You Don’t Get Asked That Too Often

She wants to hear some of my poems.

You don’t get asked that too often.

So I choose the bright ones, the buoyant ones,

the ones with a lot of bounce.

She loves ‘The Wrong Saint’

the one about getting lost on our way back from the winery

and praying to St. Francis, instead of St. Christopher,

the patron saint of travellers.

No wonder we were getting lost.

We were praying to the wrong guy.

She loves Quilton too, that one I posted,

an early Covid poem,, Quilton Loves Your Bum’

with all its jackanapery.

I used to read to her as a child,

little stories I made up,

and now I’m reading to her again,

my little story poems,

at the age of 18.

my grand-daughter, Grace.

And she still loves what I write.

Can I stop now, I ask,

a little exhausted.

It’s good to have a fan.

Grandad and the Punatorium

My grandpappy loved puns.
He was considered a pundit on the topic.
He had a secret cache of punography stashed away in his room where he could be heard laughing maniacally late into the night. .
Sadly he was confined to a Punatorium in the hope of curing him of this terrible affliction.

Someone once said you can measure the value of a pun by the volume of groans it elicits.

Grandad had three which he dished out wherever he went.
A pony walks into a bar and croakily asks for a pint of beer. The barman has trouble understanding him. Sorry, says the pony, I’m a little hoarse.
Out on my walk today, I spotted a Dalmatian.
A teacher in a Year Nine English class, had trouble with a girl called Lichen. Give her time, a colleague said. She’ll grow on you.
Boom boom ! Get it? A well-full of groans.
 

Jumping Jacks

When I was a kid

we always started with Jumping Jacks

on Guy Fawkes night.

We would light the fuses and run.

They had short attention spans.

We didn’t know where

they’d end up.

They had so much energy.

My kids were like that too.

They took after me.

You have ants in your pants, mum used to say

It’s the

Jumping jack gene.

I’d answer.

My niece, also afflicted,

takes medication and has only just read

her first novel at fifteen.

‘Adam Bede’

[ does anyone still read this?]

The dogs have it too.

Even in their sleep they are running.

Perhaps there is an evolutionary advantage

to being jittery

Loose and Jiggly

Every time I go to a family gathering and there’s new faces

in the crowd

I’m expected to trot out a few

of my crazy stories

like the time I was struck blind at midday;

but it’s early in the evening

& the crowd

hasn’t jelled

isn’t well oiled

& you have to go in cold.

You feel like calling out, Where’s the Warm-Up Act

to make folks loose & jiggly.

Every comedian needs a warm-up act.

It’s a tough gig working a group that’s cold.

No one should be asked that.

Even the Warm-Up needs a Warm-Up.

The Applecart

There was a saying in my parents’ day

not to upset the apple cart.

My uncle was a market gardener so it had extra meaning for us.

For a while things went smoothly

then I came along, then my sister.

We were the world’s first teenagers.

There was sex, booze — no drugs — and rock ‘n’ roll.

Mum and dad didn’t know what hit them.

And this went on all over the world.

A whole lot of apple carts were being upset, overturned.

Then came Feminism, Vietnam War protests, R rated movies

and in our country

the sacking of a government.

Boats were rocked, apple carts overturned.

It’s a bit like that now. Only there’s far more involved.

The fate of our planet.

I think before we get to wherever we’re going there won’t be too many

apple carts left standing.

*pic courtesy of Pinterest

Skeleton in the Phone Booth

A skeleton from the closet

Phoned the other day

One we thought had been

Securely locked away.

We tried to entice it

Cajole it back in

But that skeleton was

Determined to be seen.

For it had grown flesh

Learned how to live

And clearly would rattle

All the relatives.

This poem was written twenty years ago when first contact was made. It was more a ghost from the past than a skeleton but gradually over further calls it acquired structure and then one magic day it acquired corporeality. I was not there — my partner and I had split up — but I heard about it through others, including my children. Then just last week over New Year we met. This wonderful, warm person is now a part of my life. Thanks to the Marriage Equality Act She is getting married soon to her partner of eighteen years. She thanked me for keeping the lines of communication open and hope alive.

ps that third line in the second stanza still is not right

*have you ever had a skeleton from the closet visit you?

The Way

I did not know the way to the waterfall

I was beaten,

hollowed out,

lonely as the last leaf on a tree

tramping, tramping

when suddenly my phone leapt

in my top pocket;

it was my grand-daughters,

their voices

tripping over each other with excitement,

telling me

they were coming to Adelaide,

that I would see them soon,

and suddenly

I was there, refreshed in the waterfall

of their voices,

like a baptism

*pic by Pinterest

Uncle Bert

I remember Uncle Bert.

He had had a stroke.

His mouth was always open

Though he never spoke.

He sat on his armchair

Alongside Aunty Pat

Who did the speaking for him.

She was good at that.

He once looked a film star

A Gable or a Flynn.

He was a dashing rake,

Tall, handsome, thin.

But now he is all empty.

He follows Aunty Pat

Obedient as a dog

Or a Welcome mat.

Doll

You are a skilled carpenter. You whittle me away with your chisel voice to the shape you want, my failings, and infidelities, my rough edges, lie as so many shavings upon the ground. You pick me up and peer at me. I hope you are pleased. Now I sit upon my tiny chair like a ventriloquist doll waiting for you to jiggle my limbs and speak for me like Aunty did for Uncle Bert after he had his stroke when we were kids and sat with us stiff and vacant for afternoon tea.

The Return of the Native

.So what’s your story? You’ve been out all day, painting the town red at night, for all we know, and just when we’ve locked up and getting ready to go out, you rock up! Nice one! I know what you want. I know what you’re after. So, what’s your story, eh? She looks up at him with her mock-innocent amber eyes, but the cat has nothing to say.