Referendumwocky

'twas Brexit and the slithy gove
did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
all chortly were the boris: "Oh crikey!"
and the farage outgrabed.

Beware the stock market old son,
the gilts that spike, the shares that crash.
Beware that Junker bird and shun

the frumious backlash.

© Tim Scott
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'What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.' - Julius Caesar

Michael stabbed the send button on his computer. That'll cook his goose, he thought: now they'll fall in line behind me. Nearly there. He licked his lizard lips.

Later, Boris fell on his sword.

Across town, though, hushpuppied Ken extolled a bloody difficult woman, hoping the camera was indeed running...

© Tim Scott
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Journey's end

"Are we nearly there?"
"Not quite. Just a bit further."
"How much further?"
"To the end of the road."

"I'm hungry."
"Well, have another sandwich."
"Yuck!"
"I'm bored."
"I need a wee."
"Stop! I feel sick."
"Ow! He pinched me."
"No I didn't. That's my I-pad. Give it back."
"Children, children!"

"Are we nearly there?"

© Sheila Rogers
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Nearly there

how many times

have I been
nearly there
better to travel in hope
than to arrive
O.K. then
is that an ice cream
van that I espy?
in my youth
I'd make that cry
In later years
it's round the next
bend would be
my cheerful lie

© W Botley
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My foot

Plastered and elevated
I'm crutched and hutched,

my arse grows roots
(and bottomly toots).

Then They vote Brexit,
I'm told: 'don't flex it!'

A hobbling five weeks
and my foot really reeks

and then is released...

(nearly there)

... to another black beast

but this boot can drive
in six weeks I'll arrive.

© Helen McIntosh
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Nearly there

Sparks of dust in a sunbeam -
I thought they were fairies:

My mother in her nylon petticoat.
Morning smell of toast and bacon;

wrapped in the backseat of the car
eye-spye with my little eye …

… the brow of a Devon hill
the sea a mirror of light!

© Valerie Taylor
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Nearly there...

…but is the grail a golden honey-bowl
full to the brim with goodness?
An empty can? Or worse -
a poisoned chalice which, in pain,
we come to curse?

Yet must we play our hopes a requiem?
Who’d choose to know the future?
Carpe diem!

© Gill Dunstan
All rights reserved

Don't do that!

Take a train to Nepal,
sleep out in the rain,
dance nude in Ibiza,
see ‘Star Wars’ again.

Adopt a big cat,
or howl at the moon,
try diving with sharks,
and playing pontoon.

I would even suggest
you fall in love madly.
But to fly from a window?
That’s bound to end badly!

© Gill Dunstan
All rights reserved

Don't do that

I've told you before, dear, don't do that.  Because it's rude.  And because I said so. Yes, I know Tommy does it, his Mum lets him, but in my house...  If Tommy rode his bike over a cliff would you follow him?  Now that's being silly.  What do you mean, Daddy does it...?

© Sheila Rogers
All rights reserved 

Don't Do That!

Don't do that, do this
I can't think why you did that,
Don't do it.
If I were you, I'd do it like this.

Don't tell me what to do
You don't know 
What I think, what I feel and know
You're not me, nor I you.
Would you like it if I went inside your head
And danced there, trampling down your treasures,
Knocking back your cobwebs?

Isabel Hare
© All rights reserved 

Don't Do That!

She's overloaded
with confusion,
misery, anger;

Tangled, sticky,
swollen with
misdirected energy,
so she propels it
down the phone.

My arms outstretched,
ready to receive,
too late
a bitter taste
hits me.

She goes.  Fine now.
I whisper,
unable to say it aloud;

"Don't do that!"

© Valerie Taylor
All rights reserved 

Don't Do That!

My very favourite teacher
Mrs Chandler
how I messed about with her
a gentle soul who disliked violence
Whilst I clowned through lessons
History-English-Maths-RE.
Don't do that, she'd gently chide
but I knew she wouldn't cane me
was I hoping that she would?

© William Botley
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Curmudgeonly Me?

From across the kitchen table
your kindliness becomes you.

The soup is homemade, nutritious
and piping hot. To the grumbling growl
of an empty tum, you lean forward,
chin pitched deep over trough, and
hoover in an appreciative symphony of
blow, suck, slurp.

I seethe and breathe:
‘Don’t do that!’

© Helen McIntosh
All rights reserved

Hope Cove

Hoping for plunder
they set false beacons.
Waited with hard eyes
and harder hearts,
knowing few had sufficient seamanship
to ride out the screaming demon
of the storm.

Hell’s hungry teeth would do the rest.

Of course, they drowned the drowning.

The old map shows
this coast fringed tight
with names of wrecks.
It might well have read,
‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.’

© Gill Dunstan
May 2016
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Hope

…is holding on when all else has fled;
sun shining through the rain
clouds lifting, drifting into skies that have no end
nor ever yet began;

small window in a pall-black room
birdsong no chains can ever bind
speck of light on a distant shore.
Hope…
is ‘When shall I see you again?’

© Sheila Rogers
May 2016
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Hope

Like sea, our lives tremble through time,
depths and complexities elusive, often beyond us.

Surface effervescence threading
through a tumult of waves,
ploughing around continents.

Looking towards the horizon;
lift of the heart;
fingers crossed,
we'll make it beyond today.

An arrow from within
aimed into the blue unknown.

© Valerie Taylor
May 2016
All rights reserved

Hope

I'm sitting on a donkey
a noose about my neck
my friends have hired
Dead-eyed Dick to shoot
the rope in two
I hope it's not his brother
Cross-eyed Pete
that they've sent 
in lieu.

© William Botley
May 2016
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Unforeseen

Heaped in a doorway, the trappings of 

homelessness absorb the rain and
rejection of passersby.

An oak, gnarled barren limbs devoid of leaf,
rests unseen by parkland walkers
preoccupied with beauty.

In Spring, green buds of unforeseen hope emerge;
a lad stops to chat, hands him
a coffee and burger.

© Helen McIntosh

May 2016

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