Bono in the Car

Can’t keep Bono in the car for too much longer.

It’s a warm day, getting warmer.

I can’t let Bono get overheated, not on my watch.

He was good enough to come with me,

make himself available.

It’s my fault.

I should have gone to the library AFTER

I had done my grocery shopping

but I was excited. The book had just come in.

What if someone nicked it?

After all, the book is in high demand.

53 requests for it when I put my name down

and only 5 copies.

Bono would have been proud.

And I want to get home quickly and start getting into it,

before the heat starts curling the pages,

and Bono starts sweating.

I’ve seen him live, the sweat oozing out of him.

It’s a bloat of a book at 563 pages.

I hope he’s good at prose writing as he is

in writing songs.

But first there’s these veggies to get.

Hang on, Bono. Won’t keep you waiting long

*pic courtesy of pinterest

Houdini

Houdini
 
She’s the Houdini of hounds

getting in and out of tight spaces .

Her piece de resistance ?
The burying-in-the-blanket trick .

Performed while we’re asleep .

The props ?

A wicker basket with ground sheet
and blanket .

The technique ?

A mystery BUT
she wraps herself inside that blanket —
a hot dog —
against the cold .

In the morning we go out eyes
wide with amazement .

At the sound of biscuits sprinkled
in the bowl
she extricates herself
 
from her woolen prison
faster than Houdini
from his padlock and chains .
 
 

Picture This

Do you recognize this picture? Do you know what book it;s from?

This guy loved this book as a kid and now loves it again as a dad reading it to his kids.

He loved it so much he decorated his van with illustrations from this classic.

A sign company at Aldinga did it for cost. His van is a mobile advert for the company.

Picture this.

If you had the money and desire what picture book would you illustrate your vehicle with?

Moments in Literary History 1

In the late Spring of 1891, Greenbough Smith, the newly appointed literary editor of

‘The Strand’ received a submission of two handwritten manuscripts.

Forty years later he described how he reacted on that day—“I at once realized here was the greatest short story writer

since Edgar Allan Poe, I remember rushing into Mr. Noames [publisher ] room and thrusting the stories before his eyes ….

Here was a new and gifted story writer; there was no mistaking the ingenuity of the plot, the limpid clearness of the style,

the perfect art of telling a story.”

The two stories that excited Smith’s interest were ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ and ‘The Red-Headed League’

Even Then

I’ve always wanted to do stand-up

but never enough, never passionately.

And anyway I couldn’t be bothered

learning material by heart if that is what

stand-ups do. I was a lazy bugger.

My heroes were all stand-ups, not poets

like you might imagine: the two Jerries,

Lewis and Seinfeld, Bob Newhart,

and Billy Connoly who I saw

do a three –hour show in Adelaide with only

a fifteen minute break. That’s stamina.

That’s my kind of comedy: the Observational

kind, the sort that poets are good at with their

nifty little eyes and agile turns of phrase.

Is anyone still reading this?

Anyhow the page is my stage.

I never have to worry about stage fright

or ‘dying’ in front of an audience.

The comments and likes are my applause.

They keep me going. The occasional heckler

with a snide pen. Water off a duck’s back.

I love readings too,being guest poet.

But most of all, I love writing the stuff.

Nothing scatological. The fart is as far as I go.

And if you wondered, that’s me in the picture,

whistling along the lane, thinking up funny lines,

even then.