Limerick of the senses

I know a lady from Crewe
who likes to smell her own poo:
she can tell by the smell
whether "everything's well"
when she's eaten a curry
or two.

Ode to my laptop

O sweet laptop! O sweet and lovely laptop
That sits atop my table on kitchen cooling racks
To try to compensate for your shortcomings

The fact you overheat
because you are old and work will not replace you
until the beancounters say that you've reached ROI point
That you have peaked in your usefulness to us and a new model
can be contemplated. O laptop, my love
The new model will not be as understanding of my needs
No more putting the kettle on and making coffee
While you boot up or the browser opens
No more having a sandwich while SAP loads and purchase orders
can be released into the wild like snakes raised in captivity

But with lower productivity.

O sweet laptop! So sweet and lovely you freeze up
like the Artic and one needs a pickaxe
to make you once again responsive:
If you were trully mine I would'ave given you
a memory upgrade and a reconditioned battery
But you are - alas! - just leased processing power

So I can work from home and reach homeostasis

So I can watch my kids during the summer

- the so-called work-life balance.

Drought

The grass had gone all yellow. There my mother
watering can in hand tended to her roses
while we all sat outside, that hottest of all summers
in July 1990. My grandfather
held in his hands a copy of the Telegraph.

"When ever will this drought end" whinged my mother
conversationally, and added "it will kill all my flowers"

"Drought? Drought?" said Grandad
"What do you know about droughts?"

We felt a story coming, the war and all that, Monty
and the Eight Army and his years of service.
"A drought is when you find dead livestock
on the side of the road; When you open a tap
and it coughs up some dust with hissing sound"

"A drought is when you have to cut a reed
and suck water out of a shithole
in the dry river bed"

He went back to his paper. Mother summoned me and sent me

inside with the can: "Go and fetch some more water,

be a darling" she said. We were sitting outside.

It was such a hot summer.

Cut through the gloom

Light up a candle in an empty room
The darkness goes, but not the gloom

Brujula

Ya la rosa geometrica señala
con sus ribones nauticos la ruta:
oh hieratica y magnetica batuta
que adorna, que dirige, que apuntala!

Landscape

Now the strong winds are diying down
The leaves off trees have fallen
The rivers with the rain are swollen,
waters gone murky, and almost copper-brown

Dusk Haiku

The first shining star
A gust of evening wind
The clouds, so high and far

Doce cascabeles...

Con sus botas de vaquero
y sus esbeltas calancas
hace resonar el suelo
al contonear de sus ancas

Atmospheric haiku

The gathering storm
Tap! The barometer
awoken from its dream

Vereda tropical

Sway in the wind like a palm tree
Laden with coconuts or papayas
Tough, broad brown leaves
flying like flags of nature

when the storm blows
Salt in the air gives taste
to your sharp cheekbones
Drizzle from the waves gives shine
to those eyes of yours
And I whisper, like the wind,
sweet nothings in your ear.

Feb 1975

En mi nin~ez, en largos veranos
Aspire el aire puro de mis calles
largas horas pateando la pelota
sobre el asfalto, o persiguiendonos
unos a otros en rojas
y verdes bicicletas
Tirandonos piedritas
y huyendo de perros guardianes
en barrios en construccion
y chacras aledan~as

Snowman

Look, this is when we built

a little snowman:

two black buttons

for eyes, carrot, pipe

red plastic sheet for scarf

red silly felt hat

It was such a cold winter

the one of 2009

we couldn't but come and play

not knowing if it would happen

again, anytime soon

The snow melted

but not the memories

smuggled then as pieces of future

in four-megapixel pictures

EMPOWERMENT

The sun shines mockingly outside my front door
Slippery ice covers the pavement
- the walk to school just got more interesting

Musn't forget to ring pest control services
Report that garden rat
I know it's only one but my neighbour too has seen it

At work the powers that be await to quiz me
None too happy with my results
But we don't call them that, we call them 'outcomes'
And I tread on the ice as if walking on egg shells
Telling my children 'be careful! Don't run off lest you should fall!'
That'll really make us late
and earn us a chat with the head teacher
and our name on the register,
please sign here and here

Then I think of the rat lurking deep in my garden

Job application

In a matter of minutes a form is completed
Add a few characters, like in a soup of letters
So much I have learned or I mime from my betters
But all I have is this form that I fill in, embittered

To a toilet seat

O toilet seat, I took no notice
while you strained under my weight
and my whole family's, day in, day out
Sunrise to sunset and later still

O toilet seat, now you have broken
and in your fancy design your little revenge
unfolds in a miriad of fruitless visits and phone calls
to high street retailers and trade establishments
who cannot help me find a replacement
to do your dirty work and bear the mass
of two adults and three children
day in, day out, sunrise to sunset and into the wee hour
up and down and up again
until your fancy cushioned hinges give up the ghost
and I get on the phone or the car to resolve
this agonising problem I hadn't seen coming
when I went to B&Q on another cold morning
and a fancy bathroom suite I scooped in the sales.

Paracas, the Cathedral

Paracas, the Cathedral, a rock formation
Stood like a monument on the beach
One day the earthquake came
Nobody was expecting it

Paracas, the Cathedral, an arch of rock over the sea
Then nobody had much sleep to lose
Or any need for innefective icons.

Yellowing leaves

Yellowing leaves
Post piled up and unopened
Someone has gone on holiday

What I must never do is blink

What I must never do is blink
when I am writing - it wastes ink
No more stopping twice to think
What I must do more oft is link
my brain and heart before they sink

What I must never do is yawn

when I am writing on the lawn

having been there since before dawn

wanting to be completetely alone

ending up tired and forlorn

What I must never do is grin

when I am writing - drink some gin!

Let all the ideas my head spin

that's the only way a boy can win

and, like a snake, shed his skin

Morality tale

An invisible stain now adorns my white ceiling
The ceiling I painted white, for I gave it three coats
It was a fiddly job, what with wallpaper patterns
You must use a small brush and up and down a walkway
made up of two planks resting on two stools
work your way, up and down on thick planks
with your brush in your hand, it is neckbreaking work,
inch by inch covering the ceiling paper in white satin.

Then one day a little accident at the dinner table
red wine spilled all over, in all directions scattered
a lone drop even reaches your ceiling, you spounge it off with water
a lone drop of red wine, you rub it off and then you think it's gone
a lone drop of red wine, you never again mention it to anyone

but you know it is there, when your eyeballs meander
to the patterned wall paper which since covers your ceiling
but you know it is there, where you wiped it with water.

Now your wife, on she talks about the holiday arrangements
Now your child asks again if he can have some more gravy
Now you awake from your dream at the family table.

Rosita

Las flores que he cogido en tu jardin
las he hecho un 'bouquet' para mi amor
mi amor paso la noche en un bulin
y ya no puedo mas con el olor

de chelas y de puchos y de orin
que se combinan en tremendo hedor
con sutiles trazos de aserrin
y todo exacerbado en el calor

eso fue ayer - ahora mi amor duerme
a pierna suelta ronca si pudor
y espera, al levantarse, un 'feliz dia'

pero mientras el yace, ebrio e inerme
yo en la cocina este bouquet preparo
y una breve nota de despedida.