Friday 16 August 2013

A new fruit


Blackberry is in decline
Soon, there’ll be a gap in my suit
Business has dried up, it’s lost its shine
It’s been replaced by a new fruit
Teenagers have stopped pinging
Cos Apple has shown them how
To put the fun into ringing –
(We are all children now)
The savvy iPhone does the biz
It’s a lifestyle in your pocket
It can show you where Orion is
To play music, you can dock it
At one time, Blackberry was king
Now it’s shrivelled, it’s last year’s thing

Wednesday 14 August 2013

It's a smash



This [film/book/song] is the hit of the year
Merely a catalogue of repetition
Its lack of ambition is clear
It makes no imposition
It refuses to light fires
It is explicit in its limitations
The banality of its desires
Carefully, it lowers expectations
Then limbos beneath the bar
You won’t be challenged or distressed
It will please you if you are
Easily impressed
Nothing original, nothing new
This [film/book/song] is just for you

Thursday 8 August 2013

Heatwave

Twenty: a walk in the park
The touch of fresh, white linen
Scent of magnolias in the dark
Olive faces of Greek women
I trail my fingers in a fountain
The cicadas are singing
Pines clothe the cool mountain

Thirty: tomatoes fail to thrive
I have to water them on the hour
Question: should I keep them alive?
Extreme loss of will-power
The dogs are too hot to yelp
I’m praying for a shower
– Not that it would help

Forty: the odour of rotting fruit
Creeps along the alley
Sweat breaks through my suit
It feels like death valley  
I don’t like this at all  
I wish that it was January
Paint is blistering on the wall

Fifty: to be outside is stupidity
To be inside is no joke
Extreme humidity
Increases the risk of heat stroke
Cracked throat, can’t cough
I’m not a fit bloke
Body functions are turning off

Sixty: too hot for Special Forces
Stopped sweating hours ago
Stench of rotting horses
Blood pressure is low
The failure of thermoregulation
Means there is nowhere left to go –
The last train is leaving the station