GONZO MOMMA
Too weird to live, too rare to die
I guess that’s a creed
Old Hunter would swear by
Though he would have a drink first
Or maybe three
Then try to figure out where
The action might be
Before smoking some ‘stuff’
‘Cos he knew plain whiskey and gin
Would never be enough.
Then, perhaps like you, he would
Upheave everything and pack
Screaming all the while;
You can kiss my ass
I ain’t never coming back
poetry
PLAY ON
PLAY ON
Ensconced here in contemplation
Your presence overwhelms me
Arms outstretched, yet never chiding
Even knowing my ways were wrong
Burning both ends speeds up damnation
I can see that now;
Lust living in the wings
While the songs sang themselves
And courage dredged from the bottle
While the melody lingered on
Music was my life
But you changed it all;
Your song will still be nectar, Lord
When all this is gone…
ADVICE TO A SON – by Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway published around 20 poems in his lifetime – which is about 19 more than I expected!
Never trust a white man,
Never kill a Jew,
Never sign a contract,
Never rent a pew.
Don’t enlist in armies;
Nor marry many wives;
Never write for magazines;
Never scratch your hives.
Always put paper on the seat,
Don’t believe in wars,
Keep yourself both clean and neat,
Never marry whores.
Never pay a blackmailer,
Never go to law,
Never trust a publisher,
Or you’ll sleep on straw.
All your friends will leave you
All your friends will die
So lead a clean and wholesome life
And join them in the sky.
HOW TIME FLIES
This was the first performance of my first play. How time flies!
HOW TIME FLIES!
LOOKING FOR GOOGLE
LOOKING FOR GOOGLE
Driverless cars
Headless chickens
Oops! mind that blind…
Oh, what the Dickens!
The lingua franca
In Google we trust,
In God if we must.
Look, no hands!
It’s not a boast
It’s a statement of fact,
I don’t drive, it’s all an act.
The phone on my table
Speaks in eighteen different languages if tasked
And can answer questions
(Sometimes before they are asked).
Now they have sent ten thousand
Helium balloons into the stratosphere
Seeking all the disconnected;
Wi-Fi for all – and soon
They could – in theory – I guess
Set up shop nowadays on the moon
This is their ‘toothbrush’ test;
“Focus on the user and all else follows”
Culture and success go hand in hand;
If you don’t believe your own slogan
You’re already in no-mans land.
CUPID STUNTS
CUPID STUNTS
I see that I am at number 1,205,646
In the Amazon/Kindle best-seller list
Again
Last week I was at number 650,249
And the previous week 233,184
Or was that the week before?
I don’t think I have got into the top 100
Yet
I like to see the wild fluctuations in the list
Thousands of points variation
Mean lots of sales, innit?
Though I must confess
It puzzles me a little bit
Because according to Amazon’s
Own – very reliable – sales chart
I sold no books at all last week
And only one all last month
So Amazon/Kindle
Here’s my conclusion
You must be one cupid stunt
PARTING
PARTING
The sun also rises over concrete
Over this puff-adder sky
And the pricked-up chimneys
Looking like piss-horns in the stark morning
There are no shadows yet
On this marbled plain
So tender in years
But so sparing with love
I shiver at the bus stop
Admiring this proliferation of granite;
So cold, so hard,
So like you….
GILMARTIN
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THE MORONIC INFERNO
THE MORONIC INFERNO
Oh yes,
The moronic inferno
Burns brightly these days
And nights
Almost as bright in fact
As the ever-glowing Northern Lights.
And the morons dance round their blazing fires
Hurtling insults to their hearts desires
Pontificating cluelessly,
About the economy – stupid! – and their messy
Sexual habits
With all the morals of a world of rutting rabbits,
And their institutionalised racism
Which they deliver verbatim –
I am not racist BUT…
What if the shoe was on the other foot?
I AM VERY BOTHERED – by Simon Armitage
Simon Armitage was born in Marsden, West Yorkshire. Armitage first studied at Colne Valley High School, Linthwaite, Huddersfield and went on to study geography at Portsmouth Polytechnic. He was a post-graduate student at Manchester University where his MA thesis concerned the effects of television violence on young offenders. Until 1994 he worked as Probation Officer in Greater Manchester.
I AM VERY BOTHERED
I am very bothered when I think
of the bad things I have done in my life.
Not least that time in the chemistry lab
when I held a pair of scissors by the blades
and played the handles
in the naked lilac flame of the Bunsen burner;
then called your name, and handed them over.
O the unrivalled stench of branded skin
as you slipped your thumb and middle finger in,
then couldn’t shake off the two burning rings. Marked,
the doctor said, for eternity.
Don’t believe me, please, if I say
that was just my butterfingered way, at thirteen,
of asking you if you would marry me.
My Writing Life 