That is no session for old men. The young

With lithe legs and arms stretch like sapling trees

We, flailing generation whose Latin songs

Fail inflamed and arthritic joints to ease

We began at eight, it’s now ten, how long

Before one amongst us succumbs, and dies?

Caught in that sensual music all wrecked

Monuments of years of bad neglect

An agèd man is but a tragic ...

Read and leave comments (3)

On The Village Outer fringes

Lives the legend Rocketman

If it burns, explodes or singes

Pyrotechnically, he’s your man

His potting shed’s a bomb store 

He goes there when he chooses

To stack the shelves and fill the floor

with gunpowder and fuses

He plans every Guy Fawkes night

By astrophysics and geography 

Filling the sky with sound and light

And aerial chor...

Read and leave comments (4)

Get yourself a lump of marble

Twenty feet by six by six

Borrow a set of chisels

Or buy them from Screwfix

Empty out your garage or outdoor store

Of furniture and kids’ bikes from ceiling to floor

Grab yourself a mallet

Michelangelo liked wood

And get stuck in whilst listening to Johnnie B Goode

With every blow you will release

The body shape within

From a...

Read and leave comments (3)

Just because you can play it doesn’t mean you should

I’m talking about After the Goldrush or Before the Flood

or anything by The Eagles, Paul Simon and Stormzy

Keep these artists separate from your ukulele

Just because you know the words don’t mean you can sing

Paul Rogers is Bad Company, leave Fields of Gold to Sting

Give Roy Orbison numbers a miss

Don’t kid yourself you...

Read and leave comments (10)

When Lee Dixon opens his cliche cabinet,

We’re havin' it.

It was a game of two halves

The lad’s put in a shift

You couldn’t write this script, that’s a gift

Get in there my son, go on my boy

The phrases flow, sucked of joy

He pulls rabbits from hats

With consummate ease

He’s a mangled mouthed magician

Can’t you see?

His left foot’s just for standing ...

Read and leave comments (4)

I’ve got my eye on a bungalow

now I’m ageing fast and living slow

not much to do, nowhere to go

A remote-controlled garage door

An en-suite on the ground floor

These are the things I’m looking for

My rosy afterglow

I’ve got my eye on a bungalow

Where I can unwind, go with the flow

Touch the roof it’s only low

A resin drive that’s easy to clean

No moss, no weed...

Read and leave comments (8)

Two stones banged together 
To create a misplaced spark
Forget about the weather
Never mind the dark
Harnessing that fire
Gave Neanderthals a thrill
They could build a funeral pyre
And keep out the Ice Age chill

Down countless generations 
The flame remained intact
As in various locations 
Wood was splintered, split and stacked
By Maasai on the Kenyan Plains
In Uluru’s mystic glow
...

Read and leave comments (9)

Teetering on the platter

A treat for human senses

It’s food to make you fatter

Crushing all of your defences

Its snowy dunes and hollows

Of flouncy sweet meringue

Are made for ample swallows

Of dessert sturm und drang

Ignore it at your peril

Its appeal you can’t deny

When hunger makes you feral

Reach for lemon meringue pie

Its gaudy citrus layer

Read and leave comments (6)

In a castle on a promontory above a rocky cliff

As the sun sinks down the poets come to carouse and rhyme and riff

Chaucer riding on a dappled horse escorts the Wife of Bath

Johnny Clark smokes with Betjeman who complains about the staff

Shakespeare’s musing in the corner

Working out an obstinate sonnet

Emily Dickinson hides shyly in her cloak and starched white bonnet

Donne, ...

Read and leave comments (8)

If dogs were made world leaders

There would be no futile wars

And laws and treaties would be signed

With inky prints of paws

Chihuahuas and Alsatians

Would respect each other’s space

There’d be no United Nations

Just a favourite sniffing place

Summit sessions would be held

In playing fields or parks

With flashing collars de rigeur

For meetings after dar...

Read and leave comments (4)

This is for my dear sister Carole, whom we lost on Monday. She was a member of a very traditional and, dare I say it, quite mysoginistic suburban tennis and bowling club. She played neither, but was by far the best actor in the amateur dramatics section, which sadly folded years ago. She was a brilliant and inspirational primary school teacher, who loved telling stories, especially in verse. She a...

Read and leave comments (10)

The invitation came from an anonymous source

With a hint of menace in a note of force

A resolution has been passed

By our High Command

For festive entertainment we want your band

This is not optional, there’s no way out 

We’re ready and waiting so don’t hang about

Be at the Village Hall on the Thirteenth of December

And prepare to deliver an event to remember

There’ll be...

Read and leave comments (2)

There’s a shoot-out on the bowling green

The pianola’s full of holes

The Man with No Name’s

Got a Zimmer frame 

And a tray of sausage rolls

He’s a High Plains drifter 

Not from round here

The strong and silent type

Got a dance partner, can’t lift her

They practice moves on Skype

At the monthly hoedown 

At the nursing home 

He wears a felt ten-gallon hat

It’s ...

Read and leave comments (4)

It is our extreme pleasure

To cast open our doors for you

And present for your lifestyle and leisure

The incomparable Urinal View

Imagine yourself on summer days

On your balcony facing the strand

Absorbing ultraviolet rays

Where the lavatories stand

Twenty-two exclusive apartments

Designed for the fortunate few

With an open Northerly aspect

Overhanging the public l...

Read and leave comments (2)

When all around is crumbling

And there’s nothing left to save

And the economy is tumbling

It’s time to call for Dave

He’s super and he’s Tory

His haircut is so smart

He would be great on Jackanory

He just looks and sounds the part

He once called a referendum

That left us lonely and bereft

Wrote a memoir, an addendum

To a career lacking heft

He sat...

Read and leave comments (4)

Their love on the allotment bloomed in early Spring

This was a lasting passion, no fleeting seasonal fling

The seeds of it were scattered in an afternoon of planting

Which concluded in Myfanwy’s shed with groans and furtive panting

While Carwyn sowed his sunflower seeds she tended to his plums

They shared a packet of McVities best, nibbling on the crumbs

When Spring turned i...

Read and leave comments (4)

Neighbour’s got a new hot tub

Cost six grand from B and Q

It came with white robes, a fridge and a sub

They’re for the chosen few

Neighbour’s got a new hot tub

It completely fills his deck

It’s superior to a back rub

And it’s sorted out his neck

It’s both rigid and inflatable

With blue lights in LED

It’s necessity’s debatable 

It’s an al fresco luxury

...

Read and leave comments (5)

There’s a Viking Warrior around the back

With a multi-tool and a Power Pack

Keeps nuts and bolts in a padlocked sack

He’s a DIY Man, he’s building a shack

With his manic ScrewFix lust

He’ll transform that hedge into dust

It makes no odds, he’s not fussed

He’s a DIY Man, born to rust

He wears a John Deere branded shirt

Recharges himself when he feels inert

Wa...

Read and leave comments (1)

On the Grand Canal in Venice

where bridges span and sigh

There’s a rising sense of menace

Here comes the W.I.

They’re oblivious to the sandbags

Stacked against an inundation

As they wield their leather handbags

And march in tight formation

At the head of them is Norah

The bravest and the best 

The other girls adore her

In their phalanx, ten abreast

Read and leave comments (4)

There’s a Kangaroo at the barbecue

She’s not supposed to be here

There’s a kangaroo at the barbecue

Snaffling snags and necking beer

She just hopped off with a chicken thigh

That thigh has never been so high

It was a bit of a shock, I’m not gonna lie

She’s a chargrill kleptomaniac

A high flying ‘roo with a view

Get Superman, call Brainiac

She’s bit off more than ...

Read and leave comments (2)