Freely admit am more than a bit of a Test cricket junkie
VIP pass doff for punky class of Bazball’s start so spunky
Revel in rocking devil may care peacocking flair so funky
But when stuttered became rather cluttered and clunky
Then Ben not with his men again is still a cheeky monkey
Iffy getting squiffy forgot curfew & in a jiffy all got gunky
Palaver in a lather farce of toff ECB job & gob of slob Key
Smelt wrong the pong not dope has felt old school skunky
Hunky stallion did quaff the trough now rapscallion donkey
Scoff not bob on plunky fob off dob em in for being a flunky
Got a cob on Baz a show off ar*e & Rob chubby and chunky
Sob should burn on the hob as each other’s jail bit*h bunkie
Turn the door k*ob in lob Baz & Bob then Ben lose the key
Children, pancakes, needlework
An initial draft, a first book
It’s no surprise they came out weird
No matter what pains you took
The first one is the practice one
You need it, to make a start
It’s okay, it won’t be perfect;
We weren’t expecting a work of art
It’ll be squiggly around the edges
Details not well defined
Awkward, clunky, unpolished
Scruffy and unrefined
If you haven’t got the knack yet
It’s understandable, you’re new
You’re learning how to unlock your skills;
What you should and shouldn’t do
You have to make the cringey first one
So your deftness can grow wild
The next attempt will be infinitely better
By B Philippe (a second child)
Jiminy Cricket! Is it so?!
I’m a little boy – I’m Pinocchio!
My limbs are wooden, though!
As are my feet,
My hands and head,
My brain? I think!
Oh, how I wish to truly be
A human boy
And not all wooden like a toy.
But I can try – can I can I!?
I’ll surely tell no lies!
And I’ll be brave – I will, I will!
Oh, the thrill!
To be a real-life, living boy
And not a clunky wooden toy;
Whatever would I give!
O! Jiminy Cricket, lend a hand
And help me be a boy – a boy
Who dares to care,
And cares to understand
The path a wooden boy can take
To be a better man –
Since humans surfaced from the slime,
our art has always turned on time,
on measurement, and not on rhyme –
so Solon says (I’m with him):
the heart of art is rhythm.
You want to waltz? You need three-four.
And verse that’s truly free’s a bore!
The drumkit forms rock music’s core,
and Rhapsody in Blue has
wrought classical anew (jazz).
Our architecture, uninspired,
was looking – feeling – somewhat tired.
Then Frank Lloyd Wright, completely wired,
transformed it, not for profit
– have you seen his soffits?
The painter had become a monkey,
just reproducing portraits (clunky)
and soulless seascapes. Things got funky:
what stirred the stiff Sargasso?
A samba called Picasso!
Those Western movies grew so dull,
the steers were ready for a cull:
Italians dispelled the lull,
while Hollywood said, smugly,
“no-one wants good, bad, ugly!”
So, whether you sculpt or you sing,
you groove to The Beatles or Bing,
you think Nat or Elvis is King,
it don’t mean a thing
if it ain’t got that swing!
I like hammocks.
I like buzzing bees.
Unseasonably warm days.
Or maybe more like hours…
In April, things get taken out.
Then put away again.
My favorite shorts.
My favorite flowers.
My favorite everything.
Even when it’s supposed to be cold and stormy tomorrow…
We don’t believe it.
So we pull out clunky lawn furniture.
And mow the grass which has only grown a few millimeters.
Today is April 22nd.
Don’t leave any metal tools out.
Or they will be rained on and get rusty.
I thought the rust was over.
It’s as if March is haunting us.
In about a week, it will be May.
We should be excited.
As the grass grows and grows endlessly.
But today, it is still April.
Hopelessly April.
A ship's cook
The sea is dark, clunky, and calm today
slowly undulate
turns white where the ship's bow has plowed a furrow
that stretches for miles.
Gulls still follow us, shrieking and waiting for the cook to
throw overboard waste food, tomorrow gone back to the coast waiting, for another ship
I fiddle with the radio in the galley, find a good station
it saddens me also as it was it was my brother's favorite song
We left Antwerp 24 hundred hours ago,
it had been
hectic, long night, blaring music, whores and beer
In the drunken haze, a nucleus of sobriety reminded
a longing for something better, knowing this was
a temporary and shallow
as for now, I have a long day ahead of me, food to cook
bread to make and the cleaning of pots and pans
that is why cooks are temperamental
I feel safe in my little domain, a place the captain fear
to enters. Yes, I'm sailing across the sea, and it is good
to be alive on a day like this
clunky chunky unfamiliar words
not easily understood due to their tweets and pops
shoving themselves against my dendrite highway
hidden yet acutely felt
dancing the brain Watusi
I wonder if I will ever write again
It was years ago
a lonely year.
a more clunky and mechanical age,
a dial-up decade.
He sent out needy signals.
Eventually a divorced lady from
Doncaster responded.
Sensual seeds were planted.
E-mails were exchanged
together with photographs
taken years earlier.
One day, not long after
a mutual disappointment
fizzed between them
like a dying fly.
Together they dialed-out.
I let you cut my hair.
Whether you were doing well
Or about to make a fool
Of your only daughter
Completely irrelevant
As I focused on your
Darting nervous eyes
The wrinkles in the corners
Tightening with ever pass
Of those clunky barber scissors.
I realized you had no idea
What you were doing,
But I couldn’t bring myself
To pull away from hands
That grasp frantically at love
Like it would vanish if I so much
As peered over my shoulder
At the piles of hair collecting
Between our feet.
Times have changed at such a fast rate
With technology I don’t understand
I feel like an alien in my own world
Im so completely out of date!
Oh, for the simple days of little frustration
When the t.v had four channels and it was free
You had to physically turn the t.v knob
Disputing who’s turn it was to get up and change the station
When the family phone was attached to a wall
For the whole family to use
It was big ,clunky with a rotary dial
And all it could do was call
When a camera was used to take photos
That had a film roll inside
To take to the chemist to get developed
In either “matt or gloss” to pick up in a week or so
When correspondence was hand written or typed
Enclosed in an envelope with stamp then mailed
Music was played on a record player or radio
Dishes were hand washed and wiped
Now it’s all computerised
With passwords and codes
Beeping, flashing and telling you NO
Kept in clouds in the sky!!
I know technology and progress are a need
And one has to move with the times
There are so many positives and benefits
But I miss those uncomplicated , simple days indeed!
It was a younger time,
a clunky age
a dial-up decade.
Not knowing why
or why he should not,
he sent out needy signals
into the vast unseen
seeking worlds
populated with only females.
Many were drawn into his orbit
many failed to respond.
Eventually a divorced lady from
the fabled city of Doncaster
seemed willing
to be drawn into his net.
Sensual seeds were planted
in a garden they both watered.
It was love; it was true.
By an enveloped voyaging
they exchanged
photographs taken years earlier.
For hours, a muted
disappointment fizzed and spun
around a digital cosmos;
both grew distant,
together they dialed-out,
sending new rockets of desire
unto more invisible
yet detectable applicants.
Great-Dancing Monkey
Funky
monkey
Not Ben and Jerry’s!
Chunky
Monkey
Servant Baboon
Monkey
flunky
Monkey in Chains
Clunky
Monkey
Too Long Near Skunk Cage
Skunky
monkey
Monkey Tree Lover
Hanger
Langur
Foreman of Monkey Brigade
Langer
Ganger
When Monkeys Want to Eat like Humans
Baboons
grab spoons
Stolen by Renegade Baboons
Baboons
nab prunes
Jan. 18, 2023
for Brian Strand No 1172 Poetry Contest
Among the many things that sit
Forgotten in our shed,
My son’s old bicycle called out,
Just messing with my head.
I finally decided that
The time had come to see
If it could be restored enough
To get some use from me.
I dusted off the cobwebs,
Scrubbed the frame but after that,
I noticed that the tires were
Unfortunately flat.
We tossed the bike into the car
And drove to get some air.
Back home, I hopped on for a ride
Not thinking, do I dare?
With just one gear I pedaled on;
It made a clunky noise
And even though I fell (just once!)
It brought back childhood joys.
I doubt I’ll ride it very much
But when I can, I will,
As long as I don’t leave my street
And have to face a hill!
Many years after leaving London
I return to the city
it is still dreaming of better days.
I am burdened with landscaped memories,
recordings taken with out-of-date electronics;
one is a Betamax video player,
the other by a VHS machine, next a DVD
that has no space for recollections.
An elderly Vauxhall Astra follows me
like an ever faithful dog.
The metropolis
is built on the brick-dust of era’s,
The young look dazed,
as if worm-holes in the River Thames
had closed
leaving them stranded here.
I imagine that nightly,
an older populace hang upside-down
from bell-tower rafters
to dream of Imperial Lions.
I have recorded the trip
on that clunky Betamax;
only I have the arcane skills
to operate it.
Back in Ohio
I store London in its original box,
then make my way downstairs
to photograph my wife
with a once brand new
polaroid camera.
A heron shoots a glassy eye
keeps fishing by doing nothing.
Oars slap water.
An early sun crashes through the mist
intent on warming eggs in lakeside nests.
Slap go the oars, a clunky-swoosh,
a white wake burbling.
If I row very slowly
it will be a few minutes before breakfast.
You will be dishing a trout onto a buttery plate.
Elsewhere, a silver fish
swims down a blue herons throat
slip slapping all the way.
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