where art collides

 Have you heard of Mary Mary,
the first of the gardening bimbos?
Charlie Dimmock in a frock,
she liked her flowers in rows.
She’d plant them all down the middle,
her borders exclusively grass,
well, you’d be a bit contrary
with your first name the same as your last.

(more…)

Born in God’s own county, I first breathed Yorkshire air,
was bathed in Yorkshire water, was fed on Yorkshire fare,
but now I live in Lincolnshire, where men are coarse and loud,
not like we shy, retiring Tykes, taciturn but proud.

(more…)

              We were twins.

              Dandelion-and-burdock, lemonade, even medicines

              would be measured glass against glass.

              To each his equal share.

              Anything else would have been ‘not fair’.

  (more…)

                         Stormy, obdurate emotions,

                         hypochondriacal notions,

                         pustules, piles,

                         prescriptions, potions,

                         pills and epidermal lotions,

                         (more…)

Ears are ugly, they’re unseemly, unhygienic and unsightly,
God was definitely drunk when He designed  ’em.
Though it’s a shocking allegation
there’s no other explanation
for the biggest single cock-up in Creation.

A design fault falling short on technical support,
they’re repulsive little afterthoughts brought out late.
We’re supposed to have been wrought
in God’s image, so I thought,
I’d like to bet that He ain’t got none, mate!

(more…)

Times were when I loved nothing more

than the ‘1812’.  Its cannons’ roar,

its church-bells’ ringing

used to make my pulse-rate soar.

But now what sets my heart a-winging

is Carol singing.

(more…)

The sun set

an hour ago,

yet

through the kitchen window

I see clear to the bottom of the garden.

There, in the sumach,

singing still

and undeterred

(more…)

With a million single mothers all sponging off the state
The need for right wing government simply cannot wait.
Our streets are crammed with buggies, it really is a bore
the way it spoils our school-run in our Audi four-by-four.

The little bastards’ parents if daddy can be caught,
Should be forced to marry or encouraged to abort.
If not, then stop their benefits, it simply could not fail.
Well, that’s what Richard Kay said in last week’s Daily Mail.

(more…)

I have a somewhat homely face,

my nose is wrong, I’m told,

and my body never would have graced a Playgirl centrefold.

But though I’m no Lothario,

I own  a natural charm,

I’ve always had a woman on my arm.

But the supply’s run dry.

I think I know why.

My bloom of youth has faded,

my mirror tells the truth,

my joie-de-vivre is jaded,

I’m too long in the tooth.

Affairs unfold so rarely now,

sporadic, inconsistent,

the last one was so long ago,

my love-life’s nonexistent.

Since then there hasn’t been a nibble,

not a soupcon, not a trace;

no maiden, ms or errant miss

has even granted me a kiss.

The upshot’s this:

I’ve become resistible.

The morning came and I awoke

to change so swift and unforeseen,

a leap from love to enmity with nothing in between.

What caused this shift from friend to foe?

What aroused her temper so?

What made her fury grow and grow?

‘Just go,’ she said,

‘if you don’t know,

then I’m not going to tell you.’