collected ramblings of Mark Cyst

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

not for sale