Reddit nights

Show me a meme

Something droll

Make me laugh

Cringe, groan

Feel something

Other than fear

And that faint sense of

Malaise born of

Too many days

Spent staring at a screen

Show me a meme

I don’t want to think

Of the horrors outside

Of queueing for food

Huddled in coats

Hats, gloves, scarves

Lonely and crowd-shy

Among faceless strangers

Who were once

On neighbourly

Nodding terms

Show me a meme

Bernie’s gloves

A party-favour

Orange forty-five

Something exotic

As new underwear

Pizza and beer

On a cold, wet

Soulless Tuesday

I really don’t care

Show me a meme

Or I will get up

And leave

My cold-coffee cup

On the windowsill

Ice-cream spoon stuck

To the carpet

By your easy chair

Climb the stairs

And head for bed…

Oh, kittens!

Survivor

I am right there
Surrounded by cockroaches
Squatting in the ruins,
The wreckage.
Collateral, damaged
In the fallout
Of a truly
Decadent society
That looked up to its
Graven images,
Photoshopped.
Idols, now idle.
How they glittered
In their lame, sequinned
Lifestyles.
Just me – a bunch of
Bad habits
And under the rubble,
One drug-addled
Rock guitarist.
Perhaps if we put our
Heads together
We can try
To find words
To remember.

Nanoo Nanoo to Neverland

Where have all the grown-ups gone?
The ones I looked to all my life
To show me what’s been going on
To make me laugh and keep me safe

Their reassurance slips away
As if they’d someplace else to be
We stand here at the break of day
And count each loss as one set free

I wish they wouldn’t shuffle off
So many games we never played
But some by self and some by health
They one-by-one all leave this stage

And whether one is hopping mad
Or feeling blue, or sad, or bad
It’s curtains for the fun we had
Now Mork has gone to follow Dad

We’ll Discuss it Over Dinner

I talked to avoid confrontation
Though practic’ly mute as a child
Postponed arguments with conversation
Changing subjects when tempers weren’t mild

That is how I once took up the trumpet
Said the first thing that entered my brain
When the atmosphere eating was honed to a point
As the adults were driving me sane

When I stepped in to cut off their fuses
Much the same as diffusing a bomb
There was never the time for new ruses
As absurd comic timing ploughed on

By expressing an int’rest in something
At a tangent from what came before
They were forced by convention of dining
To allow me to take to the floor

Over dinner I failed to digest much
Of the victuals that cooled on my fork
In my vigilant state I arrested debate
With diversions of plausible pork

Experiencing technical difficulties

There are few sights so funny
Or nearly as sweet
As watching the press
Sweep themselves off their feet

Ungainly gyrations
He twists on the grass
While Parliament Square
Tries it’s best not to laugh

The crew with the camera
Are shaking with mirth
While he wrestles dramatically
Down on the Earth

A bollock is trapped
Thus it must be adjusted
He grasps at his crotch
Sober-suited; move busted

To jiggle the crown jewels
Tips over again
While tourists and MPs
Are showing the strain

With faces like dough-balls
Left baking too long
All set to explode
At the stroke of Big Ben

Wardrobe Malfunction

The wire curls and coils its way
Around the gentle swell
While modest lace coverings creak,
Groaning before the channel bursts

Yawning wide, she opens herself
To release chaotic forces;
Relinquishes control over
Her quivering passenger

Goosebumps mar the skins surface
When warm flesh meets cold steel
Cheeks redden in embarrassment
A blush that casts a glow

So eyes suppress their twinkle
To allow commerce of other kinds
The cashier looks down then up
Surprised to find the curve outlined

And unperturbed, I fish in cleavage
Poking back to dormancy
The frisky underpinnings of
Our civilised society

Internal Stereophonics

They tell me Joan of Arc heard voices,
Saw them as Divine
I wonder what that maid would think
If she heard some of mine

Instead of holy war, they preach
Of mischief; games of chance
When all is quiet and sedate
They call to me to dance

And bop along to songs it seems
That only I can hear
With lyrics flowing past my tongue
And pouring in my ear

The more I try to censor them
The louder they will sing
Until I struggle to accomplish
Much of anything

But let me keep my playlist –
As it helps me through the day
Encouraging each vibrant thought
While plodding through the fray

Technology’s no Idol
I don’t run on batteries
As smiling, I may mosh to keep from
Smiting enemies

The Stand Up Comedy Hour

One day she will somehow surely find
A man who doesn’t make her wait
For hours on end as waiters mind
The poor stand-up whose date is late

And twitchy, hover round the edge
To titter at deluded Hope
Who hesitates o’er meat or veg
While others see the running joke

It’s too unfair, her sitting there
The butt of comments far and wide
As serving staff pour drinks and stare
Embarrassment she cannot hide

The constant refills mean the can
She wanders off to pee once more
Still pondering the galling man
Whose loud and boisterous guffaw

Now seems to ring in both her ears
As face is fixed in bathroom stall
Frustrating as the angry tears
That threaten pretty soon to fall

The promise of a lovely sham
An evening of eating out
She laid her plan to catch a man
But found herself caught out

On the Market

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Eloped with Dow Jones
Hoping for a little FTSE
Of their own
But the crude and oily futures
Stepped in
And their taxies crashed
On Wall Street.
“Oh, Forex!”
Fannie Mae remarked
“Freddie’s done his Nasdaq again!”

Fracking Alternatives

I’ve been wracking my brains
Why we should need to go fracking
When there’s so many planes
To such a many sided coin

Sure, it fracks up my mind –
There’d be more sense in car-jacking
And a good deal more pleasure
Gained from jumping a groyne

But now it seems at the sea
When off in holiday glee
We’ve such a need to sit sulking
We no longer enjoy

The sport of hunting for shells
Of turning green at the smells
Splashing past nappies and tampons
That we pass at the buoy

Yeah, Blackpool’s not such a gas
They’ve fracked the lights and the glass
Until the Biggest of Dippers
Is a red saveloy

The very thought is a joke
We leave the dirty Big Smoke
And spend our cash on a cuppa
While the ground spills its coke

No refunds, no money back
When your vacationing snack
Has turned the tables, bit the big one
With a seismic attack

It’s all a plateful of fun
Beneath the cool English sun
While you can ignite the water
That you get from the tap