Sonnetta Pamplonese

Stoned sangria sunset, brazen bull breath
Baiting caballeros, crowding plazas.
Hidden fighters slink out to face a death,
As bulls stamp and snort at life's impasses.

Running from a dusted, deluged sunrise,
Pounding pain-wracked alleys, echoed crying,
Bouncing up from cobbles where blood draws flies.
Flee to safety: it's living or dying.

Running to the bull ring wherein all's clear.
A circle, a gate - buen Dia, an arm.
The Crimson sash is as blatant as fear,
When making the sprint, avoiding the harm.

Once more, the bulls and runners chase the page,
As I sit in my room and write... and age.

Clock and Bells

Another villager died last week
And so they shuffle into church
Where sunset shines through glass, oblique
And church mice hurry from a perch.

The aged pass on but others come
To keep the pews at least half-filled
The Sunday School could raise no sum
So it, with no descant, was killed.

The same for Men's Group and the rest
Whose members were a fickle troupe
A numbers game amongst the blessed
Where prayer and hymn scarce loss recoup.

The bills are paid when font is filled
And afianced are at the altar
When OAPs of stock, strong-willed
Are raising funds, they will not falter.

And so the holy march along
And deck the halls for seasons’ cheer
This church is our church, right or wrong
And faith will make those reasons clear.

An Ode to Digestion

(Inspired by a non-fiction classic, 'Stomach Ulcers and Acidity', published in Australia in 1985)

Chew it slowly, chew it long,

As saliva flows.

Let it linger on your tongue,

Then down the tube it goes.

Food balls dropping down the chute ;

Oesophogal descent.

As acid does the chow pollute,

The gullet pays its rent.

The stomach ends this lumpy drop ;

Expanding (fits the meal).

A pause for a digestive stop ;

Reviews ingestion's deal.

Mucin, Gastrics, Hydrochlorics,

Hormones and Lipases.

This is science, not folklorics !

(Eating's many faces.)

Onwards to the twisted bowels ;

A journey through the colon.

Rivers (unlike Enoch Powell's):

Keep those enzymes rollin' !

Ending in a putrid mess,

When all the good's been taken (my word !)

Where the rectum's spasmic press,

Invades a toilet, shaken (not stirred.)

The Boat of Life

I pray, infuse my head and heart,
To navigate each journey's start.
The world puts icebergs in my way ;
Would I not heed the things you say ?

The paradox : a world that's yours,
So full of sailors shipping oars -
Not casting off, not raising sails,
Not joining playful broaching whales ;
Not catching breeze, not crossing bars,
Not chasing midnight's ocean stars.

I've suffered landlock long enough :
Allow me love, and my boat - luff.
Stand by me as I take the wheel,
And steer to keep an even keel.

The Bully Boys

We’re all just watching Bashir

As he bashes up his nation.

We televise his fireworks ;

Record the conflagration.

We gave some toys to Saddam

For his sandbox game of war.

‘Till forced to call time on him

When he tampered with the score.

Then we had some grief from Mu-mar

When he came back in the game.

But he undermined his teammates

So they gave him back the same.

Now we’re just ignoring Robert

And his flimsy house of cards.

He’s no threat to our amusements

And he’s not in our backyards.

We’ve had Wilhelm, ‘Dolf, and Josef;

Chairman Mao, Idi, Benito.

From Charles the First to Charles Smith

And Emperor Hirohito.

Plus Papa Doc and Baby Doc

And Nicolae Ceaucescu :

All trampled on the innocent

Whom no-one came to rescue.

Sit back and watch The Bully Boys ;

Observe their selfish games.

Until the light of truth shines forth

From funeral pyres’ flames.

Prisoner of the Palm

You’re now a Prisoner of the Palm.
Your jailer’s your hand-held device.
You think it keeps you clear and calm,
But when IT thinks, you’d best think twice.
To see all the cosmos, in grains of machinery!
(But please don’t look down, as a car is approaching….
And have you forsaken the hills, and their greenery?
Or the waves on the bay, with its whales as they’re broaching?)
It’s a friend when you’re lonely, a map when you’re lost;
As long as you feed it some power.
If not, it’ll act like a love, double-crossed,
And the blackout will cause you to glower.
So worship your palm-friend, and show it some care,
As you cast your eyes down, and avoid real people.
It’s a prison of pleasure, a calm lion’s lair,
And a church for the masses (but one with no steeple.)
You’re still a Prisoner of the Palm,
And very rarely out of touch.
But if you seek a healing balm,
You’ll smother in its cyber-clutch.

Appless

Don’t have no apps, Chaps.
Still use maps, And books with flaps.
Got dice ? Let’s play craps.
Not ‘games’ with ZAPS.
My life slowly adapts.
Will I get ‘IT literate’, Even if nobody claps ?
Perhaps.
And if caught in their fatal traps ?
Let’s have buglers and taps ; Not bruthahs and raps.
Don’t want Granny to relapse,
Or collapse in the apse.