Category: Humour

When is the world meant to end again?

I keep forgetting and don’t want to miss it

I am looking forward to the clouds of fire,

The meteor hail and mile high waves

Of course it only looks good from a distance

And there is bound to be a big fuss

One wonders why we have to have an apocalypse at all this year

The previous ones were all a disappointment

I suppose the doomsday enthusiasts need something to look forward to

A reason to build their fallout shelters and stockpile provisions

They will be crazy until the day it happens

Still the Mayans in their temples

Believed they saw it coming

When they mapped the future

The event guide for the past five thousand years

Maybe they just ran out of things to do

And called it a day

 

Have you been drinking toilet water again

I ask my dog as he smiles and pants puffs of sewage

I have often caught him neck deep in the bowl

The sound of lapping reverberating

Until he lifts his head and looks behind

His eyes balls of pride

His tail a ticking metronome

Having found this bottomless well

He is as full of himself as he is of urine

Something in his gaze beckons me over

As if he would have me on all fours,

Drinking deep of his discovery

Surely, he believes, this merits some petting

A treat perhaps?

Acquiescing I pull down my pants,

Take a seat on his fountain

And give him what he deserves

The words trembled as he read

Fearful of his gaze

And moment he lowers

His finger to guide him

They know he is ruthless

That many of them won’t survive the edit

That the word next to them or themselves could be next

He has wiped out thousands of them already

Whole paragraphs at a time

Phrases that were born together

Have died together,

Consigned to oblivion

Never to be writ again

Those who make it are grateful

And do the work of the departed  

As well as their own

Such is the price of immortality

When my beard is long and white

And I make people repeat themselves

To the point of shouting

I would like to say things that matter

And leave behind small talk

And observations drained of humour

I would prod you with my inevitable walking stick

Should you mention the dull weather

And yank you by the neck with its crook

Should your ears fail to hear to drink

From the well of my knowledge

Which will be as deep as space

And home to as many stars

I would also like to be a burden

To get in the way

To slow people down

To shout obscenities at parties

And drink too much

Perhaps strip naked

Get the other guests recoiling

And shacking their heads

And turning away their children

I know the toddlers would accept me

They who still feel at home in their own skin

They who have yet to learn

Everything it took me so long to forget