Rap

The problems with rap, which make it crap,
are monotonous rhythm and too much rhyme.
Although the ideas sometimes make sense,
both producers and product are just too dense.

Countdown

I assume that Rachel is well prepared

against the almost inevitable day / dee (Scots !)

when the chosen vowels and consonants

spell out the embarrassing  C  U  N  T.

At least these days it won't be as bad

as the fashionable unmentionable

N  i    g sh!   g hush!   e     r  !!

States of matter

A child's airy world
of infinite possibilities
slowly condenses to the flow
of adult probabilities
until solidifying to one
unwanted certainty.

Gin sling

There was an old lady from Lingfield

at a party who slipped and her gin spilled

all over her dress

much to her distress

and she wailed "What I need is a sling shield".

The girl at bar Savannah (with apologies to Antonio Carlos Jobim)

Tall and blonde and young and lovely

that girl at bar Savannah is dancing

and when she dances, the sight entrances the bar.

When she's there, she's such a mover

"she swings so cool and sways so easy"

that when she dances, she really lights up the bar.

"Oh . . . but I watch her so sadly."

How dare I tell her she's lovely ?

Oh . . . she will never care for me.

I'm such an old guy; she needs a young guy -

boyfriend then partner, husband then father.

Tall and blonde and young and lovely

the girl at bar Savannah is dancing

and when she dances, the sight entrances . . . me !

A marriage

Through the first decades your femaleness enthralled,

sexual intercourse the cherry on the cake.

In later years of course your freshness palled,

shared parenthood becoming the life we make

together and although coition has not stalled

urgency abates for both our comforts sake.

The last year we just clung together when cancer called.

Your death makes my life now no more than just a fake. 

Rolling in the deep

The water falling over the weir
has gouged a deep pool in the stream
where floating objects are often trapped
by the bubbling upswelling undertow.

A ball or apple sometimes bobs here
rolling forever it would seem
but a new-rain swollen current snaps
the invisible shackle. Then the flow

carries the freed captive nearer
the sea while the patient pool schemes
its next loth guest as the level laps
down to its usual low.

But today's new prisoner was quite bizarre -
a drowned adult hedgehog, legs and arms
spread stiffly akimbo like a star
rolling doll-like sideways tirelessly,
its distended belly flashing white
in a desperate pirouette of death
it could never achieve in life.