Narrow-waisted natty suit
Uninvited interjects
Hovering as bold as brass
All table manners disrespect
Anywhere you care to go
They’ve got there long before you
But found the ice is not so nice
Unlike penguins and the bears do
Though generally if not denied
When coming by they swing
Please don’t cuss or flap and fuss
They are the masters of the sting
Laying easy on a quiet day
Letting hours drift up like smoke
Not asking anything of my respite
Not finding reasons to provoke
Mulling mildly on my comfort
With no pressing needs or strain
Sometimes life can be like that
Little moments without pain
No need to make a rush of it
This kind of tranquil rarely calls
Like chewing cud in common ground
Well away from turbulent squalls
TWENTY bridges from Tower to Kew -
Wanted to know what the River knew,
Twenty Bridges or twenty-two,
For they were young, and the Thames was old
And this is the tale that River told:-
"I walk my beat before London Town,
Five hours up and seven down.
Up I go till I end my run
At Tide-end-town, which is Teddington.
Down I come with the mud in my hands
And plaster it over the Maplin Sands.
But I'd have you know that these waters of mine
Were once a branch of the River Rhine,
When hundreds of miles to the East I went
And England was joined to the Continent.
"I remember the bat-winged lizard birds,
The Age of Ice and the Mammoth Herds,
And the giant tigers that stalked them down
Through Regent's Park into Camden Town.
And I remember like yesterday
The earliest Cockney who came my way,
When he pushed through the forest that lined the Strand,
With paint on his face and a club in his hand.
He was death to feather and fin and fur.
He trapped my beavers at Westminster.
He netted my salmon, he hunted my deer,
He killed my heron off Lambeth Pier.
He fought his neighbour with axes and swords,
Flint or bronze, at my upper fords,
While down at Greenwich, for slaves and tin,
The tall Phoenician ships stole in,
And North Sea war-boats, painted and gay,
Flashed like dragonflies, Erith way;
And Norseman and Negro and Gaul and Greek
Drank with the Britons in Barking Creek,
And life was gay, and the world was new,
And I was a mile across at Kew!
But the Roman came with a heavy hand,
And bridged and roaded and ruled the land,
And the Roman left and the Danes blew in -
And that's where your history books begin!"
Rudyard Kipling
From Burton on Trent to Bermondsey
A tastebud tickle commonsensical
Our finest dine accessories
Ploughman’s luncheon stereotypical
Summer wine or swilled with ale
Puts a rudder to your cheddar
Adding verve this finest conserve
To crusty roll a premium spreader
Never ever serve a second-best
There is no near or hypothetical
To bring cheer to naked platters
Bring out the Branston Pickle
Down below the conscious level
Sinking slowly into sleep
Floating inside everywhere
Down into dusky steep
Faintness from a bodily form
Liquescent and diluted
Lost and imperceptible
Spatially convoluted
Fading into half-existence
Subsiding through dimensions
Reincarnation fast returning
Without question or contention
To be apprised and well-advised
Discover what you need to know
Looking out for hidden things
Not down to earth on show
On the street to seek the low-down
And be among the counted few
Where nods winks and glassy clinks
Demand to know those secrets new
In between the whispered questions
Hush-hush enigmas never show
Detained by so long judgements
The shortest sentence utters NO!
The ‘um’ is undeciding
A pregnant pause induced
Waiting for continuance
Where meaning is deduced
Hanging in abeyance
Where hesitation rests awhile
Intuition may not help at all
In guessed impression style
For lapses lacking focus
Among delays in interludes
Implication makes its entrance
And successively intrudes
Pitching Runes and rolling dice
Shuffling tarot cards
As if a life unknown is known
Fortunes hinted with regards
A glass placed on an Ouija board
Anticipating spirit chatter
Golden rings on silken thread
Implied in spinning swinging scatter
Reading futures palm supposed
What has been and what will be
Groundless for the credulous
Who trusts in unbelievably
Hostage in a frameless field
Cornered in the open air
No sign of jailer boundaries
No chance to be elsewhere
Perspectives vanish into vapour
Lacking references at hand
Splitting distances of travel lines
Mixing blends of sea and land
Evaporation making changes
To the falling inundation
A deluge inescapable
Affecting hostage perturbation
