Why do you mock me
With your mock Tudor façade,
Surburban semi?
Category Archives: poetry
One day
One day
the Wordle word
will be frond
And rejoice
shall we,
for the Wordle word
was frond
A word of which,
we’re fond.
Love email
I received an email from my love.
It ended in four sweet words, beautiful in their simplicity:
“Get Outlook for Android”.
Foul language
You must not cuss
at the Job Centre Plus
Neither should you swear
at the Pull & Bear
Do not eff or blind
in a branch of Mind
And utter no profanity
In an HMV
Now, they mainly sell posters and T-shirts there,
But still, watch your fucking language, yeah?
Buslets
Since moving to london I have been an avid bus rider (which is a bit like being Knight Rider given that similar to KIIT buses do talk to you in a robotic voice via their announcements).
Anyway, here are some couplets I’ve composed over the years about the various routes I’ve taken. If anyone from TfL is reading this do feel free to incorporate them into the onboard announcements for each route.
Feeling naughty
On the number 40
In the mix
On the 176
I come alive
On the 185
So fresh, so clean
On the P13
Halfway to heaven
On the 197
Heroes unsung
On the 171
Beyond my ken
On the 410
Can you guess from the above whereabouts I live and have lived in London?
When a careers advisor advises you to advise on careers
All careers advisors
are cursed
to advise on careers
until they meet someone
they know in their bones
should be a careers advisor.
They advise them as much,
the spell is broken,
and they are free.
Open Windows
The view from this window will linger
long after the tenancy ends
on this flat-bound
locked down year.
I sit and stare from this window
at a cat facing their own front door,
as trains slide in and out of the station
to and from the city’s depths,
with laboured, whirring, mechanical breath.
I sit and stare from this window,
as many have and do – it’s nothing new!
You know they sit and stare
in places where idle time is a welcome break
from back-breaking labour.
Not in endless supply,
to plaster over with
mocked up, locked down busyness:
calls, catch-ups, one-to-ones,
Zoom quizzes, cocktails, online ‘fun’.
I sit and stare from this window,
a faceless form caught up
in someone else’s view, perhaps.
Or more likely, no one’s looking.
London I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
Something for the fruit flies;
something for the pain:
a little pill – 20mg
to get me through each day.
Another rat has appeared
dead beneath the sink;
I sink into my overdraft
to get my round of drinks.
Now my body doesn’t look
like a young man’s does
from sitting in an office,
two hours on the bus.
So when will I grow up,
and what will I become?
Being twenty in your thirties
is not really so much fun.
Undergrad
The parties, the kebabs,
the late night chats
in corridors, in halls,
with unadorned walls.
The confidantes, the friends
I’ll never meet again.
The growing, its pains,
the drugs and drinking games.
The laughter, the drama,
the election with Obama.
The marches and the demos,
now all photos,
mementoes.
Encrypted Moments
You said on a certain site
that you missed
a certain someone.
Your friends replied with jokes
I didn’t understand.
Was it your new boo
one of them mentioned,
a week or so ago?
That writing on your wall
took me somewhere unfamiliar:
a metropolis,
high rises towering,
windowpanes reflective,
security guards stood sentry
in opulent doorways.
Do they look out inside?
I cannot see them.
Yet fortunes
have been made,
from the words
we have all written.
I long for something true.
Like your hot tears
on my naked back,
the first time
I tried to end things
between us.
No one knows
how that felt
except the me
that was with you
in those encrypted moments,
that sped by
at fibre-optic speed,
one by one by one.
Dick Denham 