"putney" poems
There was an old person of Putney,
Whose food was roast spiders and chutney,
Which he took with his tea,
Within sight of the sea,
That romantic old person of Putney.
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I am waiting for a twenty two.
Two eleven's have past but they will not do
from Piccadilly to Putney
home in time for ham,cheese and chutney
and here it comes.
Humming along brum brum brum
get on the bus
swipe the card
not too hard
taking a seat take the weight of my feet
and in the air from up the stairs the smell of food
someone is chewing on chicken
******* on bones
the women in front are gabbling in phones
and the child behind cries
I've dropped my fries
then an old lady slips on these crispy fried chips
and the bus comes to a halt.
The driver jumps up
screaming this isn't my fault.
Not my day at all
just wanted to get home with no smell of chicken
no phones in my face
but now I'm stuck in the bus
face to face
with the realisation that Putney and ham with cheese and Chutney
is slipping away.
No
not my day at all.
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 2:37 AM UTC
River boats float along,
up and down
from side to side,
Putney to
Rotherhithe
all this
stems from the Thames
the arterial tree
for the sailor in me the Thames will do
on a flat bottomed barge
muddling through to
St Katherine's and Tobacco dock, to
Tower bridge and make a stop
Ferries and Wherries and
waterways
days on the Thames
making friends
with the mudlarks, the spivs
the preachers, the sharks
all parts of the stem
a branch of the tree
life is for me from
the Thames to the sea.
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 1:20 AM UTC
You'd better run boys,the fires will come boys and burn you out,girls who would flaunt regulations to haunt you will burn along with you,the night's turning blue and the fire's burning black.
Jack who was Tom's mate unaware of his own fate booked a passage to Paris with Maryss, his wife.
It was Hogarth who painted the ****** and the tainted in the liberty of gardens,men hiding their hard ons,paragons of chastity and chasing the mollies to ****** their follies,how jolly it seemed to the Queen of the boardwalks who listened to wild talks and ate turkey and ham,
Shakespeare was saddened,Marlowe quite maddened by the fayre and the stew houses where blouses were shed and doxies were led like little lambs to the slaughter,and the daughters of Satan who were dressed in fine satin,sat in the background watching this fairground.
Then the curse of the cutpurse was cast all about them,men scurried away quickly to the ferries for Putney and Pepys wrote in his diary,
'hahaha the fire didn't get me'
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 8:41 PM UTC
If spirits can walk the earth after life ends,
Or even before, to soar in flights unhindered
By physics, let me dance then!
To reel, arms out, on a vivid green lawn
In a garden before a comfortable house,
Where lush flowers grow and summer reigns,
Touching rows of Constable trees that tower, emerald,
And violet-shadowed even at noon or painted
In twilight, soft before a rising moon.
I would skip over roads and find that field
That lies, protective, above the Connecticut,
Watching as it winds lazily northward.
Then, being sure that all is right,
That the corn is tall and full,
I would speed up to a rounded hill
Above a Victorian barn in Leyden,
Ten acres of rye grass for the cows.
I would stand at the summit and gaze
Far away, down the sleeping valley in its haze,
To the little towns and glittering in
The sun, my alma mater, towers
Of attempted wisdom, of spires and dreams.
Then I might then bathe in a little lake
Where I once romped with friends
After a wedding, **** and laughing
While puzzled farmers watched and leered.
As before I would flee to the river that wound
Down between the hills, splashing through
Pools in shade and sun, basking on smooth stone
Whose marbled veins glow in the canyon light,
Remnants of an ancient era, of pressure and time.
Then on I’d go, bounding from one hilltop to another,
Turning north from the cesium-laced Deerfield,
Passing Vermont’s border to stroll the streets
Of Brattleboro, Putney and Newfane.
I might find a canoe and glide up the West River,
Somehow floating above the rapids and dam,
To rest on the flat water as the sun sets,
Skimming lightly, watching the trout rise
To sip dancing insects or hear the splash
Of a bass as it flicks the surface with its tail.
And then I would sit with the ones I love,
Silently, breathing in the mist that rises
As the sun slips below the hills;
Sunset-colored, elliptical echoes
Catch the low swells like waving glass.
I would wait here until morning returns,
Not ready to leave this beauty or the world.
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 12:09 PM UTC
Last time was this time that time, but next time like the first time we met the first time
gets better.
We set sprats to catch mackerel and fish for compliments while the whales sit on couches and watch television, repeats and retreats and it beats me how the sea cow gives no milk.
But this time brings time into focus again and I rise with the dawn to bring the then into now and the day limbers up as I do my bit and sit down for a tea, a cigarette lit, a cough with a wheeze, two Weetabix please and this time gets better every time that I'm sat here.
She comes about ten and by then things are done, the plates have been washed, the laundry is hung and we wait for a bus, the ten twenty-three,
to Putney, and on the heath, there we will be
like the last time but this time,
I remember the first time I met her when I thought to myself that this could get better and it did,
so you see,
while sprats catch a mackerel or is it the other way round it all follows on and back on dry ground you're bound to make a connection in the mystery of the lines that cross in and out of those times last the last times.
Apr 26, 2015
Apr 26, 2015 at 5:48 AM UTC
I found myself in Putney
after many stupid years.
It was a worthless day
before spring comes with all its biting powers.
There was nothing there in Putney
but that February hearse
and all the villainy of incredible memory
born out of pointless love and hope that blackmails.
There was traffic there, that endless vicious fume
of noise; and litter blowing pointlessly;
savage parents; hard and worried kids;
the thundering mess of London all around;
a hop of sparrows on that pointless ground.
I found myself in Putney
where I lost myself so many stupid years ago,
and by that withered house a withered love arose.
“Ah, love,” I whispered, “why have you arisen?”
“You acknowledge me?” she said.
“Of course,” I answered.
“Put your arm across my breast,” she said.
“Touch my still hair. Weep plentifully.
“Let your poor heart break. Strike here across my cheek
“To know what you have lost.”
“My love,” I whispered, “why have you arisen?”
(From the withered house the years were toppling.)
“Stupid questions from a stupid man.
“You loved me and you lost me.”
Then the roar of London hurt my head.
I saw a man go down a street
Where no street was, where no man was.
Nov 30, 2017
Nov 30, 2017 at 10:51 AM UTC
I found myself in Putney
after many stupid years.
It was a worthless day
before spring comes with all its biting powers.
There was nothing there in Putney
but that February hearse
and all the villainy of incredible memory
born out of pointless love and hope that blackmails.
There was traffic there, that endless vicious fume
of noise; and litter blowing pointlessly;
savage parents; hard and worried kids;
the thundering mess of London all around;
a hop of sparrows on that pointless ground.
I found myself in Putney
where I lost myself so many stupid years ago,
and by that withered house a withered love arose.
“Ah, love,” I whispered, “why have you arisen?”
“You acknowledge me?” she said.
“Of course,” I answered.
“Put your arm across my breast,” she said.
“Touch my still hair. Weep plentifully.
“Let your poor heart break. Strike here across my cheek
“To know what you have lost.”
“My love,” I whispered, “why have you arisen?”
(From the withered house the years were toppling.)
“Stupid questions from a stupid man.
“You loved me and you lost me.”
Then the roar of London hurt my head.
I saw a man go down a street
Where no street was, where no man was.
Nov 30, 2017
Nov 30, 2017 at 7:03 PM UTC
Does it make you tingle when a lovely young lady says,
hey are you single, do you fancy a night at the flicks?
and after a coffee at her place,
your face says it all.
what would you call it?
a bit of luck that the nip and tuck pulled your paunch in,
thin and lean
you know what I mean
a screen on the green and a salad dish.
Like a fish out of water
I caught a
bus to Hackney
sadly
she was in Putney and
I never saw her at all,
perhaps I will see her in
some cinema feature
at the Odeon cinema
next week.
Oct 13, 2016
Oct 13, 2016 at 2:02 PM UTC