halfbakedpoemz

A friend of mine took in an aging hamster when his owner moved away- we all thought he wouldnt last a week, but he had a very good innings. He died peacefully in his sleep two days ago- heres a silly poem I wrote for his funeral service: A boy with massive bollocks  But an even bigger heart You spent the days in a sawdust haze Waiting for your life to start Till a girl called Millie took you  To a big scary new home Tasty meals and a hamster wheel And plenty of space to roam  And plenty of adventures too Like meeting cousin Rupert from down south Or hiding away, Milo’s prey  In a holiday at the twins’ house You were never without friends You bit and wriggled when we held you tight But Bertie, I hope you were happy  When you had to bid us goodnight What a privilege to love you In your autumn days and twilight years And to see you off to hamster heaven With a smile, despite the tears And I think about you looking down From that big wheel in the sky  Bertie, ...

I drive us to the retail park.  It is that first night of autumn  When lightness starts to pace away, A trembling-pistolled dueller. My hands are childishly clumsy in steering Veering into the wrong lane I have never been this far before Exhaled with the ghost of laughter You smile at this too- But I am sweatily serious. The thinning branches that scrape the doors Remind me that each second is excruciatingly novel, That a life can hurtle by and leave you choking on the exhaust. In the slow strobing streetlight  We career past the farm gates That were the boundaries of my universe, To a terrifying, brave and nauseous world.  From Blogger iPhone client

Summer strides off the way she came A train pulling out of the station. The six alacritous weeks  that watercolour-bled from one to the next  Are phrased off neatly,  punctuated into nothing- The tree only falls if it thumps.  I’ve snowglobed my time, Traced over the scribbled edges in marker pen  To make an opaque period Of open-gate days and unscaffolded nights  A tale I can get my mouth around  Both storyteller and shuffling child- I sit myself down and tell myself Of setting light caught in green bottles Transfigured into lush jungle emeralds  And vague embarrasments That become comic relief, light as air Uncertainties bubbling in the pit of me Are rubber victims- faint white dents on the page, Words half-said Each balmy evening is enbalmed, Dog days dropped dead  Just in time for a snowdrop-garland grave. It is a comfort that I can position the corpse just so- I mutter six feet under my breath narrating to myself only the story I wa...