Firefly

I’ve come to a hedgerow behind the old church,

Where the woods and the village converge,

For it’s here that I come every year in my search

For the one who’ll assuage this great urge.

Every summer I bask in my hedge out of sight,

And my tummy goes brown in the sun,

Then at nighttime it shines like a beacon of light,

I go out to be seen - and have fun!

Then I’m beautiful, charming; the belle of the ball,

And the boys can’t resist my bright fire.

I know they’re just beetles, but they’re in my thrall:

Their command is my every desire.

So we dance, and we shimmy and flash off and on

And together we light up the night.

And our love may not quite be Layla and Majnun

But our courtship’s a wonderful sight.

Too Hot

It’s stifling hot, the sweating drips,

The droplets fall like lemon pips.

How hot’s it got to be before

Headmaster shuts the old school door?

When does the weather feller say

Don’t go to school, go out and play

Down by the river, at the beach? 

‘S too hot to learn, too hot to teach.

It’s stifling hot, I’m sweating cobs,

It’s much too hot to do my jobs.

Too hot to go to work today,

So Mum and Dad… whaddaya say?

The Great Intellecticle

I don’t have a thinking cap

So how am I supposed to think?

I make a cap from bubble wrap,

And with indelible black ink,

I draw some whiskers on my chin,

Put on Dad’s reading spectacles.

Then stroke my beard, and I turn in

To this great intellecticle.

Dreams

I’ve never been to Alabama,

I’ve never been to Kathmandu,

I’ve never met the Dalai Lama,

Nor Spiderman, nor Fu Manchu.

I’ve never seen the Northern Lights,

Nor climbed an ancient redwood tree.

I haven’t seen so many sights

That people say you have to see.

But I have dreamed of all these things,

From underneath the sheets and covers.

I’ve even heard the mermaids sing

To luckless, star-crossed sailor lovers.

And I can still see all those places,

The views from up the redwood tree.

I still remember all those faces,

It’s just - they don’t remember me.

Lost Tribe

 An ancient tribe the proud Chimu

Live in the forests of Peru.

They hunt for alligator shoes,

On sleeping bears they take a snooze.

They stroke piranhas with their hand,

And flip them out onto the land.

They ride bareback on jaguars,

And plot their journeys by the stars.

They sail on rafts across the lake,

Towed by an anaconda snake.

They prospect in the streams for gold,

To make new teeth when they get old.

And when they have a little party,

The shindig’s fun, the laughs are hearty.

They drink a wine that’s made from berries,

And fly all week just like canaries.

They’ve lived like this a thousand years,

‘Cos no one speaks, and no one hears

Of them at all - well only me:

I know - I made them up you see.

Every Shower Has a Silver Lining

The smell of thunder fills the air,

The black clouds flash with lightning.

Just now the crowds were everywhere,

I guess they found it frightening.

The raindrops fall like jelly-beans,

Not little droplets dripping.

Each glob could shelter fat sardines,

T’ain’t splashing down, it’s tipping!

The birds have scarpered off the lawn,

And hidden in the gables.

Let’s go and put our swim trunks on,

They’re free - the picnic tables!

The Mullah’s Great Voyage.

The Mullah of Hullah in Hullaballoo,

(An Arabian Sheikhdom of yore),

Went to visit a venerable Iman he knew

Who had moved to a cold distant shore.

So he journeyed for days on a camel’s hard hump

With a caravan half a mile long,

Taking twenty-two wives, some were pretty, some frumps,

And his children were ninety-nine strong.

There were servants and teachers and nurses of course,

There was nothing that they went without;

They had diplomats, judges, a peace-keeping force

For when twenty-two wives all fall out.

Their travelling camp was set up every night,

Where the Mullah of Hullah played host.

And they walked for a week in the searing sunlight

Till at last they arrived at the coast,

Where they chartered a ship, and they hired a crew,

Bought provisions that emptied the town,

And set sail from the harbour of Hullaballoo,

Along sea routes of evil renown.

For as you and I know the Arabian Sea

Has for centuries suffered a curse;

It’s infested with pirates who’ll come for their tea,

And they’ll eat all the food, and much worse.

As the Mullah of Hullah, his family and crew

Sat for dinner the very first night,

They were called on by corsairs who’d smelt the fish stew

And felt peckish and fancied a bite.

So they dropped the mainsail at the captain’s insistence,

While the Mullah begged Allah for wind.

Then a great Khamsin came and it soon blew a distance

Between them and the pirates: chagrined.

But a Khamsin’s a wind that will blow without ceasing

Fifty days, fifty nights on the trot.

Though the danger from pirates was ever decreasing

The danger of drowning was not.

And soon our intrepid adventurers found

They’d been blown quite off course by the gale,

And they weren’t really sure of just where they were bound,

They just pointed the prow north, and sailed.

When eventually calm came again to the ocean

It turned out they were in the Red Sea

Which by chance and despite all the noise and commotion

Was just where they wanted to be.

To avoid going round all of Africa’s coast,

There’s a shortcut up there to the Med,

Where they sunbathe and snack upon foie gras on toast,

And drink wine till it goes to their head.

And the Captain and crew were quite partial it’s true

To a drop of the Beaujolais wine,

Though back home in the Sheikhdom of Hullaballoo

Alcohol was considered a crime.

So sadly it seems that I have to relate,

By the time that they neared British shores,

The ship’s Captain and crew were in no fit state

To read maps or do seafaring chores.

Though headed to dock at the harbour in Hull,

Where the Iman of Immingham waited,

They dropped anchor instead at the Island of Mull

As their GPS system dictated.

It seems someone had drunkenly typed the name wrong,

And the autopilot did the rest.

But the Mullah, in Mull, felt his family belonged

And decided ‘twas all for the best.  

This explains why the Mullah of Hullah’s desire

To become the new bigwig in Hull

Took him to the terrain of the Tartan attire,

The first kilted Mullah of Mull.