ALWAYS READ STUFF THAT

Always read stuff that

Will make you look good

If you are struck with death

Earlier than you should

SHE READ A POEM

 

She read a poem

Out loud to me

On a quiet afternoon

That touched me,

Awakened me,

Stirred my soul

And my dulled senses

As she read

It flowed over me

Like scented honey

Each word a caress

Each syllable a kiss

A soothing balm

Of evocative beauty

Whose feeling,

In metrical form

Left me unshackled

Releasing me, from

My contented taupe

Free to soar

On poetic wings

I LAUNCHED A NEW BOOK

 

I launched a new book,

Aimed at children, today

And I hit one of the little sods

Before they ran away

WHEN I WAS AT SCHOOL

 

When I was at school

Our English teacher, Mrs Rowan

Once asked of us as homework,

During the half term holiday

To memorize our favourite poem,

This was met by groans,

By the class, but not me

I chose A.E.Housman’s

“Ode to an athlete dying young”

And it has stayed with me ever since

TOM SHARPE RIP

 

He wrote Vintage Stuff

Of Riotous Assembly

And Indecent Exposure

He liked his Porterhouse Blue

In the Great Pursuit

And was no Blott on the landscape

Nor was he The Throwback

With Ancestral Vices

And in the end, he didn’t die

It was just a simple case of Wilt

WHERE THE WHITE RABBIT WENT

 

Where the white rabbit went

Then young Alice followed

And down a rabbit hole they went

And both of them were swallowed