Max Gutmann: Song of My Digital Self
(With apologies to W.W.)
I celebrate myself and ping myself
To see if I'm online so I can say
How glad I am to have me as a friend
And wish myself a very pleasant day.
I'll share a funny video of cats
(I love to get those!) or a link I've found.
The best, of course, are those I warn myself
I shouldn't click on with the boss around.
Despite the drawbacks of technology –
That it wastes time or grows to be a crutch –
I am reminded when I ping myself,
It's great for helping people stay in touch.
♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣
Tony Dawson: For Prostate Sufferers Everywhere
(With apologies to W.B.Y)
I will arise and go now, and go to have a pee
Having slept for three hours only, and knowing I’ll return.
Four times will I go there, for there’s little sleep for me.
I’m so weary that it causes me concern.
For I shall have some piss there, for piss comes dropping slow
Dropping down the pan at night to where the water pings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and my organ’s all aglow,
And occasionally the urine stings.
I will arise and go now, for every night and day
I feel the pressure on my bladder, and my loins are sore;
While I stand in the lavatory and on the tiled floor grey,
I feel it and I sweat from every pore.
♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣
L.A. Mereoie: The Mistress Replies
(With apologies to A.M.)
Had you displayed sufficient pluck
You might by now have had . . . some luck.
Though they may relish what you mean
Ladies must not appear too keen;
A sweet pretence of hard-to-get
Is de rigueur, my bashful pet,
So hurry up and take your chance
On, euphemistically, romance.
Forget that chariot with wings
And concentrate on other things
Like lips, and eyes, and . . . all below,
Ad then get on and start the show
In case I find some bright young spark
Who's rather quicker off the mark,
For then, a fate that fits the dull,
You can, quite frankly, go to H*ll.
♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣
Martin Parker: Le Chef de la Danse
(With apologies to S. C.)
When your guests are queueing at the kitchen door
and your soufflé's sunk and the duck's still raw
and your jus has gone the consistency of glue,
Here's what I recommend you do:--
Dance, dance and have another drink.
Dance round your island and your Belfast sink.
You may not be Nigella, but you needn't be a prude.
They'll ignore what they're eating if you're dancing nude.
So here's my advice to all terrible cooks.
You'll do much better without cookery books.
Just microwave some leftovers and, till they've gone,
keep dancing round the kitchen with a broad smile on.
Dance, dance for all that you are worth,
whether they're appalled or collapse with mirth.
Dance, dance, for no matter how you look
it can't be worse than the food you cook.
♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣
Jerome Betts: Shelf Life
(With apologies to R. H.)
Old paperbacks, I hate to see
Your leaves detached and brown.
Why are your spines unglued by age
Though costing half a crown?
Look, look,
At what was once a book!
Each page
Obscured by scrawl, or stain
From coffee, apple-juice and tea,
Brings past times back again.
Likewise, those annotating wits
Are in a dismal state,
Too many brain cells on the blink,
Their data out of date.
Stop, stop,
Before they all go pop!
When drink
Or drugs will not restore
The memory, that’s the pits
And we exist no more.
♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣
Robert Nimmo: A Catastrophe of Cats
(With apologies to R.B)
We love our feline friends,
But of course that love depends
Upon the time each owner spends
Limiting their noxious trends.
And since some bosses are vague, lax and lazy,
Their moggies can drive the best of us crazy!
CATS!
They poo in gardeners’ plots and often leave disgusting splats
That draw from even gentlefolk a string of damns and drats;
They roam the patios and climb the walls of neighbours’ flats
And jump and hop then spring right through the narrowest of slats.
They keep the street awake at night with shrieks and spitting spats
And even drive the felinists to curse and eat their hats!
What’s worse they’ll tear your rubbish bag apart in search of scraps,
Then commandeer your car or truck for sultry summer naps.
Or trespass into foreign homes through any swinging flaps
And with no warning bounce onto the most unwilling laps
Which leads some people in their shock to myriad mishaps;
Yet still we love our feline friends,
Despite their many noxious trends;
Although sometimes their nasty habits
Push some of us to turn to rabbits.
♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣
Bruce Bennett: Window Bee
(With apologies to R. F)
Bee at my window, window bee,
Why is it hard for you to learn
How to escape, which way to turn,
Without help from me?
Why go in circles, and buzz and buzz,
And not just follow the air and drop
Down where the window’s open and stop
All this? It was
Open before when you flew in.
Why don’t you just remember, so I
Won’t have to save you before you die?
Why spin and spin
And still get nowhere? I fear I know.
I’m like that myself at times. I make
Those same dumb moves, so for Pity’s Sake,
Please, bee, just go!
Don’t show me myself. I already doubt
Myself enough, and am helpless and weak.
Oh bee, if you could just hear me speak
♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣
Martin Parker: Welcome to Eastbourne
(With partial apologies to John H. G-K.)
The deckchairs on our Promenade meet every last requirement
for everyone who seeks to plan a long and quiet retirement.
And till their final pension’s paid our town can offer them
quiet years of genteel waiting in the queue from Prom to Crem.
cocooned from hurly-burly till the day they get to learn
they’ve seen the ebbing of a tide which won’t, for them, return.
To us each chair’s a Waiting-Room till each who stops to sit is
prescribed a course of Crimond, nil-by-mouth and Nunc Dimittis;
where emphysemic lungs all gasp their last of the ozone
and stiffened fingers grapple with their final strawberry cone.
But those who scorn to wait their turn with Eastbourne’s nearly dead,
may rather choose to jump its queues and go via Beachy Head.
CHORUS – Oh, we’d all like to die beside the seaside,
Oh, we’d all like to die beside the sea;
And we’ve more choice of ways we’d rather
Go to join Our Heavenly Father
Here in Eastbourne beside the sea.