a kick up the candlemas

stroll beyond the doldrums

with a springy step

      ladder as the adders stir

      mugs of cup-a-soup

cock-a-hoop’s an oversell

but the day is butterballs

      either or a creaking door

      breathing in the shapes

shifting after shivering

dogs become cats

      catkins purring

      in the morning wood

if proper poets could

gather up these scatters

      should the thicket throb

      with extra gorse – of course

as pampas grass swings

in a gimpy breeze

      – more tea vicar?

      so the crocus croak

february is feathery

in the second’s pastures

      presently the hills & plains

    sunbeams & tractors

( my true love is a munter )

the furrows that you plough
above the frowning sight
of your siamese eyebrow

singular it sits
above your eyepatch
& your left red stare

a snorting snout
& a marmite brown mouth
– actual cauliflowers

as your ears
so hope disappears
yet the rest endears

a crotch so fishy
that even andrew windsor
would sweat

the traces of soup
upon the handlebars
of your lady moustache

& a bosom so south
that penguins nest
on your nipples

the hair on your palms
– on your lovely lady arms
& arse

– phwoar

whatever happened to the monkeypox apocalypse?

i thought we’d all be dead
but bugger all instead

i’ve checked under the bed
& rummaged in the attic

you’re not on t.v’s snooze
your old house is deserted

your flowerbed is thistles
the lawn is only earth

i’m on the cocoa pops
my third bowl in a row now

& yet my skin is smooth
like an eel on groovin’ bass

i’ve plunged the kitchen sink
& wondered were you real

or never really there
like the missing link?

perhaps a plot hole
or a cheeky cul-de-sac?

my favourite baddy
from season two-m twenty two?

better than the flu
& better lines too

you were the one
but the pantomime plays on

an open letter to most popular & thoroughly modern poets

dear darling stars

of this modern poetry

      we, the proper wrong’uns

      with rants in our pants

the scum of the erm

the gum on the sole

      of your muse’s shoe

      the muse of snoozing off

of popular you

who redefines purple

      & gets away with cliché

      because the bots love it

the flesh & the code

plus current thing platitudes

      & suckles on the tit

      of normalzzz shit

or some lovely words

about the hills & flowers

      or some boxes ticked

      ( you’re quilling in their survey )

well, you fucking bells

we exist as well

      underneath the bright

      of your brilliant bilge

as your roses a ring

we, the gobshites sing

seven thanks

thanks for the poem
– i only read the first line
& then fell asleep

thanks for the photo
of your left elbow
smothered in marmite

thanks for bathing with me
in a tub of tinned spaghetti
for fun – not charity

thanks for the salad
september’s semaphore
cheesecake commissar

thanks for the arsenic
i whoopsy daisy spilled
instead of drank

thanks for the scotch egg
– i should see soon
what’s hatching out

thanks for the magic beans
within seven days
they’ll no doubt – sprout

my lucky penny

oh, my lucky penny

was found on a dung heap

as lightning struck

up the hairy anus cheeks

of brown fingered me

on the cusp of world war three

or so the papers claim

as the mad wind howled

& a big branch fell

from a silver birch tree

& snared us like a hare

with concussion for good measure

so it rained dead crows

& the new moon laughed

at my lucky penny

& lucky old me