Howling

The woman next door is howling with pain.

It is 3 in the morning.

Clearly she is doing it harder than me.

I went in ten days ago

with a high fever

and within 24 hours my frail craft

had sailed off into the South Pole

where I was hit with pneumonia

and racked with pain.

It was Scott of the Antarctic meets ‘The Thing’.

I’m in calmer waters now.

Five days with minor ailments.

They’ve brought me into dock.

Going home today.

*pic courtesy of pinterest

On Golden Staph

Golden Staph, Such a sweet, mellifluous name.

Its Latin counterpart, staphylococcus aureus,

just as euphonious, a name fit for a new species

of wildflower, an exotic dessert, or a freshly discovered

galaxy, glowing golden. at the edge of the universe;

even the bacilli under the eyes of an electron microscope

look like jolly mauve mushrooms clustered in a field

not the toxic toadstools they are.

*photo courtesy of CDC

Stranded

Stranded.

I don’t want to be stranded

like Robinson Crusoe

on an island

of pain

with no rescue in sight

another weekend;

so, doc,

can you fill out

the prescription again

that one with real bite?

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.
 

Except

 

I barfed off and on last night

but my heart wasn’t in it.

If you are going to barf —

‘barf’ is a much nicer word than ‘vomit’ –

you’ve got to be committed,

not lackadaisical

like the time I went to the doctor

for anti-depressants and was refused

because ‘you are not depressed enough’.

I can’t give myself wholeheartedly

to anything, it seems.

‘Except your writing’,

my ex told me.

‘Except your writing’.





  • pic courtesy of Pinterest

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.

The Woods

The rash on my back

has dimmed:

angry red

to demure blush.

I wish I never

had thrush

in my left nostril —

in that cramped cave

hard for the air

to get through

but the meds kept

the wolf at bay,

subdued.

Almost out of the woods

like Red Riding Hood.

Days of Indolence and Roses

I’m really looking forward to today.

Today’s the day I don’t exercise.

Oh, I may lift a finger to pen a poem

or two,

stretch a limb to reach for the remote

or break into a walk to put out the bins

but that’s it.

Today the body gets its chance

to plonk itself down in the armchair of life

and not feel guilty.

Have a glass or two. Eat some chocolates.

Read ‘The New Yorker’.

A day of indolence and roses.

Lucky

labra

Penny has a new pet.

A Labrador called Lucky.

It’s what she always wanted.

Well, almost.

He sits, jumps and spins around

and chases after frisbees.

Penny takes him for long walks

on the screen.

When he’s tired Penny puts him to bed.

His kennel is a black microchip.

When Penny slips it in the game console

each morning

Lucky comes out to play.

He woofs with delight and rubs

his snowy head against the screen.

Penny would love to cuddle him.

 

  • pic courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

 

Barfing in the Bushes

claire-satera-0lk4hww7pdo-unsplash.jpg

There’s a cartoon of a couple in a car

tearing down a roller coaster

and the woman says to the man, “With you screaming all the time,

I can’t hear myself scream.”

Men are so much noisier than women, my partner says.

When I began barfing in the bushes at a country fair

She implored

, “Can’t you barf quietly? Everybody is watching.”

Barfing has no volume control,

I wanted to say

but I was too busy being sick.

 

  • photo by Claire Satera on Unsplash