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Steve Page Jul 2018
Sweat and Pimms
I've been ceaselessly sweating since June
And without fail every day around noon
My arm pits are sopping
My ****** are sodden
I feel about ready to swoon

It’s been glorious weather since June
I’m not sure if you’d think it too soon
But top up the icebox
For Pimm’s on the rocks
And celebrate all afternoon
TOO HOT!  or  JUST RIGHT!
#summer #sun #sweat #heat #ice #drinks
Continue reading...
martin Jul 2013
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn
What a vision of loveliness you have become
As I watch from the wings sipping a Pimms
A one-sided love affair has just begun

She holds a martini and graciously flirts
Still wearing the fetching tennis skirt
All the boys stare as she climbs up the stair
Every one wishing she could be theirs

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn
Did I cheer too loud for the match that you won?
Was our handshake too long when I told you well done?

And now it is nineteen seventy one
What an excellent wife and mother you've become
But alas not to me
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn
Inspired by   A Subaltern's Love Song   by the late, great Sir John Betjeman.
Apologies to Betjeman fans :)
Continue reading...
Donall Dempsey Jul 2018
I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW
I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW

I lived my life as if
I had been written
into a Barbara Pym novel

so prim and proper lady I
my soul smoother'd in camphor
yet my life...wot the mot hath got

and here I be
curled upon the Persian rug
in the foetal position

being born
into my dying
as it were

me an elaborate motif
beside an exquisite phoenix
oh the warp and woof of me

so this is death
rather nice
as these things go

not too much( ouch )pain
more easeful and slow and
when ya gotta go...ya...gotta go

rather like that Manx man
was it Brown...or...something
"...if thou couldst empty..." oh what is it?

"...all thy self of self
to be a shell dishabited..."
bit like ha ha that...innit( agghh )

wonder what an anthropologist
from...say...Borneo
would make of me

I'd guess I'd be
so quaintly ever so English
so cue-cumber sandwich

settling down with a Pimms and a Pym
being one of those Excellent Women
**** this dying....haven't even read the book

only got as far as
p.15...how mean
the great unread

the words sticking in my brain
something being "...a welcoming
sort of place...

with a bright entrance..."
as if Mr. Death were saying
"Why...that's what I am!"

"Yeah, yeah...sure sure'"
I answer all Film Noir
another of life's little pleasures

the stuffed bird
stares at me sternly
deigns to speak

"Now that you are going to be
as dead as me...may I
have a word?"

it coughs unaccustomed
as it is
to public speech

"It's not so bad
being dead
it's being stuffed that hurts!"

the cat joins in
with its customary "I'm starving...
ya couldn't open this tin?"

now the cat howls
oh to have opposable thumbs
or a can opener at least

the stuffed bird and the cat and I
singing along to Beverly Kenny
smiling from the record sleeve

"Oh this used to be
my favourite as a girl
'I Never Has Seen Snow."

"Oh the girl I used to be
she ain't me no more!"
I could always carry a tune

the stuffed bird can't
sing for nuts but
the cat's got a good tenor voice

me...I'm letting go
the world is walking out on me
the world don't want to know me no more

I've even forget
can you Adam and Eve it
how to spell... fo'c's'le

my garden looks in
the window at me
well here's a howdy do

I never was '...a lovesome thing..."
even when young
"God wot!"

hee hee hee T.E. Brown
appears to invade the mind
when one is dying

and what would that Borneo
anthropologist make of that
or my love of Jazz

grabbing the music
by the tail as it shape-shifts
improvises world upon world and beyond

oh to be dying
in a smokey jazz club
thoughts climbing a spiral staircase of smoke

"All that is...is not!"
now I wonder where
I got ha ha that

would the man from Borneo know
that is Phil Woods on
the Quincey Jones arrangement

"Oh I love sax me!
never could say the same
for ***

well - enough of that
better get on with
my death

and what better way to go
than with Beverly singing low
always thought I looked a bit like her

she smiles that record sleeve smile
the one I tried to sculpt
upon my own features

"I saw a new horizon
and a road to take me
where I wanted to be...needed to be.... took"

"God! I'm only starving!" yowls the cat
"Ya couldn't feed me before ya go...no
**** those...**** those cans!"

"Oh ****...oh ****!" she purrs
the record's...the record's...the record's
stuck
INDWELLING

If thou couldst empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the Ocean shelf,
And say — "This is not dead," —
And fill thee with Himself instead.

But thou art all replete with very thou,
And hast such shrewd activity,
That, when He comes, He says — "This is enow
Unto itself — 'Twere better let it be:
It is so small and full, there is no room for Me."

T.E. BROWN

I Never Has Seen Snow Lyrics
I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW

done lost my ugly spell
I am cheerful now
Got the warm all overs a-smoothin' my worried brow
Oh, the girl I used to be
She ain't me no more
I closed the door on the girl I was before
Feeling fine and full of bliss
What I really wants to say is this

I never has seen snow
All the same I know
Snow ain't so beautiful
Cain't be so beautiful
Like my love is
Like my love is

Nothing do compare
Nothing anywhere with my love
A hundred things I see
A twilight sky that's free
But none so beautiful
Not one so beautiful
Like my love is
Like my love is
Once you see his face
None can take the place of my love

A stone rolled off my heart
When I laid my eyes on
That near to me boy with that far away look
And right from the start
I saw a new horizon
And a road to take me where I wanted to be took
Needed to be took
And though
I never has seen snow
All the same I know
Nothing will ever be
Nothing can ever be
Beautiful as my love is
Like my love is to me

Harold Arlen/Truman Capote

from THE HOUSE OF FLOWERS musical

MY GARDEN

A GARDEN is a lovesome thing, God wot!
Rose plot,
Fringed pool,
Ferned grot—
The veriest school
Of peace ; and yet the fool
Contends that God is not—
Not God ! in gardens ! when the eve is cool?
Nay, but I have a sign;
‘Tis very sure God walks in mine.

T. E. BROWN

She used to sing along to the Quincey Jones arrangement with Phil Wood featuring....yea he of that famous alto sax solo on Billy Joel's JUST THE WAY YOU ARE.

Beverly Kenny is now more remembered for her I Hate Rock 'n' Roll but was a young  up and coming singer who died too early by her own hand.

My lady in the poem did indeed look very much like her and one was often disconcerted by a record sleeve looking back at one with my lady's young face. I never cared for her much except for her version of I Never Has Seen Snow. Curiously the Japanese to this day adore her. I was more of a Julie London man don't ya know.

The rather excellent Barbara Pym was another stand by or go to...EXCELLENT WOMEN was her second book and on p.15 there indeed occurs the line...

"A vicarage ought to be a welcoming sort of place with a bright entrance."

She was Philip Larkin's favourite novelist.

My lady was the very model of a modern curmudgeon and not everyone could stand her but I got on well with her seeing as I knew both Brown and Pym and could sing along to I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW.

fo'c's'le was necessary to complete a crossword and she was getting very cross at not being able all of a sudden to spell it.

The forecastle (abbreviated fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le)is the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is the phrase "before the mast" which denotes anything related to ordinary sailors, as opposed to a ship's officers
Continue reading...
bones Mar 2015
The further adventures of Martin's squirrel from the Wirral (limerick)
When the water is warm in July
beneath the Merseyside sky
he sets down his Pimms
and goes for a swim
on his back to keep his nuts dry.
Continue reading...
Eryri Nov 2018
The Fascinator
As I stand,
With Pimms in hand,
Your perfume I do sense,
(It was always pretty intense).
I fall into a trance,
As you make your entrance,
And I stare in awe,
At your fascinator.
Such exquisite taste
- surely not bought in haste -
It certainly fascinates,
And is sure to spark debates:
"Too much", "just seeking attention",
"She thinks she's Kim Kardashian".
But I think it's ace:
It accentuates your face,
Really brings out your ears.
So ignore all the sneers
Have a good night
Under the disco's light,
And I'll see you later,
For a closer look at that fascinator.
Yes, I'm my wife's traitor,
As I hope later
To be unfastening the
fascinator's fascinating fascinator.
I just like the word 'fascinator'
Continue reading...
Valiant Hurts Apr 2015
Predator
A day
Tailor made for the Pimms cup you drink
An average so and so.

You live your life in seconds of despair
Bleeding a path to your door
It swings both ways.

Laughing is easy, a roll down the *****,
At her, at her.
As she is ravaged in a circle of blades

You walk off to the next target.
Laughing all the way, ** ** **.
Continue reading...
John Edward Smallshaw Feb 2015
Dog eared collar
A gill of gin to start the day and
then I'm in the zone
a hidden flagon on the wagon
I'm on the way back home.

Sometimes I make moonshine,
fire up the still only waiting to fill
another bottle with ***** for
one more light cruise
down fuddled memory lane.

On Sunday I rest
go to church dressed in my tux,
and get
a few funny looks from the Vicar.

I keep my eyes on the time
my head in the moonshine, a
couple of hymns, prelude to
a few more sweet Pimms
and the day comes to
an end.
Continue reading...
Lawrence Hall Feb 2019
A Penny Catechism Kind of Man
Simple enough, big print but no big words
Simple enough for me, few words in me
I love the silences, they speak to me
In the ridges and fens among my crops

Simple enough, a pipe down at the pub
Simple enough for me - Guinness or Pimms
I love a pint in the evenings with the lads
In the corner, well armed with pints and darts

Simple enough, big print but no big words
For a penny catechism kind of man
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
#cambridgeshire
Continue reading...
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
a λuξuρiouς mαnσion
the purposive practice of misnomer-ism, the no-strings-attached poetry, a ****-buddy so to speak, one such example: lechery in a coffin, purposive, purposely using misnomers, hence misnomer-ism, no-string-attached - i might use the wrong word from time to time, but at least i'm not using the wrong intentions to do so.*

after writing something worthy to be deemed
abstract, whatever takes your fancy,
say you enγaγe in something out of the oρδinary,
a chance, a hollowed out tree -
what stiff poetry this has come to be,
all i wanted to write is that after writing
something complex i'm rewarded with nothing
except a chance breeze in my head
that does chores in tidying up my mind -
it does it so well that i end up without a single
thought entering my mind - it's like non-purposive
buδδhiστ meditation - write something
complicated and then reap the reward:
absent minded watching aeroplanes in three
tiers of prior to the satellites' orbits -
now i can truly sit back and puff, drink strawberry
Pimms with lemonade and prosper
with the words: well, if i had a woman i'd have
to earn and let her spend, cosy home with a dog,
a bouquet of roses, and pristine clean with
scented candles in the evening - i swear, money
was created in favour of women,
all i do with mine is... well, i'm just about to pop
out for a bottle of whiskey and two beers -
tomorrow i'll be hunting for a council one-bedroom
flat - mind you, i feel no aesthetic gimmick,
i was born in Communist blocks, i know how
the English prize their shops and their semi-detached
villas; mind you, it doesn't take a beautiful view,
a hotel, the Alps to write something beautiful,
it doesn't take Venice, it doesn't even take the Cliché
(Paris) to get started - i suppose you need
a boring life to have a book in you, i didn't start
writing because my life was interesting, god forbid
if i had... i'm surprised Casanova gave up
the day-job of womanising and settled for a pen & paper;
why didn't he continue? i'm sure lechery only
kicks off in the coffin, there are diamond diggers out
there i'm told - so i decided: to live the most
uneventful life imaginable, the most boring of lives,
i'm sure a part of me will benefit from it -
namely writing, i'll be able to scrutinise everything
more keenly, as writing will be sole event in my
otherwise uneventful life, some days i'll turn on
Radio 4 and listen to blah blah... the best plan is to
have no plan... and once in a while i'll a **** poem like
this one, ****? oh yes, forceful poem to just pass
the time before sunset (plus, i bought a pair of
headphones for £1.00, yep, £1.00, imported from India,
they work perfectly when attached to an iMac,
perfect electrical synchronisation, they produce cheap
sound with other objects, my mp3 player plays
a softer and less loud sound when the headphones
are attached, as does my laptop, meaning:
i need the music loud... loud!) - so indeed, write something
complicated and you sit there, in an imaginary
mansion of luxury that not thinking is.
Continue reading...
John Edward Smallshaw Aug 2014
On the seventh day
It cannot be a Sunday
if we're not at church and don't pray
if we're not down on our knees
minding P's and Q's.
I refuse to believe that this day is all we need to feed the inner working of the soul
or
that the dog collared man , by courtesy and intervention of some God we barely know can show me a path better trod.
Sunday
is just another rod to beat me with
another stick,
one more trick in the armoury of magic men who don't know when to quit.

That being said,
I've read the good book,taken a good look at the evidence,weighed up the possibility that if He does exist
I'd be foolish if I missed out because of my doubt.
So
I'm getting dressed now,going to church,listening to the sermon,singing hymns and later down the 'flying fiddle' for a Pimms or two.
Continue reading...
John Edward Smallshaw Apr 2016
The vanity case
The mascara that she put on almost limped along, but it stopped short,
think it was caught in the moment.

Looks to be like makeup was a free for all in the varsity hall and the guys were the worst criticisers.

It happens like this if we blink then we miss the drama.

Lipstick and gloss over the lips that cross over to me.

She never paints it on
if it can be drawn with a crayon on
a day on the river.

I row with the oars
she pours me a Pimms
each one of us grins
It's that kind of a day.

and home to the vanishing cream,
the dream of if something could seem
as made up as
makeup is
to me
Continue reading...
Donall Dempsey Jul 2019
I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW
I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW

I lived my life as if
I had been written
into a Barbara Pym novel

so prim and proper lady I
my soul smoother'd in camphor
yet my life...wot the mot hath got

and here I be
curled upon the Persian rug
in the foetal position

being born
into my dying
as it were

me an elaborate motif
beside an exquisite phoenix
oh the warp and woof of me

so this is death
rather nice
as these things go

not too much( ouch )pain
more easeful and slow and
when ya gotta go...ya...gotta go

rather like that Manx man
was it Brown...or...something
"...if thou couldst empty..." oh what is it?

"...all thy self of self
to be a shell dishabited..."
bit like ha ha that...innit( agghh )

wonder what an anthropologist
from...say...Borneo
would make of me

I'd guess I'd be
so quaintly ever so English
so cue-cumber sandwich

settling down with a Pimms and a Pym
being one of those Excellent Women
**** this dying....haven't even read the book

only got as far as
p.15...how mean
the great unread

the words sticking in my brain
something being "...a welcoming
sort of place...

with a bright entrance..."
as if Mr. Death were saying
"Why...that's what I am!"

"Yeah, yeah...sure sure'"
I answer all Film Noir
another of life's little pleasures

the stuffed bird
stares at me sternly
deigns to speak

"Now that you are going to be
as dead as me...may I
have a word?"

it coughs unaccustomed
as it is
to public speech

"It's not so bad
being dead
it's being stuffed that hurts!"

the cat joins in
with its customary "I'm starving...
ya couldn't open this tin?"

now the cat howls
oh to have opposable thumbs
or a can opener at least

the stuffed bird and the cat and I
singing along to Beverly Kenny
smiling from the record sleeve

"Oh this used to be
my favourite as a girl
'I Never Has Seen Snow."

"Oh the girl I used to be
she ain't me no more!"
I could always carry a tune

the stuffed bird can't
sing for nuts but
the cat's got a good tenor voice

me...I'm letting go
the world is walking out on me
the world don't want to know me no more

I've even forget
can you Adam and Eve it
how to spell... fo'c's'le

my garden looks in
the window at me
well here's a howdy do

I never was '...a lovesome thing..."
even when young
"God wot!"

hee hee hee T.E. Brown
appears to invade the mind
when one is dying

and what would that Borneo
anthropologist make of that
or my love of Jazz

grabbing the music
by the tail as it shape-shifts
improvises world upon world and beyond

oh to be dying
in a smokey jazz club
thoughts climbing a spiral staircase of smoke

"All that is...is not!"
now I wonder where
I got ha ha that

would the man from Borneo know
that is Phil Woods on
the Quincey Jones arrangement

"Oh I love sax me!
never could say the same
for ***

well - enough of that
better get on with
my death

and what better way to go
than with Beverly singing low
always thought I looked a bit like her

she smiles that record sleeve smile
the one I tried to sculpt
upon my own features

"I saw a new horizon
and a road to take me
where I wanted to be...needed to be.... took"

"God! I'm only starving!" yowls the cat
"Ya couldn't feed me before ya go...no
**** those...**** those cans!"

"Oh ****...oh ****!" she purrs
the record's...the record's...the record's
stuck
Continue reading...
Samantha Symonds May 2018
The Seaside you don't know
As it's different, when you're weaned
on the stinging foam on chins and hair
Hearing the sighs of the sea when
you fall and no-one's there
as if to say, I'm here, but I won't help!
You dash stones in rage
that she simply swallows
and thanks you for with a
particularly ungrateful wave.
Spiders in bright buckets,
***** in between toes in rock pools
a dog-**** buried in the sand.
Worst, are the bat-eyed gulls
swooping on candy you
guarded from bigger kids
but no-one hides from gulls
and sweeping swallow a bag whole
one gulp, unremorseful,
one eye, always watching
stoney, black.

So now, I am older and
we are sun-bathing,
or rather, you are stretched out glossy
and smiling like a good haul
where I pick sand from my belly button
and shade my iPad from the sun.
I see two gulls, eyeing up your Pimms
cocking their heads in angular decision,
I offer them some Smoked Salmon,
they ******, you shout which
spooks the birds who fly
away, yet together, gliding parallel.
You storm away, stamping sand in
drinks and electrics alike
but I am anchored here
watching the gulls flying duo
tied from their throats
and then their stomachs.
The more they want to pull away,
their bodies pull them closer
#family #love #relationships
Continue reading...
Antony Glaser Jun 2018
ferry across the Cam
picket fences
cricket on a Saturday on a vue,
bashful maidens drinking pimms
schoolboys stealing strawberries
and Swans swimming around and around
Continue reading...
Universe Poems Dec 2020
Cocktails and Dreams
Cocktails and, dreams,
reams and, reams,
of oblique fallen tiny,
stories, and, themes
Then a double filled,
with Pimms, mint,
and, strawberries,
as well as bright,
singing hymns,
toasts the dreams,
and, makes the themes,
into stories of couture,
seamed designer,
dreams

© 2020  Carol Natasha Diviney
Continue reading...
Donall Dempsey Jul 2020
I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW
I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW

I lived my life as if
I had been written
into a Barbara Pym novel

so prim and proper lady I
my soul smoother'd in camphor
yet my life...wot the mot hath got

and here I be
curled upon the Persian rug
in the foetal position

being born
into my dying
as it were

me an elaborate motif
beside an exquisite phoenix
oh the warp and woof of me

so this is death
rather nice
as these things go

not too much( ouch )pain
more easeful and slow and
when ya gotta go...ya...gotta go

rather like that Manx man
was it Brown...or...something
"...if thou couldst empty..." oh what is it?

"...all thy self of self
to be a shell dishabited..."
bit like ha ha that...innit( agghh )

wonder what an anthropologist
from...say...Borneo
would make of me

I'd guess I'd be
so quaintly ever so English
so cue-cumber sandwich

settling down with a Pimms and a Pym
being one of those Excellent Women
**** this dying....haven't even read the book

only got as far as
p.15...how mean
the great unread

the words sticking in my brain
something being "...a welcoming
sort of place...

with a bright entrance..."
as if Mr. Death were saying
"Why...that's what I am!"

"Yeah, yeah...sure sure'"
I answer all Film Noir
another of life's little pleasures

the stuffed bird
stares at me sternly
deigns to speak

"Now that you are going to be
as dead as me...may I
have a word?"

it coughs unaccustomed
as it is
to public speech

"It's not so bad
being dead
it's being stuffed that hurts!"

the cat joins in
with its customary "I'm starving...
ya couldn't open this tin?"

now the cat howls
oh to have opposable thumbs
or a can opener at least

the stuffed bird and the cat and I
singing along to Beverly Kenny
smiling from the record sleeve

"Oh this used to be
my favourite as a girl
'I Never Has Seen Snow."

"Oh the girl I used to be
she ain't me no more!"
I could always carry a tune

the stuffed bird can't
sing for nuts but
the cat's got a good tenor voice

me...I'm letting go
the world is walking out on me
the world don't want to know me no more

I've even forget
can you Adam and Eve it
how to spell... fo'c's'le

my garden looks in
the window at me
well here's a howdy do

I never was '...a lovesome thing..."
even when young
"God wot!"

hee hee hee T.E. Brown
appears to invade the mind
when one is dying

and what would that Borneo
anthropologist make of that
or my love of Jazz

grabbing the music
by the tail as it shape-shifts
improvises world upon world and beyond

oh to be dying
in a smokey jazz club
thoughts climbing a spiral staircase of smoke

"All that is...is not!"
now I wonder where
I got ha ha that

would the man from Borneo know
that is Phil Woods on
the Quincey Jones arrangement

"Oh I love sax me!
never could say the same
for ***

well - enough of that
better get on with
my death

and what better way to go
than with Beverly singing low
always thought I looked a bit like her

she smiles that record sleeve smile
the one I tried to sculpt
upon my own features

"I saw a new horizon
and a road to take me
where I wanted to be...needed to be.... took"

"God! I'm only starving!" yowls the cat
"Ya couldn't feed me before ya go...no
**** those...**** those cans!"

"Oh ****...oh ****!" she purrs
the record's...the record's...the record's
stuck
Continue reading...

— The End —