A Cheeky Question

Out already?

Yes.

So what do you do in there? You’re in and out like a flash.

I wash.

In that short time? Where do you wash?

Oh, you know, in the immortal words of The Yardbirds: Over, Under, Sideways, down

Me & Mrs, Crasthorpe

I am going to bed with Mrs. Crasthorpe.

I have been to bed with her before.

It was a most pleasant experience.

Her husband is dead. She is a free woman now.

She is fit and feisty and when she’s breathed in the briny air of Eastbourne, she loosens up and tells me.

She has generously full lips. blonde hair and grey-blue eyes and is the ripe old age of 59.

Nothing unseemly passes between us, however.

Sadly she is an invention of William Trevor.

Poor Old Keith

 
My heart goes out to him.

Hey, Keith, I know it’s hard languishing on the Express Shelf still after three weeks.
I know what it’s like to be a wallflower
alone and palely loitering on the cold hillside..

I don’t know if he gets the reference. Keats.

Yeh, I know what it’s like, Keith, I say.
But don’t worry. Nicole still loves you.

He seems to lift a bit.

And anyway, I tell you what: if you’re still here when I come in next week, I’ll borrow you. I’ll take you home.

A bit of color seems to flush his cheeks, and there’s a glint in his eyes.

Hang in there, Keith, I say, on my way out.

When I Grow Up

I want one of these

so I can hoon around the street

like old Frank does on his,

zip around the shopping centre

when Security’s not looking.

I will have to save up though,

maybe trade in the car

but it’s a beauty,

a rhino of a Gopher,

the Humvee of mobility scooters,

a ‘chick magnet’ for seniors.

Yee Ha !

My Bad-Ass Phone Call

 
Maybe I shouldn’t have made it but

the fish was under-cooked.

That apprentice! D said. I’ll haul him

over the coals.

have his guts for garters.

He’s overstepped the mark this time.

Don’t go too hard on him, I say.

He has a good heart.

A good heart doesn’t cut it in this

business, he said,

I’ll flay him alive.

It won’t happen again.

The next lot is on me.

And he hung up.

I know he was playing it up a bit.

Still, it would be good to see Jarrod

at the grill next week

in one piece.
 
 
 

Honeyeaters

Snip

Snip

Snip

Like scissors

Snipping hair

Your

Swift

Little beaks

Snip bugs

From the air

Under the Gate

What is the cat looking for under the gate?

Perhaps the old tom two doors down trudging across the road like a sloppy sentence.

Perhaps the purr that left her mysteriously six months ago.

Or maybe she’s dreaming of the Krazy Kat cartoons she loved read to her as a kitten.

Or what the rest of her siblings are up to at the Pet Barn and whether they landed on her feet like her when she was adopted.

Or maybe she’s just curious. She’s a cat after all.

Oooops

Oooops. Looks like I turned the heater off prematurely.

I seem to make a habit of it.

Maybe because I was born prematurely.

I don’t finish novels either.

or most short stories.

Even half my poems I bail out from.

Relationships too.

I have meltdowns. Walkouts.

But hey ! I have three kids.

Nothing premature there.

And I’m still with my gal.

Maybe I can finally say, I’m over it.

But that might be a little premature.

Axle: a children’s poem

There’s a miniature submarine lurking

at the bottom of the aquarium .

It is smooth and black with feathery gills .

It is an axolotyly .

We call him Axle , of course .

Most of the time he just hangs around

amongst the water weeds .

Perhaps he’s lonely and depressed .

But every now and then

he rouses himself

and cruises around as if on patrol .

The other fish give him right of way .

Perhaps he thinks he really is a submarine

on an important mission ,

keeping the waters safe for democracy ,

for instance .

Sometimes when he cruises past the sides

of the tank

I give him the thumbs up .

It seems to give him a lift .

• pic courtesy of wikipedia

Iron Man at the Gym

 

 

Iron Man isn’t up to it today.

You can tell by the way he slopes around

in his baggy shorts and tee

dazed like he’s been smoking weed.

He dawdles a lot between reps.

Guzzles the urine coloured liquid to replace the energy he hasn’t used.

Plays with the machines like a cat with a mouse.

Jabbers at Stella how she isn’t doing it right,

to anyone really with a loose ear.

Truly he is more motor-mouth than Iron Man.