forgetting to be nice
leaves bad aftertaste
like curry without spice
a character debased

'i did nothing', she shrugged
as she feigned innocence,
happy she'd bugged
'n broken his defence

'let's be real', he said
as he roared like a tiger
as her heart inside bled
with no-one beside her

when all's said and done
it's niceness that makes you
shows you've begun
to wrestle devil's due

better than home-runs
or your favourite brew
than the shine of ten suns
through the sparkle of dew

it's more than exterior
or false veneer
it's your soul's interior
G-d's atmosphere

so next time some toad
does something obnoxious
take the high road
definition of virtuous

you'll feel happier
elated jubilation
refraining from snappier
jeering conversation

take the zap from their insult
the sting from their jibe
as you be the adult
and revenge circumscribe

you'll feel better for it
attuned to your soul
rather than the half-wit
who's lost sight of their goal

an angel and a devil
chanced upon a star
said latter 'i'll be on the level'
[it really was bizarre]

"it's time we got together
to pool our creative resource,
no, it's not some silly blether,
we've got immortal force"

"let's make a guy of us combined,
he'll be driven silly,
we'll run him out of soul and mind
from here to Piccadilly"

"ok, i'm game", said angel fair,
"Let me taste your ware",
and from that all too brief affair
was born this Voltaire

up and down and turn around
i'm being driven dizzy,
either to hell or heaven bound,
it's making my hair turn frizzy.

Thought I was astute
in getting me covid jab
in health institute
by mod science lab

what better place
to stand 'gainst zeitgeist
to turn me face
'gainst self-'claimed christs

who wax livid
'gainst the vaccine
in language vivid
profanities obscene

i'd display responsibility
like Kwanzaa festivity,
self-determination
in joining the nation

so i rolled up me sleeve
like a silver-pipe ******
steeled self to receive
gave 'em carte blanche

closed me eyes tight
as i insinuate
"do your worst!
this ain't me first"

now me arm's aching
i feel so poor
my whole body's shaking
'n me shoulder's so sore

now I'm a-thinking
i was wise as a coot
in going unblinking
to health-institute!

give me water, give me fire,
let me scribe with blood my ire
emblazon vellum with his name
blot it out, end his game

languid, lazy, sunny summers,
blackened by the bombinating
darts of death from droning drummers,
breath of babies desecrating,

permeating peculiar fragrance
hypnotised by his own cadence
 avuncular charm to the rabble
made himself a Tower of Babel

as he faces interlocutor
forked tongue slithering with sick ease
he the notorious persecutor
refusing onus of war-freeze

proffering peace with guileful lips
whilst he plans apocalypse
ignore the innocent, defile the dying,
hell created through his lying

O give me fire, give me water,
let me scribe with blood his slaughter
let me scrub out cursed name
blot it out and end his game

red-framed moonlight
laughing sun
soft as the eider on the run
as the skin of newborn son
gentle as whispers of my lover
as the breeze of sweetest clover
is your smile to the stranger,
to your son or mountain ranger,
to your daughter, to your wife,
with loving eyes, with human life,
it wipes clean the pain and strife
it ushers in a blessed life.

Clung steadfast to rocky crag
zaftig roots spread deep and wide
waxing eloquent in perpetuity
as if to say, i've nothing to hide

for million years i've been in this show
embellished land and air
i've seen the dinosaur come and go,
and Arctodus Simus bear.

i laugh at your nomenclature
feeble attempt to classify nature
as if me your academic stature
could reduce to whim o' legislature

at your cabal of odious greed
that seeks to truncate my life
destroying all my breed and seed
with fire, saw and knife

it's you you're sawing
you're your own arch-foe
as ice-cap thawing
you'll come and go

and i'll be here to wave adieu
as i stand firm on my rock
and you as flakes of gossamer snow
melt into flow of earth's time-clock

butterfly with eyes on wings
feigns appearance of predator
fools the bird that flying sings
of crunching grubs as creditor

clown with plastered face and grin
jovial and facetious,
masks the dismal depths within
pretext of roister specious

the solidness of form material
cloaks the inner truth
the vacuous space of air ethereal
that fills the world in sooth.

authenticity is hard to come by,
that's this world's DNA,
but that don't mean we shouldn't try
to be as honest as we may.

all around is murky water
children sectioned for the slaughter
gone is truth, gone simplicity,
rare the jewel of authenticity

we live in world that champions strength
tread on the weaker, ignore the stench,
laugh at fidelity, those with sincerity,
trample theosophy, arrogate authority

two thousand years back wise men sighted
in their writings, prediction inscribed,
the head and face of generation
like a dog of no veneration

and, within, beats heart of gloom
longs for rest inside of tomb
'scape from all-engulfing shadow
end the running, end the show

I am the very model of a modern poet laureate,
I've information rhythmical, poetical and lexical,
I know the poets of our land and quote their plays historical,
From Macbeth to Much Ado, in order categorical;

I'm very well acquainted, too, with rhythm hendecasyllable,
I understand assonance and refrain octosyllable,
About pentameter theory I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the style of poet Edward Hughes.

I'm very good at couplets and at blank verse very fabulous;
I know the seventy-one plays ascribed to Aeschylus:
In short, in matters rhymical, poetical, and lexical,
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate.

I know our poem-history, Caedmon's Hymn to Chaucer's works;
I can cite bards' acrostics with volatility in my vocal box,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In dialect ionic I can cite Semonides of Amorgos;

I can tell undoubted Aratus from Aristeus and Sophocles,
I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.

Then I can write a decasyllable as a dactyl or tetrameter,
And tell you ev'ry detail of soliloquies in Shakespeare:
In short, in matters rhythmical, poetical, to elloquate,
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate.

In fact, when I know what is meant by a "septet" and a "sestet",
When I can tell at sight a literary from a prose effect,
When such affairs as odic and idyllic I'm more wary at,
And when I know precisely 'to be or not to be' by Dane "Hamlet".

When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern rhymery,
When I know more iambic than a novice in a nunnery
In short, when I'm audacious, vexatious and dilatory
You'll say a poet laureate has ne'er been so conciliatory.

For my alliteration knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters rhythmical, poetical and etiquette,
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate.

Eternal, unbound,
Light evermore
Fill'd letters with sound,
Vibration 'n tenor

Until, like ball
Blown to capacity,
Shell burst, letters fall,
Light in captivity

Broken shell-parts scatters below
With sparks of light, life to endow,
Soul of letters ascend on high
To be reborn, to live and not die

In murk of desire
Unfulfilled fire
Urges and shadow
The ebb and the flow

Rejected and hurt
I found my beloved
In mud and dirt
Longing to be loved

I whispered her name
In her guilt and shame
With light from above
I showed her love

Until she arose
From darkest shadows
As letters and light
Together unite

smell a rose or freesia,
an odoriferous bloom,
a crocus from Venetia,
delight in its perfume,

succulent natural oils
that in the sunlight glint
'midst aromatic soils,
oregano, rosemary, mint.

for smell is nonpareil
a truly heavenly gift
there yourself to avail
that darkest clouds may lift

so next in wood or dell
when chance you 'pon sweet trail
wild garlic 'n bluebell
stay moments, hear their tale

let speak through their bouquet
to tell of things sublime,
the scent of fresh baled hay
herb robert, basil 'n thyme.

more darkness
before the light
deepest night
before the day

deepest black
'fore life returns
before the dawn
as new-roused fawn

shines through crack
of broken sherd
as silence attack'd
with spoken word

hope in spirit
loving kindness
infuses merit
cures the blindness

Jealousy, lust, and honour pursuit
Remove mankind from the world,
The yen for more, the 'don't give a hoot'
About the waste that's hurled,
Resources used, as *******
Now weary and up-curled,
Sends man's soul down the chute,
As Man dies out from world.

Money subverts
says the Good Book,
greed of grabbing purse
turns friend into a crook

"Don't accept bribes",
says the Holy Writ,
It blinds the clear-sighted,
Makes confidant a twit.

money to unpious
is as potatoes to the blight
It "twists the words of righteous",
"corrupts the words of right".

The side emolument,
so rife in parliament,
turns democracy to faction
making mockery of sanction.

call me eccentric
i'll not quibble much,
better than egocentric,
hungry for money's touch

let leaders not be paid,
let them earn with honest *****,
commensurate to service,
to work of honest gain

it may be 'pie in sky'
but i'm allowed to dream,
if they want to serve us
let them feel the poor man's pain.

there is a place where Love sings
without being heard
where Love rises and Love falls
like the wings of a bird

it's a place of silent whisper
talks without a voice
a place where G-d and sister
for eternity rejoice

a place that laps
like the sea o'er land
a place that claps
with a single hand

but surrounding that space is tumultuous wind,
blows hither and thither, in voice that you sinned,
knocks against hard, unyielding earth
empty words echo 'gainst raging mirth

but with constant commitment we'll crack the hard shell
conciliate G-d's sister to the outer brass bell
then, sweetest music, together, will tell,
as angels bend ear to the light in soft knell

remember bowler hat
the brolly'd aristocrat
the starch'd white collar-ruff
the city toff 'n buff

who crunched beneath his foot
the primitives of his world
in bodies black as soot
his hoisted flag unfurled

who sailed the world on junket
to drain the world of nugget
to boost his fiscal budget
to finance a Royal Buffet

now white 'n grey his beard tumbles
o'er crooked staff
skin dried parchment flakes 'n crumbles,
steps from epitaph:

"here lies a once proud empire
that ruled with pomp and quake
but as all things expire
will ne'er 'gain awake."

"hear the tale of hubris [here the tail of hubris]
the end of crooked path
buried 'neath the bootlace
of cruelty's aftermath."

hear the scorn, contempt
behind the paper walls,
thought himself exempt,
now 'mongst ruins falls.