DAY30!!!!

Last Poem

Thirty poems, one a day
For every day in April
I'm glad to say I did it
One whole month of being faithful
But now I've got some extra work
Sorting wheat from chaff
Cuz some have turned out fairly well
And some, like this, are naff
But here's big fat shout out
To all who stood the test
Not for money or prestiege
Or finding out who's best
But just the exploration
The discipline of time
The digging and the seeking
The frustration, the sublime
I stepped outside my comfort zone
Did you step out of yours?
Were some of them an easy ride
And others hefty chores?
Did you wake in tiny hours
And scribble something down
Or strain for that elusive word
That still remains unfound?
Did you find a side of you
You didn't know was there?
Were there bits you didn't post
Too personal to share?
I, for one, am knackered
My pencil's in the drawer
I've done 30 new poems
I ain't got any more
I'm going down the pub now
To toast you with a beer
But I'm not entirely certain
If I'll be back next year.

Day 29

Royal Wedding 3
　
On the road between Hackney and Stratford
On a fairly typical trip
The homeless beg money 5 or 6 times
And it's not just to buy themselves shit

The benefit's squeezed till it's squeaking
The weak are sidelined and despised
We're too cheap to care for our needy
Too thick to question big lies

Each bomb costs around half a million
How many nurses is that?
And now there's a bill for a wedding
The Condems must think I'm a twat.

I know I'm lucky to still get a wage
But they tax me a third of my cash
And it's not spent on helping or healing
But policing a millionaire's bash

Oh, and warring and maiming and killing
And 'expenses' for gits in Armani
I want my dosh to go to the poor
Not princes, MPs and the army

Will's Gran's worth at least half a billion
His Dad owns a shitload of Cornwall
Why the fuck am I paying for any of this
How the fuck can there be any shortfall?

Can I get security too please?
I promise I'll pay for my marriage
If you'll foot the Bill when my brother
Gets pissed and throws up in the carriage

I'm sorry, it just defies reason
Like the monarchy, it's out of touch
So don't think I don't care about Will and Kate
I care - 20 million too much

Day 28

Funny Girl
　
I'm very good, it seems to me
At hiding my fragility
But those who know me disagree
Emphatically
They tell me everyone can see
My thin-skinned vulnerability -
The essence of good comedy
Apparently
They claim to hear a symphony
The churning musicality
Of all the doubts that batter me
Dramatically
The irony's not lost on me
That these days I'm successfully
Recycling my shittery
Rhythmatically

Put Out
　
Fire hazard
Meet your match
How dare you be so hot
You lit me up
I was struck
There was conflagration
Bells and sirens
Begging to be silenced
And you heard them
You caused them
And you didn't douse me down
So I got burnt
Whilst you
Who seemed to be a sea
Of rampant possibility
Hopefully
Got drowned
　
First Love

I am the sea, rising
Cresting, curled and pitched
Tumultuous blue
I am the twist and turn of liquid
In my thunderous fall to you
I am a thousand spilling waves
Tilting gathering sands
I am the ocean’s edge re-draped
Aside new risen lands

Sane Again
　
I've got emotional acne, pustules full of sad
Sometimes my feelings blister and the stuff inside goes bad
But I found a shit-hot therapist, up at Tufnell Park
And she laid me down on quilted silk and took my mind apart
　
We worked on past iniquities and hidden trigger points
And learned why I was prone to cry and smoke a lot of joints
We travelled deep inside and made my inner child all better
And now I'm sure I'm sane again - cuz I've got it in a letter


Class - Write a bad poem they said.....me?
　
It's Imogen
Not Natalie
It's the formerly
Not the latterly
That gets her training classically
So getting smarter rapidly
Which is another kind of nattily
Although it's not grammatically cool
I want to stick this image in...
Imagine that you're Imogen
Brought up immersed in flattery
Educated formally
Well versed in this and thattery
The chances are that you'll go far
And not just geographically
And then consider Natalie
With just the one GCSE
In cookery
A girl who thinks that doggery's
The opposite of cattery
I'd like to think that she could shine
A model of tenacity
But fear she'll meet calamity
Skivvying for Imogen
In a menial capacity
It's Imogen, not Natalie
Who'll win in life emphatically
It's class system insanity
And a heinous, dreadful rhyme　
Mushroom Salad
　
Getting fucked and fucking
These are my chief skills
Fact
Oh, and a make a shit-hot mushroom salad
But no one gives a fuck about that
　

Day 27

Royal Wedding 1
　
There’s a wedding so I’m told - Saxe-Coburg-Gotha's got a hold
Of some leggy girl called Kate who’s Middle-ton class
She’s giving Wills her hand, let’s hope what she has planned
Is to do a Di and fuck him up the arse.
I really get irate at the thought of Will and Kate
Getting hitched in regal splendour with my dosh
It's not like I can stop 'em, ring the tax office and shop 'em
Cuz it seems it isn't thieving if you're posh.
　
Royal Wedding 2 (by numbers)

35 sniffer dogs on the day, but I can smell my money from here
5,000 peals of the Abbey bells - but they won't drown out our good cheer
187 horses will be on parade - that's an awful lot of manure.
100 million pints of beer 'll be downed - I'm republican, I'll need slightly more
2 choirs, 1 orchestra, 2 fanfare 'teams' - so are we all up for some jamming?
120 miles of bunting at Tesco - that's plenty enough for a hanging
1,900 guests 'll be there but don't worry - you've not got an invite
You get Huw Edwards chatting hours of shit - with just the 10 seconds of sound bite
A 20% chance of thunder, and lightening too with some luck
And unnumbered tiers on the wedding cake - for each way I don't give a fuck   

Day 26

Cream Horn
　
Will you gorge on my buttery crumpets?
Why not suck sugar glaze from my buns?
Come and munch my delicious sponge fingers
Chew my pastries and lick up my crumbs
Take a bite of my pink fondant fancies
There's hundreds and thousands to eat
And if you like chocolate buttons
You might just be in for a treat
I'd love you to have a good nibble
I can't tell you how long I've been waiting
Some people describe me as tarty
But I'm just like my oven - I'm baking
Oh pump squirty cream on my doughnuts
There's already plenty of jam
So scoff it all up like a good boy
And then we'll move on to the ham

Day 25

Dad's Alzheimer’s
Not recognizing Simon Cowell
For Dad, a definite plus
Laughing with him
Same joke every time
Until he bust
A present given twenty times
Each thrilling as the first
The happy unawareness
In his hobble to the hearse
The loss of inhibition meant
He told me I was loved
He didn't say it much before
All strong emotion gloved
But he became a boy again
Vulnerable and close
And now I live with knowing
It was then I loved him most

Mum
When she greets me
I feel how small and frail she's become
But when I leave
I know there's no one bigger than my Mum

Day 24

Resurrection

We have eternal life
Just not as us, that's all
That's the thing
That really pisses us off
We become soil and trees
And worms and flowers and rain
And a thousand million
Trillion other living things
But never us,
Not us, ever again

But we're only a mix
Of garbled memories
A reinvention
Of what's gone long before
We were alive back then
And we'll be alive again
Just not as us, that's all
It's nature's best joke
Alive or dead
We are already ghosts