TANGENTIALLY

Tags

erotic, poem, poetry, sexual symbolism, wordplay

TANGENTIALLY

they found her in bed
with a skeleton

my skeleton
I not only
passed away
killed in action
but was consumed
every ounce of
my flesh in
seeing to
her pleasure
(those poor hollow
sockets
emblems
of my sacrifice
see
nothing now)

all around her
the roof caved in
windows smashed
walls broken

such the ruinous effect
of seismic shock
upon seismic shock

but that
was all

down to
her

only tangentially
anything to do with me

PUNCHLINE

Tags

Comedy, Hamlet, poem, poetry, Shakespeare, standup, Tragedy

PUNCHLINE

to die
on stage

more like
a Hamlet
than a
dead comedian

resurrection, finding
your punchline

ghosts swamping
the dark battlements
and there
we have Yorick’s
sleep broken
all he ever
is or was
fallen into the hands
of some gravedigger fool

where
are your
jests now
and would they
still carry?

a joke so timely
you might drop dead laughing

forces
social and cosmic alike
conspired to
make you their
avatar of laughter

stabbing at the fringes
of the armour
of reason’s regime

and so, to pull no punches
my Prince sweet

learn for safety’s sake to
negotiate a laugh

cheer up
and as your usurping killer
father’s brother
would have it

listen for the
bells
cast
nighted colour off

just splice and dance and
dice
with words

tell it
secretly
how it is

the show
so dumb

and yet
the laughter
still continuing throughout
the slaughter

here, finally, our punchline
not a punch
being pulled

OVER THE MOON

Tags

Cliche, comic, football, poem, poetry, VAR

OVER THE MOON

I have travelled
over the Moon
and seen
the delirious footballers
some of whom
parked the
bus

they do not,
however,
stay over the
Moon
for long

especially the ones
who park
the bus

and then there are those
whose visit here lasts
barely a minute

pulled back
at lightspeed as they are
by VAR.

KINDLING

Tags

Alien, comic, erotic, poem, poetry, science fiction, sexual power, woman

KINDLING

my love
is very
flying saucy
pulls me
in with
her attractor
beam

takes me
to alien worlds where
it’s hard to keep
clear points of reference

and I am there
for
sub zero temperatures

to stoke her
cosmic
star-
like burning fire

am (such a young
species) considered but
kindling

MEET MR LEE

Tags

Britain, British, Comedy, poem, poetry, Stewart Lee

MEET MR LEE

Meet Mr Lee
his comedy

no jolly jack tar
side-splitting,
belly wobbling

coarse
Blackpool Boy
slinging those
good old
British insults

your
great grandmother
used to love
(though far
more blue and
spicy
than what, God rest her
soul

she might
be pleased to recall)

but our Mr Lee
weaves in and out of
a teasingly

subversive narrative
doing a Derrida-deferral when it
comes to our presumptions
of
obvious endings, met
expectations

soon though
we on the trail, got the gist

the punchline more pinprick
than slap in the
face by
clown-glove incongruity

more
I did not realize
the politics
of this world so hopelessly,
incorrigibly absurd.

DIY POEM

Tags

comic, metapoetic, poem, poetry, Reader, wit

DIY POEM

was writing
my DIY poem
but forgot to send

so read this one
I sent as its surrogate

imagine how it sounds, how
the words taste, feel

whether they
look back at you, straight in the eye,
or avert their gaze: outmuscled, out matched

the page waits
write it down
nib
to
paper

hell-for-leather

PUNCHLINE

Tags

comic, dinosaurs, Humanity, poem, poetry

PUNCHLINE

observe a
Tyrannosaurus Rex
look at those
ferocious jaws

massive limbs
tiny arms

do we not all see
in this the lineaments
of future comedy
genesis of
joke
as
outlandish idea

human laughter not
yet born but comet working on it
even Mr Carroll’s Jabberwock
set to
split is sides

PANTALOON

Tags

clown, Comedy, poem, poetry, shaman

PANTALOON

came across
(out of the
corner of
my eye, in
my mind’s eye)

a pantalooned shaman
dervish-dancing his way
out of town via
across a tightrope

someday the steeple
that underpinned his efforts
will register the strain
come
tumbling down

just as captured in Bakhtin’s writing
thing turned upside down
by causal consequence of
comedic license

we laugh uproariously, all
except the shamans
who shake their heads quizzically, look
back critically,
question every
ludicrous transformation of human rationality
from their unique perspective
of a shapeshift Universe
whose
spirit of dark
alchemy
they alone would claim to understand

POEM FOR RIK MAYALL

Tags

homage, poem, poetry, RIK MAYALL

POEM FOR RIK MAYALL

the plastic beauty of
comedy

rubber-faced, the slapstick
a joyous ballet beautifully choreographed

the seismic laughter shaking walls and
as such needing to be contained
not to be trusted

the Kingdom of the bland becoming
so deadly serious: it’s godlike figures
above and beyond ridicule, satire

sarcasm painted thick and fast
as sloppy as it gets given
the wide, wide, wide brush

MOTHER SHIP

Tags

Alien, comic, Eddie Murphy, joke, Mother, poem, poetry, Universe, wordplay

Caught sight of your mother
on the mother ship

she refused to dock
whilst people were saying
Eddie Murphy’s in town

his reputation for mocking insult
stretching across the galaxy
no situation of such gravity
that it can escape
his comedy

thinking of which
she peered down
at our planet
deeply unable to land

figuring some play on the word “equator”
might be what awaits her

not all the string
in string theory enough to
wrap her
parallels and meridians
the whole
Milky Way around