Friday 31 August 2018

Grease Slighting



Always on the wrong foot
From the wrong side of the bed
Will preach a vitriolic gripe
Spout comments better left unsaid
In a scratchy broken record rut
Repeating what remains behind
To leave you reeling with the feeling
How slight the sleight side is defined
A remorseless table turner
Sham double-dealing underhand
To mock eschew your point of view
Then leave you legless where you stand
For them, it’s not the argument
Nor hot pursuit of how things are
But dagger jabs and poison stabs
Sharp retorts that leave a scar

Thursday 30 August 2018

Supercilious


With automatic eyebrows
Left or right self-raising
Objecting to the lower types
Denying well earned praising
Hoity-toity undermining
Disapproving with a squint
Preserving order in the lesser place
Among the menial stint
Without merit wearing dead men shoes
Has risen by default
By snobbery soaked in ignorance
And good fortune’s catapult 

Wednesday 29 August 2018

Ostensibly



On the face of it the reason’s sound
No need to dish up dirty slop
Where what is said is plausible
Until the greater heights let drop
Newsprint guys may catch a scent
Of clues to twig in hot pursuit
Where seemingly the answer’s in
A pirate chest of rustled loot
Champagne glasses smugly raised
Patted backs are slapped all round
For those besieged in guarded bastions
Live trinket lives extremely found

Tuesday 28 August 2018

Here Is the Weather



Weather is
a time machine
That holds the future
and the past
Connected by
a set of rules
Predicting nothing due
can last
Its route was changed
by yesterday
Which never settled
as it should
Before tomorrow
trying something new
Arranged our
future neighbourhood
So, in the end,
today we see
Stampeding out
of fixed effects
A raging force
on a pre-set course
Where the past designed
what’s next

Monday 27 August 2018

Rubbish Rant


The guilty game of laying blame
On the common shopping sack
Believe taxation will deter
Those who dump and don’t look back
The Litter-Lout will throw about
Empty packets nonetheless
Habitual discard trashy lobs
Lawless chumps who don’t care less
Plastic bags are made by billionaires
Who carry-off enormous cash
Spewing out their mass production
So generating bags of trash
Taxation is the government way
To maximise collection
Squeezing dry the little guy
Who takes no part in dereliction
Plastic bags for free have never been
Hid in costs per item paid
Oceans have been laid to waste
With rot-free rubbish human-made
So let us face the facts responsibly
By plastic bag eradication
Stop producing toxic carriers
And packaging contamination

Saturday 25 August 2018

Odd Goings On

Closet cupboard lover

There’s a cupboard in the cellar
In the murky musty gloom
Where unsavoury dust has settled
In the misplaced futile room
This tunnel to neglected voids
Now sealed forever out of sight
Has a lonely twice trod footprint
Where dejection stayed one night
For here the memories disappeared
No longer speaking to the bones
In this cupboard where the skeleton
Hangs out among the undertones

Thursday 23 August 2018

SKY HIGH CLUB


I suffer aeronautic ears
That block and bubble when I fly
Affecting sounds of simple words
From my telly tuned to Sky

Not content with reading lips
Half-heard crucial narratives
Pleading with my wife to tell
The missing detail on what gives

Sadly though quite recently
She says her ears no longer prone
To pick up on the plot I’ve lost
Nor doesn’t hear me when I moan

“What was that? What did they say?”
She cocks a deaf-un to my pleas
As I rewind or turn the volume up
To louder muffled mysteries

Then suddenly it dawns on me
As though an omen caught my eye
I phone for technical support
Get through to Damien at Sky

Explaining that it’s murder here
Our sound has got the evil eye
We cannot quite believe our ears
You little devil tell us why

I could feel him staring down the phone
As I made clear my earie state
When Damien warbled “Luvvly Jubbly
I can fix that for you mate”

He offered me a one-off deal
To lift the wicked hex that blocks
From here on I will hear it all
Because I bought the sky sound box

No more malignant evenings
No Raven spitting feathers curse
The hateful muffles exorcized
That put my lugholes in reverse

That Damien is a smoothie 
He'll earn a fortune flogging wares
Why not move to Rodney's Peckham pad
Sky-bound next years millionaires


Many thanks to Damien at Sky for lifting the dark cloud of malevolent sound creeping out of our TV. If I had a good cartoon I would use it in this post.

Copyright ©  C K Letts  Year Posted 2018

Certain Changes



Every time a tale retells itself
Adding characters to each scene
Storyline connections stretch
Into landscapes unforeseen
Springtime is where the here begins
To write a contract with the cast 
Its optimistic narrative
Denies authority to the past
Summer is the nurture glade
Full of airborne shimmering treasure
Enticing all to join the feast
Indulge the ecstasy of pleasure
Autumn  hangs a threadbare curtain
Brought down on summer's stage
Time draws near to write the year
On the white of winters page 

Copyright ©  C K Letts  Year Posted 2017

Wednesday 22 August 2018

The Cusp At Hand




When my pen is indecisive
However much I try
All the words that struggle through
Too heavyweight to fly
Sitting gaping in a blur
Hoping something comes along
As I look out impatiently 
Letting slight ideas float on
Leading edges in my margin notes
Inklings dancing jeeringly
Withering my sense of I know what
Refracting angles blind to me
Insinuating lack of depth
Tenuous plots transparent thin
Ever hoping something other will
Turn up a spanking brand-new spin
Onward then persistently
Digging deep not snatching straws
As I anticipate my nib
Yet again I stamp on flaws

I cobbled this together after watching Ian Macmillan on Countryfile  BBC 1 Countryfile the link will expire in 19-days


Tuesday 21 August 2018

The Rhyme Bandit


 
A long time ago I wrote a rhyme
Without any outward aim
And since that time so many more
Rhyme became my writing game
I’d love to tell you why I do
Explain the purpose of my bidding
As if my motive was a master plan
And if I did I would be kidding
Could they be a moment framed
Or trite imaginings with frills
Introductions to the stuff I see
Or when enthrallment overspills
Well if that’s true then why a rhyme
A kind of runaway quatrain
My stanza lone when couplet prone
The curse of verse graffiti’s stain
But looking back I know these rhymes
Have purged the inner me I find
In a land where I  can’t understand
The shy inside my inner mind

Monday 20 August 2018

Ultimate Weather


Coastal squalls a seagull calls
Let’s fold away and rest
Find shelter in a windbreak hide
Haven's flight free comfort nest
The air is full of weather stress
Thermal spires collapse
Counteracting sinew energy
Gauntlet runs haphazard traps
Waiting in whilst waiting out
Persistent forceful hurricane
Howling streams electric screams
The natural norm is now insane
Fortress guardians send messages
Killing time 'til  storms retreat
Seagulls test their wingspan lift
Where driving hunger must compete

Sunday 19 August 2018

Short and Tweet


Sitting perched in readiness
To sing out to the world
Whistling messages harmonious
That tweet and peep to be unfurled
Tuning in responsively
To other perch replies
Who having passed the idea on
A two-way street of feather flies
Not every birdie flocking here
Will share a squeaker’s corner view
Cordially in tweet pursuit
With magpie eyes on silver hue
The chorus rarely synchronised
Many droppings random land
Though some will meet the tweet repeat
Among the stormy clouds of sand

Saturday 18 August 2018

My Best Guess



Sitting still at Action Station
Feeling change is on the way
No sign yet from which direction
Prevailing winds will have their say
A window pane is softly muttering
Emerging slowly from deep sleep
Doorways pulse in measured tempo
Discarded wrappers scratch and creep
For the future makes an early play
Giving hints on its position
Revealing riddles to the weather eye
Who must react to each decision
Rearrangements bounce like lotto balls
Leaps of faith that swirl at will
As excitement reaches fever pitch
Taking turns to tease and thrill

Friday 17 August 2018

My Day Friday


Friday isn’t Friday yet
Until the afternoon
When all last minute must do’s
Are no longer table-strewn
Tidied up and stashed in drawers
The stumped and do next week’s
Thoughts of being in control
A weekend full of aimless peaks
Our Friday friend is standing by
To opens doors on our way out
To breathe the air of devil may care
As we repair to showing out

Thursday 16 August 2018

Bearing in Mind



A thoughtful headed human
With abundant power to think
Looks two ways at everything
Therefore always on the brink
Seeing and absorbing crams
Alternate ways of scanning
Based on where it stands at times
Subject to attentive planning
It’s not enough to sit around
And wait for something in the news
A thoughtful head finds time to spare
New ways replacing long held views

Wednesday 15 August 2018

In Addition Too

I'm counting on you


Counting on numbers
One through to ten
Using fingers and thumbs
Nimble trim tallymen
Trustworthy and fixed
Intact and complete
Numerically pointed
Gliding abacus feat
Overall assistants
Number crunchers true
Yielding answers simply
One-on-one as they do
United they stand hand on hand

Copyright © C K Letts Year Posted 2018



Tuesday 14 August 2018

Occasionally


Laughter lines of yesterday
Once a guardian of your smile
Kept the funny side of sunny side
Held merry going for a while
How we laughed at simple silliness
Cheerful tears oozed from our eyes
Before the easy ways lost painless days
And took away that sweet disguise
Hearing strains of chosen good time songs
Relived in photograph reminds
Retelling magic legend chronicles
Our final feature film rewinds

Monday 13 August 2018

Did I Say That

Based on a set of five essays on memory
as broadcast on BBC Radio 3 - 26
th Jan 2018

In muddled games of 'hide and seek'
Announcing past stuff I recall
Recollecting states of hand me downs
Where I am never sure at all

Conversations in my childhood
My only clue those photographs
A comic book of joke existences 
Long day summer blue-sky laughs

Now that I come to think of it
As more and more I try to do
These misty steamed up memories
No longer let me think them through

How do I know what makes me up
Among my route maps misdirected
Like headlines of my past passed by
In cutting rooms of things rejected

A shopping bag less missing items
Where absent minds can’t repossess  
Something needed from that other room
I know not what and cannot guess


I originally wrote this on my blog Timely Rhymes Link to Timely Rhymes

Sunday 12 August 2018

Breakfast Love



Serve a breakfast to your love

Use the largest eggs you’ve got

Nestle up with crispy toast

Drizzled honey hits the spot

Add a  gentle morning compliment

Your loving cup a hot teapot


Chip Buffet



Marina has a chip shop
Peddles crackling roes in batter
A swimming dish of hot dipped fish
For the crispy sea-fare platter
Vessel shaped her sail-in chips
A nibble take-out for your lunch
Seaside sea-air hand to mouth
Abundant mushy pleasing munch
Find a wall or friendly bench
Create a table laid in lap
Fish and chip shop specialty
Alfresco gourmandize on tap

Friday 10 August 2018

For A Moment



We are the pixel pieces
In some unknown picture show
Making up each tiny shape
So many pixels we don’t know
Now and then we get in touch
With others in our shade
Who add a new dimension
Refreshing patterns up for trade
We are the parts of bigger pictures
Border lines in paintbrush games 
A cinematograph of trace and shade
Found in reels of zoomed in frames

Thursday 9 August 2018

Ready Reckoning



When everything was said and done
No more doing left to do
Too late to snatch at one last straw
Or need to change that point of view

The die was cast and setting fast
Silence growing day by day
The last train left three weeks ago
Before that final flag display

The game was up but no one cheered
For the future ended here
Washed away in  molten ice
No saving graceful charioteer 

Peacefully a one last bubble popped
Mountain peaks lay deep below
A pregnant pause as all the natural laws
Refreshed themselves again to grow

Wednesday 8 August 2018

Dad



That timeless picture hanging 
Behind our homestead entrance door
Harking back to olden days
No carpets on the flagstone floor
All sat together by one fireplace 
Home service BBC
Three jumpers and a cardigan
The outside loo and freezing pee
You couldn’t sit there whingeing 
Things could be worse by far
“So lick your plate be glad you ate
Take the jug I need a jar”

Tuesday 7 August 2018

Dither and Wither



Winter with its lack of warmth
Competes with summer without ice
A living battle to console our clothes
For contentment at a price
Challenged by our life’s extremes
On mettle testing escapades
Swing pendulums to furthest points
Where ‘the either or’ pervades
At the absolutes of precipice
We must heed our warning voice
If by being here we’re unprepared
We find there is no other choice

Monday 6 August 2018

Shot Sighted

Pete the six-gun poet
Snipes a hot quip from the hip
In the firing line a turn of phrase
From a whiplash cutting lip
His bullet points convincing
Piercing any hard-edged shield
Where hidden lah-di-dah's reside
Will force a high horse humbled yield 
Not a one for taking prisoners
Who hide behind the get out clause
Confronted with no hiding place
Felled by caustic pellet spores

Sunday 5 August 2018

Rhymeatism

  
I have no business being here
I have no goods to sell
My twitter feed is scattered seed
A raft that floats the current swell
If by chance you read a line
Which takes you to another thought
No need to pay just have your say
Maybe an idea that you sought
Keep an eye out for a word surprise
Let it fill your ragged sacks
See light glow in your picture frame
Lay back - look in - relax

Saturday 4 August 2018

By the Book



They’re changing many do’s and don’ts
To cope with new uncovered lacks
Where shortfalls showed up shortages
Pinpointing drop-throughs in the cracks
All things considered good or bad
Have been rewritten to replace
Poor construction misconceptions
That have bearings on each case
Precedents that once held court
Have lost positions as good guides
Replaced by standards more secure
Until amendment sub-divides
Best practice claims high quality
Forbidding points where lines are crossed
Whilst the money men find other ways
Spotting loopholes dodging cost

Friday 3 August 2018

Scarborough Times

2018

Riding open top to Scarborough bays
Out on gusting Seaview lanes
Just being there in tranquil air
Relaxed and carefree no restrains
Seagull flaunts in graceful flight
Their sky-high peaks and swooping lows
Recounting primal mournful poetry
In speckled bursts of sunset glows 
Here we capture timeless moments 
Recalled in far flung other fields
Where picture postcard recollections
Hold fast our deep emotive yields

Thursday 2 August 2018

The Jokes Are On Me


 Funny things will happen
When you’re on your merry way
Triggering a dwell upon
“You’ll never guess” I say, I say 
Amusing tales that fascinate
Elaborated for the ear
Of those who like to hang on words
That get beneath a cool veneer
Did you hear or have you heard
Long gone lost comedic primes
Replaced by mono-logic quips
Tremendous laughing story lines
Crowds that meet to be amused
Sharing insights from each pun
Comic strips and streaming eyes
Diverting fast lives on the run

Wednesday 1 August 2018

Drains

 
Just passing through

Wash away receptacles
Removing the discarded
In conduits and ditches
To the elsewhere disregarded
Filtering detritus streams
A natural top-soil macerator 
Softening the decomposed
A sluice refining generator
Without a churning liquidiser
Reconstituting left behinds
Life would romp in stagnant swamps
And re-imagine different kinds