Showing posts with label response. Show all posts
Showing posts with label response. Show all posts

Cheesecake: The Prequel

Wake up, late.
Dry mouth.
Morning after the house warming party before state
and yawning, stretch.
Slight retch
at tequila backwash acid.
Heavy lids
downstairs skid
past poltergeist pong of
overnight guests’ evacuations
exposing pot pourri’s limitations
and push open kitchen door.
Thirsty.
Detritus of guests
abandoned cups,
abandoned hats
for poetry and otherwise
plates on sides.
Kettle on: click
then the comforting promise of
pkchkchkchkchkchkch
as dry lips are licked in anticipation
of culmination
of delayed gratification.
Made three days previous
(and left out too long) grievous
sin to waste it though,
Too good to throw away.
Chocolate sprinkles, biscuit base,
New York style. The last piece placed
back on the shelf
in the fridge by itself
next to orange juice. Healthy.
A hangover cure.
Oh blessed breakfast, mon amour!
I reach for fridge door
stand on sticky spiky tines.
Raspy swearing cough
and hop
and hold my toe as I
sideways go
and fall against spillage stained sideboard.
Who would leave a fork on the floor
next to the fridge?
Grumpily slump
retrieve fork from floor
and squint.
What’s that?
Between tobacco stained finger and chipped painted thumb?
A crumb.
Suspicion aroused
fridge door open flung
 to reveal:


Someone’s eaten my cheesecake!

                                                                                                                                         

My good friend Bill Strutt wrote a poem about cheesecake which is often requested and always performed with great aplomb. I wrote this in his style, in tribute to all the fantastic work he does to introduce poetry to people on a daily basis.
 Bill has a great, deep growly voice which lends itself to characterisation, storytelling and the gift of the gab. An incorrigible poetry pusher, he can often be found performing at different events and open mics across the island. I urge you to experience his skill.

She Swore

She swore that she would love him
for better or for worse.
From the wedding carriage
to the funeral hearse.

She swore that she would love him
for richer or poorer
and wealth is measured many ways;
money's not important for her.

She swore that she would love him
to have and to hold
but his mind is playing tricks.
He doesn't remember growing old.

She swore that she would love him
in sickness and in health
but this damned disease is stealing him
insidious in stealth.

She swore that she would love him
to love and to cherish.
To watch him wither while alive
leaves on happy years a blemish.

She swore that she would love him
until death did them part
and although she does and he still lives
it's with a broken heart.

She swore that she would love him
til his bones were naught but dust
and alone she works to comfort him
and doesn't want a fuss.

The Dinner Ladies in the Chronic Canteen

"The dinner ladies in the chronic canteen
serve up portions; big, small and green.
They dole out rations of little yellow pills
and smartie-count to pay the bills"

Privy to knowledge that would make others squirm
We know how to be patient and when to be firm.
We sweat in the Summer and freeze in the Winter
but here is darkly comic. It's Irvine Welsh, not Pinter.
Our own peculiarities seem normal by comparison
to our regulars who haunt the place with dead eyes and abandonment.
Our unbecoming uniforms are shabby at their best
(and as there's nothing nice to say, I won't describe the rest).

"The dinner ladies in the chronic canteen
serve up portions; big, small and green.
They dole out rations of little yellow pills
and smartie-count to pay the bills".

For each and every script we cross, the most we can is done.
And amidst abuse, disease and death, that "thank you" is hard won.
We work to bones day in, day out and wake at four in the morning
from drug addled dreams from incidental exposure and professional doubts a-gnawing.
We face each day with optimism and a damn-strong caffiene crutch
to kick those clouding dreams away and whimsy into touch.
When an error costs a life we can't afford to drift along.
This is an "elementary service job"?
You couldn't be more wrong.

"The dinner ladies in the chronic canteen
serve up portions; big, small and green.
They dole out rations of little yellow pills
and smartie-count to pay the bills".