Canterbury tale
convert no stars basketball
wellies the originals
wear them out in no time or
slung round your neck
by the lace of God on Tom
Dick & Harry’s pilgrimage
barefoot cross the Pyrénées
hard on the heels
but the breeze between your toes
can’t be beaten stories tall
short or shaggy dog & fish
sermons exchanged
nothing irreligious mind
just the harmless rambling kind
folk’ll tell to pass the time
here on the road
’twasn’t always thus believed
God was in their heaven once
counting out the feet They’d saved
sticking on souls
now in Jesus wellingtons
sandals by another name
be They Queen or Jack of Spades
stick to Their guns
nosepicks at dawn
duets between
carrot farmers deuced
by the war
weaponised
radar boring peep
holes in planes
surely it’s
Ancien Régime
versus us
calling out
on guard D’Artagnan
kinda thing
no it goes
franchise Vonnegut
take your cut
binary codes
111
swan
too
many
112
for the maths
simply do
the arithmetic
121
ass to kiss or arse to kick
choice is yours
Dick
122
& you Brutus
caught the bus
without any fuss
211
entropy
half-life fools
take a dying fall
212
or not to
want to that
is the question
221
oxymorons wage
dirty war like piggy
banks shitting money bombs
222
three way score
sock vest &
underpants draw
the laced wand
inexplicit
Thomas has a limp
dipstick shot his under-kecks
over Ezra’s text
squandered all those lines
could have fed the cannibals
spit them out in here
but the goldfish bowl’s
out of range & Tommy’s words
land on Export Desk
wo Seher schreien
ne’er again shall Spotty’s dog
bother Vivienne
calling time it’s last
orders Zarathustra now
Go’n’Wash yer marf
wokey-wokey
get it through your block
poetry this ain’t it’s worse
verse now back to sleep
no video game
end-to-end encrypted bank
queues you wait that long get picked
off by snipers long before
reaching the front
find a way to keep your head
down but ditch that mobile phone
read these stupid lines & get
suicide droned
tell the kids their playground’s mined
on your life they’ll only start
digging like there’s pirate gold
under the swings
better off pretending moles
ain’t invaded Poland yet
buy them pogo sticks & poke
holes in their jokes
yep there’s endless ways & means
phooey what gets chucked at us
folks’ll always turn the world
back on its nose
a list of the Brithonians
Hovis Bunsen no
not the king I give
zéro puan to all
chits on the line
few Americans
fewer still from darn
under half a doz
eastern dragoons
Hollywood a sole
representative
all the rest can play
dough with themselves
women welcome though
only those who kiss
toads not frogs a lone
Madame Oiselle
last me blooming self
honorary chair
person hanger-on
butler & clown
further alt txts
trans
pony tale
rides
fake
sausage roll
calls
snide
victim blames
corpse
crime
doesn’t pay
bores
house
wine with cheese
claws
aboriginal isles
ancient Britons worked together clans
laying wooden roads across the fens
long before the Romans or the Celts
landed their claims
little of their native tongue survives
though the landscape bears the stones they
hauled
out of Wales & cross the Berkshire
Downs
just a few names
long before the Norman’s French replaced
Anglo-Saxon’s hold on government
Latinised reported speech & re
booted the church
language archaeologists have dug
deep enough to know that victors’ crimes
underlie the way we think cos words
marshall our thoughts
though unorthodox restate my case
thirty centuries of peace prevailed
while the ancients gathered round their
stones
islanders bound
welch apps
slap-a-baldy
fine the lady
cubic’s rube
3D cheese
hungry bards
fainting by numbers
spot the bomb
toilet seat football
hopscotch on the rocks
postman’s block
monotony
scribble
call my boff
game for a loaf
what’s my crime
squidditch
drag goons in dungarees
nitball
croakit
tiddlywigs
spittles
shakes’n’bladders
& Haydn’s eek
rush on roulette
when you’re got a public killing spree
don’t get sickened by the bloody screams
target places far away & use
missiles that cruise
OHMS
waffles sand & dogshit where
else but England’s pleasant Dad
take my hand I hope there ain’t
clowns with white gloves
gives us nightmares every time
HG Wells for breakfast toast
marmalade side down & eggs
hatching on plates
scared & yet a trifle bored
falling back to sleep the heart
beating umpteen revs a doz
dry by the mouth
look we know it’s yellow out
lead umbrella weather Jaws
coming back to haunt the huts
camp’s full of nuts
still you gotta set your face
straighten up & prove em wrong
chew their turkey flavoured mints
God save the King
13
my name’s Virgil but
only here to say one thing
never steal their tears
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