light verse and much, much worse
Winter stops us in our tracks
With biological attacks
Perhaps to kick us into touch
Because it doesn’t like us much.
The common cold, the experts note,
Is still without an antidote.
As for the ‘flu, we get the shot
Which seems more like an afterthought.
Coughing, sneezing… who’d desire us?
It’s our friend, the winter virus.
Ironic, because when it strikes us
It’s just saying that it likes us.
My love swears I snore like a bear
This is a husband’s fate.
A wife’s is to give thankful prayer
That men don’t hibernate.
No sunburned noses at the beach
No crab apples just out of reach
No jasmine to infuse the breeze
No lavender to make us sneeze
No sandals piled outside the door
No evening strolls along the shore
No watching cats chase butterflies
No lemonade, no record highs
No counting ants, as they file past
No starlit skies, now overcast.
Even old folks can’t remember
Why it is, we have November.
Marie Curie led the way in radiation theory
Stubbornly pursuing every scientific query.
This dangerous endeavour which our hero chose to write on
Led to one advantage: she could read without the light on.
A problem shared is a problem halved…
In your case, this is true.
For, when we meet I have but one
Yet somehow leave with two.
God is an Englishman
He wears a bowler hat
He gave us brollies for the rain so folk can stop to chat.
His favourite meal is fish & chips and if he’s staying in
He likes to watch the cricket, eating biscuits out the tin.
He cheers on Blackburn Rovers and when in The Great Beyond
He drives an Aston Martin, telling angels: “Call me Bond.”
He sent us earthly kings and queens to reign on his behalf
Then sent The Benny Hill Show to make everybody laugh.
God is an Englishman
Sublime and yet absurd
A marvel we commemorate each April 23rd.
In ancient Athens, lived a man who did not suffer fools
Who scorned the rich and powerful, disparaging their rules.
Renouncing laws and social norms from which he felt exempt
Diogenes The Cynic viewed convention with contempt.
He called an earthen jar his home, forgoing earthly goods
Promoting a philosophy which few Greeks understood:
We need not work! Food should be free!
We’ve been robbed of our liberty!
A dog needs only food and sleep
So, worry not about your keep!
Revolting, in more ways than one, he never bathed and took great fun
In mocking local passersby unlucky to have caught his eye.
Once Philip, King of Macedon, discovered what was going on
He fetched him from the marketplace to meet this heckler, face to face.
Philosopher, comedian, Diogenes first drew him in
Then seized the moment to berate the trappings of the civil state.
The king considered all he’d heard and pledged Diogenes his word
That he would try to make life fair for all his subjects everywhere.
Then Philip’s son, the Late & Great, who relished seminal debate
Next headed for the rebel’s lair to bump heads in the open air.
Soon Alexander found the spot and asked Diogenes his thoughts
On justice, kings and slavery to test his rival’s bravery.
Diogenes, quite unafraid, lamented: We have been betrayed.
The reason for our very birth is to enjoy fruits of the earth.
Young Alex, in your palaces, you drink from golden chalices
While I do nicely in this jar… am I no better than you are?
And now you claim to be divine, directly drawn from Zeus’s line
Yet, as I spy your horse nearby I fear, like you, it cannot fly.
The Great One knew he’d met his match, aware that he would never catch
A cynic who cared not for kings, nor for the folly each reign brings.
Amused, young Alex asked his host which thing in life he wished for most:
Was it a wife? Slaves of his own? Or simply to be left alone?
Reclining in the summer breeze, his eyes now closed, Diogenes
Admitted there was only one: for Alex not to block the sun.
Prince Charming’s parents, late in life
Still hoped their son would find a wife
When Cinderella then became big news.
Alas! Their hopes were dashed again
When he and all his bachelor friends
Had merely wondered where she bought her shoes.
Greeks thought onomatopoeia
Sounded like a great idea
Causing pedagogues to yell it
Until it came time to spell it
A woman scorned… all men are warned,
Is of the gravest matter.
As is the task, if she should ask:
Does this make me look fatter?
Mr Ormsby At Large 