Ten Speed Poems: #3

Poems written in 10 minutes or less for The Poetry Takeaway.

Confusion (for Steph)

Iceland isn't icy; Greenland isn't green;
A sailor on the ocean knows it's not Pacific;
Turkey has no turkeys; New Zealand's hardly new - 
I really think cartographers could be a little more specific. 

Ten Speed Poems: #2

Poems written in 10 minutes or less for The Poetry Takeaway.

Celebrity Chefs (for Robbie)

Famed for his felafels and feted for his flans
Kudos in the kitchen and stardom on the screen
Guardian of garnishing and champion of cuisine
The peerless prince of TV food surveys his pots and pans

His fearful minions bustle thru the kitchen doors that swing
Past cameramen with microphones who trail their tyrant boss
With little trays of canapes at fifty quid a toss
While our hero swears and shouts at them and scoffs his Burger King

Ten Speed Poems: #1

Poems written in 10 minutes or less for The Poetry Takeaway.

Karen (for Jeff)

Her maiden name was Wood,

And summers (when she was good),

Her dad would take her strolling

Through the Welsh valleys rolling.

The apple of his eye,

Impatient for July,

And those stolen carefree weeks

In the land of slate and leeks.

Now Karen is a mother,

And grandad has another

Young girl to hold his hand

As he walks St David's land.

      Some spoil their kids with chocolate,

      Some with strings of pearls,

      But Jeff's idea of heaven is

      Welsh walking with his girls.

You Can't Spell 'Audience' Without 'U'

A Lipogram

Of all the gigs I play every year,

The one I like best is now and right here.

It's not for the poems, or all of the comedy,

It's not what I said: it's the people in front of me.

If they hadn't come for my poems and jokes,

I'd be like Robin Hood with no Merry Blokes:

No-one beside him to help him to loose

The arrows he's made from ash and from goose.

A preacher exhorting to no congregation

Is wasting his passion for no consolation.

There's no real joy in scoring at Wembley

If there's no fans, friends, crowd, or assembly,

The wittiest line, if there's no-one to hear,

Is a solo party, devoid of all beer,

Like talking to someone telepathic,

So all that's said is one-way traffic,

A dialog box (with American spelling)

Where all conversation's hardly compelling:

        A window has crashed again: Click OK

        A window has crashed again: Click OK

        A window has crashed again: GO AWAY.

So thanks for coming, thanks for listening,

Thanks for leaving my ego glistening.

Words make my arrows, the best I can do,

Yet the deadliest longbows are all made of yew.