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.

Haikunivocalism

To make things hard for myself, I decided to impose two restrictions on this one - only using the vowel 'E', and sticking to the Haiku format. Thanks to Ali for providing one word and the names of the protagonists.

Scene: TV. Settee.

We see Trev, beset by stress.

He needs beer, needs weed.

Jenny eschews weed.

She needs TV. Endlessly.

Glee. Dry red. Perfect.

Trev rejects TV.

Even the BBC News

Repels Trev's peeved eye.

Jen eyes the TV,

Tends the stew, blends the jelly -

Jenny feeds Trev well.

Trev, dry, dejected,

Key green reserves depleted,

Necks the sleek green Becks.

Yet, he frets: Where's Drew?

Drew's key. Drew vends sweet weed, see?

He never fleeces.

Trev's eyes express nerves.

Even Jenny's well perplexed -

Her Trev's very vexed.

Enter Drew. Trev weeps.

Less testy, breezy even,

He renders the fee.

Drew sells the henry,

Then he shrewdly egresses -

He's needed elsewhere.

Even-keeled, Trev lets

Jenny, ever the server,

Help Trev perfect rest.

She feeds Trev the weed.

Pesky stress levels recede

Serene Lethe seen.

Elves, sweet elves he sees,

Breezy trees teem, green-sheened,

The sphere seems serene.

Nepenthe he seeks -

Jen's gentle neck nestles cheek -

Then:  Shhh! Trev, meet sleep.

Jen pets Trev's tresses,

Wryly, even tenderly,

Then wrecks the jelly.

A Letter From Dave

I joined the Tory Party when I became a comedian. One, to know your enemy and two, because the idea of me as a Tory is the funniest fucking joke in the world. Imagine my suprise when I recieved the letter below:

 

The Politics of Apology

They say that ‘sorry’ is a Viking word,
Thus one King Alfred just never heard.
He didn’t say ‘sorry’ for all his mistakes,
Like funding the church, or burning those cakes.
It wasn’t a part of his lexicon –
He’d never have used it when he did wrong.
But Alfred was King, he had great dominion –
He couldn’t care less ‘bout public opinion:
No elections to win, no voters to woo,
No mindless minorities desperate to sue,
(He did have to deal with a deluge of Danes,
Riding and raiding across his domains,
Making his people fear lots, and dread more,
In flagrant breach of the Treaty of Wedmore).


But that’s another story, you’d prob’ly get bored
If I told all I know about the Great Pagan Horde.
Instead, let’s just stop for a second and see
If Alfred the Great were a modern MP
Would he be Labour? Would he be Tory?
Maybe Lib Dem and keep changing his story?
What if he got in a terrible scrape
By making a comment that got caught on tape?
He forgets all about his microphone –
An easy mistake for an Anglo- Sax-one.
(Before judging that rhyme, just you be wary - 
I bet none of you have seen a Saxon diction-ary)
By speaking his mind, he causes a stir,
A newspaper frenzy starts to occur.
He’s going to be subject to trial by media,
A bit like that bloke who runs Wikipedia.
Before poor old Alfred’s had time to inhale,
He’s attracted the wrath of the Daily Mail,
Who deem that his comments are deeply offensive,
Throwing his party on the defensive,
Since speaking one’s mind is just unacceptable,
Especially if one’s trying to appear quite electable.


Would Alfred say ‘sorry’? Would he retract?
Say he was joking (though after the fact)?
Would he back down against opposition,
And build a new Abbey to show his contrition?
Or would he stand firm, despite all the grief,
Say it’s his job to hold a belief?
Say those who slavishly toe party lines
Are just empty mouthpieces, lacking in spines,
Who don’t seem to notice habitual hypocrisy,
Such is the state of modern democracy?
Given this dearth of decent debate,
I don’t think there’s room for Alfred the Great.
He’d prob’ly get sick of all of this faking,
Hide in a bog, and go back to baking.