made much of his blithering litter
Dreamed day and night of the House of Lords
To rub knees with the Chancellor of Boards
Stuffed Labour coffers cash
Stood for Commons: whiplash
Injury by hoi polloi on records
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Many can recall and recollect
the halcyon moments of carefree abandon
When juvenile limbs climbed upon cedar limbs
or squatted under oak or baobab shades
while languishing in youthful salad days
As they chased butterflies or katydids
Yet ironically in their prime
most disdained the veggie salads.
No bothering much where and how
the shillings and earnings came from
Home made cakes and pies gobbled in for granted delight
Engrossed in exploring the wide old world with youthful eyes.
~The Evil Fairy And the Vengeful Leprechaun~
Late at Night while the chickadees go quiver
A fairy of the forest has fastened to her heart
A bog-reed arrow, white wash dipped in flint
She dances yes she dances, in a conical red cap
Tithing the sundown, to a leprechauns demise;
Not a stranger to mischief, she steels his golden pot
She stitches up his wishes, and spikes his felted hat
She glues his silver buckles up his nose in, far remote
She sticks him on a clover, stewing mad n’ boiling hot
By; Mystic Rose
Early Morning, under the fogs rainbow, twisting and twisting his nose
Little does she know, Lepree's a madman with his own games
Sitting and brewing with a grin, he awaits the chemicals to kick in
A price to pay for stealing Lepree's gold, in such a golden way
He yells and cries, "I hope you dance, rapid like the river away!"
Fairies don't exist! Fairies don't exist! -----A quiver in the chest
For we all know when speaking them words, somewhere out there
A fairy dies, ----shillings from his silver tongue he spoke
A million times Lepree cried "Fairy don't exist!" suddenly--she drops;
By; Poet Destroyer
~A Poet Destroyer Collaboration~
Morning At Work
Impaired by his tremors
And a troublesome cough,
He turned fur into felt
Before cooling things off.
He drooled once or twice
And grew cold in his bones,
But he shaped all the felt
Into all of the cones.
Noon
His 'venomous vipers'
Grew restless again
And woke as the toxins
Played games with his brain.
He began to see strange things
And quickly grew scared
When the writing desk swooped
Like a ravenous bird.
Aware that his dark mind
Was now playing tricks,
He quit work forever
At ten shillings past six.
Night
He sat in The Tabard
Where he found time to think.
His skin had turned orange
As he drowned in his drink.
He recalled the sad day
His wife took off her ring
And with her cards on the table
Left to marry a king.
He pined for his daughter
And the party he'd planned
But she followed her mother
To that far-away land.
Later That Night
While carrying a tea tray
Upstairs to his bed
He tripped over his hat
He'd shook off with his head.
He finally came to
Around six the next night
But from that moment on
All his world was not right.
Its My car
Thousands of miles together we travelled
maps then a sat nav journeys unravelled
collected all sorts, even went to the tip
bus into town, no in the car I'll just nip
MOT services tax, insurance as well
paying the bills down to me it all fell
Now at the end the bills just to big
think its all over I have to admit
one last journey together we made
down to the scrapers only I walked away
the end of this tale is not very nice
travelling on roads comes at a price
pounds shillings and pence me it did cost
but for my beautiful car its life was lost...
When I was young and had zero dollars to spend
Grandpa's skiff with succulent mangoes I loved to tend
With view of City canal, flowing not far from home
Near thoroughfare with perfect patrons; few not so grown
Not so proud as I, safe with shillings from tropic fruits, sold
Sans chant. I never had to beg, my joy was always two fold.
Times have changed, I wouldn't sell jack; my family knows
Sales has never been my forte; I'll be lackadaisical, and let it show
For I'd rather be a P.R. person, who sniff labels and goods that entice
As deals, but trick the masses with much gook, some unnoticed
But that's not all with sales; folks will look you up and down
As though you're part and parcel of goods they've found.
...
Entry for Sara Kendridk's 'Two Lenses' poetry contest
Having an affair with my ex
Reminds me that he was mine before
Before he loved me so much and even
After I have not ceased to want him
As long as he wants me
Our feelings are like the feelings of
Two disobedient children on a play ground
The steamy feeling of attraction still exists
When we see each other, its an affair
Which is like a baking velvet womb and
A churning wind in the desert
That holds me like a plague
It’s a ready atomic bomb about to
Wipe a whole country out
Its scented with guilty pleasure
That drives one to an emotional jail and
Brings all clear thinking to a stand still
Its inception and subsistence costs a lot
Some shillings in the bank
And can lead to bankruptcy
Bound to end in disaster when we can’t stay
We stay exes and agree to keep the hidden longing
And a bitter secret stirring wildly
In a deep sea of emotions