Jerome Betts: Prediction
A few upon whose worthiness we all insist,
As well as many a self promoting egotist,
Will see their gongs adorn the New Year Honours List.
Some names of note will not appear, so won’t be grist
To Facebook-haunting troll and former Twitterist
Having attained at last . . . the New Year Goners’ List.
ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ
Pat D’Amico: Belated Birthday Message
I’m sorry, your birthday has just passed me by,
And now I am going to tell you why:
I have broken my arm, my leg and my nose.
If you didn’t know better, I guess you’d suppose
That this tale of woe might be told by some liar –
And, oh, I should mention, my pants are on fire!
ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ
Michael Swan: My Keyboard
My keyboard
was clearly designed
by someone of Gaelic ancestry.
It thinks tomorrow
is spelt toaghmoaroigh.
This is not helping.
ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ
Tony Peyser: The TV Remote Was His Idea
Eugene Polley did this in 1955 – nothing must’ve seemed crazier.
The end result was making a whole lot of people a whole lot lazier.
To improve television viewing surely must have been his plan.
The downside? Well . . . it gave rise to the short attention span.
Yours has been shortened if you glanced at this poem and you
Thought, “I’ll maybe read the first stanza but not the other two.”
ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ
Claire Booker: Faint-hearted
Our pointer's given heebie-jeebies
By bigger animals than he is,
But crossing fields where flocks must feed
We keep him safely on the lead
Lest in his brain a bell should ring
Size is, perhaps, not everything.
ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ
Tom Vaughan: A Dark Matter
The yellow moon catches my eye –
a slice of lemon in the sky.
Despite the citron segment’s grin
evenings up there are surely chronic –
for where’s the ice and where’s the gin
and where’s the bloody tonic?
ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ
Alan Millichip: Bird Food
There’s growing competition in our street,
About what fare we feed our feathered friends;
It’s all that people talk of when they meet,
From fat balls to the latest gourmet trends;
The birds don’t seem to care that we compete,
Happy to plunder anything life sends.
ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ
Bruce McGuffin: Hatchery Fish
The trout wanders out in the lake, its new home,
Released from the hatchery, ready to roam
Past anglers in waders, each casting a line.
For bait they have worms, cheese, or minnows in brine.
Those might work in time, but the trout's hungry now,
And it's looking for pellets: Purina Trout Chow.
ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ
Nigel Woodhead: Crocodile Donne-dee
‘The crocodiles bellowed at the sky –
then mated like mad’: the sex frenzy
sparked by helicopters’ - The Guardian
Oh, when we hear the choppers in the sky,
It presages the day and way, we'll die.
Too soon you'll be a handbag, I a steak,
But think of all the eggs that we could make.
Let humans laugh and look down from above,
While we delight in our cold-blooded love.
ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ ᴥ
L. A. Mereoie: Oologist’s End
To see his secret cache increase
He dared the countryside’s police,
But with one egg, a Spotted Crake’s,
Occurred the worst of all mistakes.
He sucked, not blew, and swiftly died . . .
The jury’s verdict? Pesticide.
