Thursday 4 October 2012

My new shirt



A weirdly-patterned Paisley relic
Pretending to be pyschedelic

First prize at the bad taste fair
As worn by the London cast of Hair

A ghastly mess of pink and brown
An empty theme park, now closed down

An eye-assaulting heart attack
An evolutionary cul-de-sac

A jarring garment at a disco
What straight men wear in San Francisco

A vicar trying to be cool
The boy you didn’t like school

A nylon-ruffled crooning dork
Playing a wine bar outside York

A drug tourist, a week-end raver
Travelling on a super saver

A night spent in a broken lift
An inappropriate wedding gift

A losing Eurovision song
A baked product that came out wrong

A dodgy batch of LSD
A poorly-written symphony

An STD, a weeping rash
A rusty motor bought for cash

The kind of military error
That sends men to their deaths in terror

You’re slightly colour blind, I know
And you are old, but even so

Is that what you really think?
That I would wear that shade of … pink

D’ you see me as a ballad singer
A cruise ship gigolo, a swinger?

A romeo in garish swirls
A terror with the office girls?

Like something sicked up after lunch
It is recycled that’s my hunch

It’s a mistake, it has to be
Why would you give that shirt to me?

3 comments:

pnother said...


i agree with your loathing
but this stuff's not clothing,

its not a sack
to wear on your back:

it's a technicolor yawn
for the new age dawn

an air freshener spray
for judgement day

it's the favourite thing
that made Maria sing

or (a very long shot)
it's some sort of rorschach blot.

or, maybe, it's a Bambi barbecue,
a Bugs Bunny road kill stew,

it's a fluffy toy for sure
(could be a paedophile's lure)

Tinkerbell's magic-potion,
a Flying Pony in perpetual motion

or one of the tie-dyed sheep
that puts Barbie to sleep...

but its not elemental:
definitely sentimental,

and it's not empowering,
more like deflowering.

and tho' we don't have to wear it
we all have to grin and bear it.






willh said...

Like it P. Glad you are enjoying your shirt Cath!

willh said...

If I recall the shirt that you prevented me from wearing was torn and crumpled. You were right!