A great bustard

Unflustered,

A great bustard

Strides with its flock

Along a fold in the land of

The high Iberian plains.

The flock walks with all the dignity of hidalgos,

Immaculately plumed in

Beige, russet, black, white and grey;

As befits the heaviest flighted bird

In the world.

The flock proceeds with long-legged strides,

Each one in the slow procession

Will pause, from time to time,

To peck grains or insects from the ground;

Whilst others look around

And if a human comes too close,

Or if the flock so decides;

They may all take flight,

Flashing bright white underwings

Across the wide sky

To another fold in the plains,

To begin the procession again.

fat balls.

CLOCKS GO BACK TODAY

November’s nearly here,

The bones of the street trees start to show,

There’s a cruel sharp cold edge in the air,

so I sit on my suburban front doorstep,

handling my fat balls.

But the neighbours don’t phone the law,

For I am not a weatherproofed pervert,

But the respectable owner of half a house

Who is unpacking and storing lumps of suet,

To feed his garden birds,

Through the winter that now begins,

But these birds aren’t really mine,

They’re not even my feathered friends.

I pay them with food hung from garden trees,

To brighten the air above,

A small, bramble-infested, eden.

CHIP SHOP FIRE

CHIP SHOP FIRE

A wall of searing flame

Roared through the “Happy Plaice”,

The saveloys were turned to ash,

The pasties brightly blazed.

What should be crisp and golden

Was charred and burned to black.

Fire almost cooked the owner,

Just like the doner kebab,

which had sat behind the window,

for just as long as he had;

but he escaped the inferno,

he ran across the road

to stare in consternation,

as his life’s worked combusted,

in a sudden conflagration.

His tears were salt and vinegar

And he cursed the firey fate,

 that burned his rock and cod,

and overcooked his skate.

Streams of water from firehoses,

Could not assuage his pain,

but he bottled up his grief like tomato sauce,

and vowed he’d fry again.

marvelous monstrosity.

I’ll use every trick I know,

Every device that I can muster;

Persuasion, reason, promises,

Shouted slogans and spluttering bluster,

Soaring metaphors, silly similes, fake indignation,

And, above all, articulate avalanches of absolute alliteration.

So why am I deploying

This tsunami of pompous verbosity?

It’s because our language

Is a marvelous monstrosity.

Priests, preachers, politicians, poets, playwrights, persuaders all

Spray us daily with this stuff,

I was going to say “don’t listen!”,

But I just can’t get enough.

3 DIMENSIONS AT THE PIE FACTORY, MARGATE

A cetacean swallowed eighty plastic bags or so,

A white whale  swallowed eighty plastic bags or so,

then threw up a few more too late.

He was stuffed with

So much indigestible human made detritus,

Mistaken for nice juicy jellyfish

Or nutritious squid,

That he had no room left for food,

and starved.

Ahab and Queequeg

Must be turning in their graves,

They need not have sailed on the Pequod,

Hunting for Moby Dick,
Across storm lashed seas,

Or ventured out into

Vast swelling waves,

Standing braced in the bows

Of flimsy whale boats,

Poised to hurl heavy harpoons.

They were born too soon,

If they had been twenty first century men,

They could have rested on deck on sun loungers,

Eating snacks;

Or on stormy days, dined in the ship’s restaurant

And if they threw their food wrappers overboard

Together with any other plastic packaging ,

That would have seen Moby Dick off pretty quick.

No more need for heroics, mad obsessions,

Or hurling windswept curses into roaring gales,

We’ve just gotta keep throwing stuff away,

And soon there’ll be no more whalesong,

Echoing long,

Around the oceans of our world.

feeble consumer resistance

Sainsburys, oh Sainsburys,

Great grocer of Great Britain,

You sell me many things I need,

Such as paper to wipe my shit on.

You sell me carrots, you sell me soap,

And toothpaste, wine and fish;

And I could add item after item,

to this mundane list.

I’m not unusual, I am sure,

Some may buy less, some may buy more,

And when I read the words on your packaging, I doubt if I’m alone.

But recently that’s what I did,

whilst sitting on my porcelain throne.

“we’re sure you’ll love this product”,

Were the words that were inscribed,

on the unnecessary plastic wrapping

With my toilet paper inside

Now I love my relatives,

And I love my friends,

I love hearing swifts screaming in the sky,

I love watching poplars sway in the wind

And bright pebbles that please my eye.

It’s for me to decide

When told by my heart

Where I will direct my emotions

And I will not feel what I’m told to feel,

By a large and powerful grocer.

So Sainsburys, I’ll buy your produce

But I will not sell you my soul.,

And I’ll wipe my arse on your arsewipe,

But I’ll never love your toilet roll.