nonsense

You Dancin’? You Askin’?

Bella is a Liverbird
who sits atop a tower
and waits upon the clock face
to hit the midnight hour
for that’s the time the pubs let out
and boys come out to play
then she’ll swoop down for a handsome one
and with him fly away,
and there up on her skybound perch
she’ll set him in her nest
and do to him the nicest things
that Liverbirds do best.

Counting

I started counting trees today
but stopped at eighty four
though I haven’t any proof to show
I’m sure there’s many more

I also counted smiles today
and conversely counted frowns
there’s some doubt about my findings
as I counted upside down

though I didn’t count the clouds
that hung before the sun
for given time they’d all join hands
and become simply one

The Cucking

there was a little cuckoo
who cucked but couldn’t koo
so went asking all the other birds
just what he could do

the rook lent him a  roaring craw
the owl a twit to woo
a goose honked in longing tones
but nobody had the koo

so he left his woodland home
and went to Liverpool
and joined a group of pigeons
who thought his cuck was coooooool

The Worst Verse

I wrote this poem backwards
to see where it would start
if its seed was in my head
or it grew in my heart
and then I turned it inside out
the surest rhymes to find
decided it could do without
a certain measured time
but after all I set a fire
and in it through my verse
thinking that cast to the flames
it couldn’t get much worse
therefore I started up again
and forwards did compose
thus these simple lines appeared
to bring me to a close.