Water (off a duck’s back)

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Water (off a duck’s back)

What’s that?…….no, no, it’s all rubbish,
climate change is a Deep State hoax.
By the way, forgot to mention
I have some ocean front for sale in Florida,
are you interested?
I hear you’re a good swimmer.
Ha, that’s just a joke,
God controls the climate
the rivers, lakes and seas.
Look what he did for Moses.
Our local preacher has a direct line,
just send a donation
before he gets arrested.
Joking again! Those rumours
are just not true.
Besides, our supreme leader, Donald, says
we are going to have a great climate
the best climate ever.
Do you know any Dutch people?
They’re good at handling all this water stuff.
Another thing, does anyone else
really miss the dinosaurs?
I had this rubber brontosaurus
when I was kid, I kind of liked it,
a velociraptor too…where was I?
Yes, this oceanfront property in Florida
it comes with a row boat.

The word of the week over at earthweal is water. Got the idea for this poem while reading Sarahsouthwest’s poem “Water Again”.

Also participating in open link night over at dverse.

Watching CNN (a sort of rant)

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Anderson, Chris and Don and their assembled pundits are discussing the assassination of General Soleimani, the Iranian general. They all agree that he was a “bad actor”, a “bad guy”. They don’t say “bad hombre”,but it’s knocking at the door. This appears to be sufficient to warrant execution, it’s the timing and ongoing strategy they are concerned about.
Why I ask myself are they talking like characters in a 1950’s western?
Why are they talking like school kids?
Bad guys, good guys – “goodies and baddies”.

Back in the Classroom:

Teacher, by the end of the major combat phase of the Iraq war, 7,419 Iraqi civilians had been killed, primarily by U.S. air-and-ground forces, is George Bush Junior a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre?

No, child, every American president is good.

Teacher, were those innocent civilians “collateral damage” or “victims of terror”?

That is a complex and morally confusing question, child. Here in America we do not like confusion.

Teacher, why do the American media continue to refer to the Canadians killed in the Ukraine Airlines crash as Iranians.

It’s less confusing that way, see above.

Teacher, is President Trump a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre?

No, child, President Trump is a liar, a racist, possibly a crook and possibly a sexual predator but he is not a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre.

Teacher, why are Anderson, Chris and Don so angry with him? Why the sanctimonious, po-faced editorials?

Because he is un-statesmanlike and because they have become lazy and are content to trot out the same tired outrage every day of the week. Their ambition is limited, they are happy just to be “not Hannity”.

But teacher, they seem like nice guys.

Your point is?

The Land Called Where You Are Not (poem)

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The Land Called Where You Are Not

that place you will never go
it can be one hundred miles away
it can be a stone’s throw
but there is one thing that is sure
there is one thing that you know
in the land called Where You Are Not
you will always be a no show.

 

(I located my inner Seuss over Christmas)

Taking part in Open Link over at dVerse

Top Posts 2019 #3:The Wrong Way Home (a ghazal)

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I picked this one because it was an attempt at writing to a form that was somewhat successful.

The Wrong Way Home

happy hours and peeler bars
he’s taking the wrong way home

a friendly toke, a line of coke
he’s taking the wrong way home

the night is young, pass that bong
he’s taking the wrong way home

a McFlurry, an Indian curry
he’s taking the wrong way home

a pounding head, a stranger’s bed
he’s taking the wrong way home

early dawn, suitcase on the lawn
he’s found his way home.

 

Top Posts 2019 #2: The Beautiful Game (The Lads’ Poetry Project 2 )

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I’m including this one mainly because the subject matter of the poem – sport and the level of discourse associated with it – is somewhat neglected in the world of poetry. When you read the poem you may conclude that that is actually a good thing.

The Beautiful Game

Me and the lads are warming up
for our Sunday morning kickabout,
the weather’s not so good:
a black cloud loiters over head
spitting occasionally;
there’s a chill in the air.
Not that we care.
We are here for that moment of magic:
those three short passes
that raise life above the ordinary.
It’s all going well.
We’re stretching, squatting
sprinting, jogging, popping
Esther and Abi*
when up steps Paul
all sanctimonious-like
and starts to rattle on
about how this is a family park
and we should watch our language
and surely we can play a game of football
without accusing each other of onanism.
The lads are confused, gobsmacked even.
My face adopts an expression
which would later be described as quizzical
Onanism, I inquire,
what is that wanker talking about?

 

*Esther and Abi (Ofarim): rhyming slang for ibuprofen, a popular anti-inflammatory. Esther and Abi Ofarim, an Israeli singing duo, had a hit with “Cinderella Rockefella” in 1968.

Top Posts 2019 #1: Todd and the Time Machine

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This is one of my most viewed posts in 2019, I’ll be posting one each day up to New Year’s Day. I’m picking posts from earlier in the year to keep things fresh!

Todd and the Time Machine

I
Todd’s time machine
has three settings:
time was
time is
time will be.

II
Sometimes
the time travel sickness
hits him
like a five alarm flu.

III
Returning through the time hail,
through the accelerating centuries
he hears his wife yell
from the ever present
from the basement stairs:
I’m turning off that bloody time machine
your dinner’s getting cold!

 

 

Leonard Cohen’s Final Album (plus Poem)

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Fascinating Interview (in The Guardian) with Adam Cohen on completing his father’s final album.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/nov/24/leonard-cohen-adam-thanks-for-the-dance-interview

A poem from the past:

Driving Home with Leonard Cohen

Despite what he says
not everybody knows,
not everybody knows
like Leonard knows.
Not everybody knows
that the best songs
are about loss,
about endings;
about so long
ways to say goodbye
closing time,
and that age
can be laughed about
but not at,
if I had a hat
I would raise it to Mr.Cohen
perched up there alone
in his tower of song.

Limbo Blues (aka Existential Boogie)

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Limbo Blues

today I remembered limbo
you can’t stand too far from the track

today I remembered limbo
you can’t stand too far from the track

the first line is about memory
the second is a disconnected fact

Bob Dylan mentions Rimbaud
Van Morrison does too

Bob Dylan mentions Rimbaud
Van Morrison does too

today I remembered limbo
Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus

existential boogie
do that existential thing

existential boogie
do that existential thing

you can do it in your armchair
summer, autumn, winter, spring.

 

Taking part in Open Link Night over at dVerse.

Bones of Contention 2 (poem)

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Bones of Contention

Bones to pick
bones to chew on
Anderson, Chris and Don
but there are no metrics to measure by
so the discussions drag on and on
and the screen splits into two heads
and the screen splits into four heads
and the screen splits into eight heads
a pundit arrives
a pundit leaves
a pundit gets indignant
a pundit gets emotional
a pundit gets that gotcha smirk
there is talk of smoke and fire
there not been one without the other
and I see this distraction of pundits
this deflection of pundits
this confusion of pundits
standing looking at the horizon
across an open plain,
oblivious, while behind them
Rome burns.

Peripatetic Blues

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Peripatetic  Blues

The signs along the highway
are leaking semiotic fluid

psychotic cacti strike a calculated pose

linguistic lizards parse the parched desert floor

Slim’s feeling demotic,
neurotic, anecdotal, over-used
he’s looking for a sanctuary
the fisherman and the shoes

he’s got those my way is  the highway
peripatetic  blues.

 

Taking part in Open Link Night over at dverse.

Good Song Blues

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Good Song Blues

there’s a distance between a good song
and one that’s just okay

there’s a distance between a good song
and one that’s just okay

you can travel that distance in a minute
you can travel that distance in a day
but sometimes it takes forever
sometimes you can’t find the way

there’s a distance between a good song
and one that’s just okay.

 

and while I’m here i’d like to give a shout-out to one of my favourite music blogs – Zoolon Hub.  Zoolon is George Blamey-Steeden, a very talented singer, songwriter, guitar player, composer and a witty and engaging blogger. Check out his blog ( for all you guitar players out there, he offers backing tracks to jam to, and for you poets, he will put your poems to music for a very reasonable sum).