‘Don’t burn your bridges. Flame-throw your bridges. Absolutely completely destroy them. Because then, the only way forwards is to go for your dreams.’
Author: Sue Young
Summer Song
(or Don’t You Wish Your Girlfriend Read a Book Like Me?)
Where’d my book go GQ?
The one I lent to you?
‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’
You said you liked the theme
It was a first edition
Now I am on a mission
I dig that book a lot
You need to drop it like its hot
Give me back my book
It was meant to be read
You used its pages
To do dope instead
I read it in the sun
chillin’ like a villain
I am never lonely
Shakespeare is my only
Thought you were a John Blaze
A Mc Dreamy snack
But you’re not off the hizzy
Buster, you just wack
Now you need to run the jewels
Or you’re gonna lose
Literature bites
It’s how I got my stripes
You’re not ‘off the hook’
Give me back my book
We had a trump tight season
Now I’m out of reason
My trust was at the max
Now your ass is grass
Summer is over
And so are we
Never a lender or a borrower be.
100 Followers
Just discovered I now have a hundred followers. It’s taken me a while to get here, slow and steady I always say, oh yes. Thank you followers, likers and readers, I really do appreciate the support. You are very kind and generous and beautiful. I have much to learn and a long way to go, in this warm, friendly and talented community. I’m looking forward to this journey with you. Thank you again.
I Thought It Was The End
I’m at the cinema and the movie is on, but when I look down, the popcorn is gone. People are leaving, the seats are all tipped, the soda and cola haven’t been sipped.
Wait, I was dreaming, fell asleep you see, I don’t like thrillers, bore the pants off me. The film went on, forever it seemed, but I quite liked to think
it was the end
in my dreams.
And then I went home to find kitten at play, with a ball of wool she’d had her eye on all day. The unravelled thread, I followed along, ‘soft, strong and very, very long’.
Out in the garden, the wool did extend. It was just the beginning but I thought it was the end. While tracking the string, U.F.O fleet I spy, orange and red, in indigo sky. Aliens fly to me, with guns all aglow,
the end is nigh, they say,
in their own lingo.
It’s war of the worlds, army from the stars, thought my number was up, invasion from Mars. I thought it was the end, intergalatic death ray?
No.
It’s just the World Firework Championship Display
Scouse Dummy
When times were tough
We took a bite
Out of our Scouse Dummy
This staple lunch
Was all we had
It was better than our mummy
It’s cheap and cheerful
Comes wrapped up nice
In paper bag and grease
Flaky pastry makes it tasty
You eat it on the streets.
Quite a small and meagre meal
Doesn’t get you fat
When mother wants to shut you up
she says, ‘Have a suck on that.’
It’s all you need to fill the space
That gnaws deep within your belly
‘Til fish and chips
Or beans on toast
In front of soapy telly.
(At this point there are two alternative endings to this poem, depending on whether you like the Sayers or Greggs Scouse Dummy and are environmentally attached or adhered to the area, or not. I pay homage to them both. Just as there are people in the same family who support different football teams, there are people in the same family who have different preferences for the same items of food, but in different eateries/snack bars. For the record, my personal preference is for Sayers).
What is this we eat, upon the hoof?
This golden rod of meaty dregs?
This Scouse Dummy is no mystery
It’s just a sausage roll from Greggs.
(And now for my personal favourite)…
What is this we eat, upon the hoof?
This golden rod of meaty layers
This Scouse Dummy is no mystery
It’s just a sausage roll from Sayers.
Poem by Auntie Winnie
My husband’s Auntie Winnie was a lovely person. She was one of the first people he introduced me to and she warmly welcomed me into her family, twenty seven years ago. She was a much beloved sister, wife, mother and grandmother. Winnie sadly passed six weeks ago. Throughout her life, she was a prolific poet and writer. This was one of her very many poems, which was discovered after her passing.
‘What is it that beholds an air
A footstep on the stair of life
A whispered thought still in my mind
Of what I’ve lost and cannot find
Still I will seek until the day
My melancholy slips away
And when that comes
And heartaches cease-
I will know at last
I’ve found my peace.’
by Winnie Stephenson
My Mind Is A Blank
My mind is a blank
I’m feeling the drain
There’s a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign
Outside of my brain
There isn’t a thought
Inside of my head
I should have stayed tucked up
Inside of my bed
The clever has gone
It’s willow the wisp
The funny and brilliant
Has burned to a crisp
My mind is a blank
There is nothing there
Just tumbleweeds and silence
And a cold vacant stare
The genius has gone
If ever it were
And now in its place
Is a cold vacant stare
The witty has left me
It’s taken a nap
The brain cells have frazzled
As if they’ve been zapped
My mind is a blank
There is nothing to boast
The grey matter fried up
And now it is toast.
Quote Of The Week
‘With their capacity for aggresssion strait-jacketed within a too narrow morality, those who are only or merely compassionate and self sacrificing (and naive and exploitable) cannot call forth the genuinely righteous and appropiately self protective anger necessary to protect themselves.’
Quote Of The Week
‘Did you ever feel, as though you had something inside you that was only waiting for you to give it a chance to come out? Some sort of extra power that you aren’t using.’
Ode To Adam Fresco
He wouldn’t let us eat him, or drink him during break
He never let us beat him, or bake him in a cake
But never once did we wish to cut off his legs
Or impale him on a stick
We wouldn’t dream of killing him, for fear of making him sick
He taught us how to act, had passion for plays
Knew all about the theatre, made us crave the stage
I think he understood us, like great teachers only could
And I think we understood him, like only mothers could
Now Adam’s in New Zealand, doing all of the same things
Encouraging students writing
And inspiring all their dreams.
Things In My Head 