Poems - The Funny Side

SIXTY SECONDS ...

“Just a Minute on ‘Silver Lining’;

Sixty seconds, and starting now!”

“On showery days when the sun is shining,

A thunder cloud with a beetle brow

Muscles in front of the golden glory

Threatening day with inky night -

But Sol is stronger than Jove is, surely,

Lining the cloud with silver light...”

“Repetition of ‘cloud’!” “For forty

Seconds ‘Silver Lining’ is yours.”

“A chap was tarring the roads; for sport he

Tried white-lining them on all fours ...”

“Deviation! That’s white, not silver!”

“I haven’t finished!” “Well, carry on.”

“The moon came up, and a gleaming river

Of light ... illumined the lines he’d done,

Turning them all to silver ... Then he

Recollected an old technique ...

Um ...” “Hesitation!” “And far too many!

Twenty seconds are left to speak.”

“I was seven; my first magician

Filling the stage with flags and doves

Flourished in keeping with his tradition

The silver lining of cape and gloves.

How it shimmered! The act enchanted

This small boy; and that cloak means still

Every gift that I always wanted -

To mystify, to amaze, to thrill!”

“Congratulations! We have a winner;

You still spoke as the whistle went!”

The Minute Waltz; and we go to dinner,

Silver Service and David Brent ...

VIRGO RISING

Oh it’s fun to be a little hypochondriac!
Oh it’s fine to want to lie around in bed!
It’s delightful to be lazy lying on your back,
To be comforted and cosseted and fed,
When the dictionary says you should be dead!

Oh it’s fine to be a little hypochondriac.
It’s fun to have a cupboard full of pills,
Of Calamine and Liver salts and Ipecac
And medicines for fevers and for chills,
And forms for cutting people out of wills!

Oh it’s nice to be a little hypochondriac.
I love hotties and thermometers and soup,
Know all about a dickey sacro-iliac,
Rubella, Yellow Fever, and the croup,
And I share it all on Friday at the Group.

Oh it’s wise to be a little hypochondriac.
You never know when bugs are set to bite.
Accumulating therapeutic bric a brac
Is an amateur pathologist’s delight -
And a different diagnosis every night!

And it pays to be a little hypochondriac,
Holding pricey Consultations every day!
This way I get my self-esteem and money back
For the bargain-basement bottles on display,
The prescriptions that I never throw away!

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MY DOUBLE-DECKER BUS

I don’t want a lorry,
I don’t want a car,
I don’t want a taxi
‘Cause it isn’t very far.
I don’t want a bicycle,
I don’t  want a fuss,
I just want an ordinary
Double-decker bus.

I would like some sympathy,
I would like a lift;
I would like a warmer place
To stand and stamp and shift!
I’d like to be a person,
But I feel anonymous
As I wait for that ordinary
Double-decker- bus.

We’re not in a blizzard, and
We’re not in a storm;
We’re just in November and
It isn’t  very  warm!
The roads have been gritted, and
The fog has gone from us -
So what can be holding up
My Double-decker bus?

There may be an accident.
There may be a queue.
There may be a sea of cones
For him to battle through...

...A smile of explanation
Would be less injurious
Than your scowl when I fall on board
Your Double-decker bus.

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