Quantcast
Channel: Odds and Sods – Brian Bilston's Poetry Laboetry
Viewing all 278 articles
Browse latest View live

Selected Proverbs

$
0
0

A fool and his hair are soon parted.
Do not put all your baskets on one egg.
People who live in glasshouses shouldn’t.
Summer comes before a Fall.

Don’t count your line drawings before they are hatched.
History repeats itself.
If at first you don’t suck seed, try, try a grain.
Incidents will happen.

A flat tyre will get you nowhere.
A watched pot gathers no moss.
Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to be Fish
and he’ll ask Kayleigh whether it’s too late to say he’s sorry.

He who hesitates is … um …
Don’t get mad, get even madder.
A leotard cannot change its spots.
History repeats itself.


Ten Rules for Aspiring Poets

$
0
0

1. Poetry does not have to rhyme.
Well, at least not all the time always.

2. Metaphors are great!
But mixing them is not so good.
If they start to fly in all directions,
then nip them in the bud.

3. Focus and concentration
are important skills to hone.
Turn the wi-fi off.
Don’t get distracted by your ph-

4. Avoid clichés like the plague.

5. Don’t do stuff that’s too vague.

6. The use of needlessly long words
may result in reader alienation.
Rein in your sesquipedalianism
in case it should cause obfuscation.

6. Always proof-read you’re work.
Accuracy can be it’s own reward!
And remember that the penis
mightier than the sword.

8. Haiku look easy
but plan ahead or you may
run out of sylla

9. Never ever follow rules.

Football’s Getting Homesick Blues

$
0
0

Harry’s gone for placement, dishin’ out the medicine,
Nation’s in the basement, despairin’ at the government,
The man in the waistcoat, looks out, jumps up,
Shoulder’s feeling pretty rough, readjusts his shirt cuffs.

You’re out, kids, but look what you did,
God knows when you’ll be doin’ it again,
Approached it the right way, makin’ lots of new friends,
Man in an England cap in the Wig and Pen
Goes and turns the sound down: that’s enough, thanks, Glenn.

Stones rocks, shirt red, Maguire leaps, big head,
Trippier in the heat puts balls in the box but
Think about how you play, don’t give the ball away,
The people in the pub say Raheem’ll score one day.

You’re out, kids, but look what you did,
Walk on your tip toes, tuck in your elbows,
Watch out for the long throws, dictate how the game flows
Keep the door closed, confidence grows,
It helps to have a proper plan and know which way the kicks go.

Ah, Dele sick, Dele well, group stages farewell
Team, squad, country gel, three lions, hearts swell,
Work hard, Lingard, get back now, Kyle,
Dig in, use guile, workin’ out our own style.

Look out, kids, you’re gonna get hit
By foulers, cheaters, penalty spot abusers,
Turnin’-up-the-heaters,
Pickford leapin’ and stickin’ out his left hand,
Build a team of leaders. Who was markin’ Mina?

Ah, get through, keep on, advance, romance,
Fortnite dance, IKEA, no fear, football gets near,
Free-kick, freak out, hearts lift, chance come, chance missed,
It’s grippin’, it’s gruelin’ but they’ve not picked up Mandzukic.

You’re out, kids, but look what you did,
Don’t hide down a manhole, think of all you handled,
Avoidin’ all the scandals, leadin’ by example,
Now see what you’ve begun, it’s time to move on,
Hard work, teamwork, relightin’ the candle.

Hold my hand while we jump off this cliff

$
0
0

‘Let’s jump off this cliff – it’ll be fun! A right laugh!’
urged all the people (well, I mean just over half
of those who had bothered to speak up at all).
I peered down at the rocks; it was a long way to fall.

I said, ‘This cliff’s more than three hundred feet high
and my doctor tells me if I jump I will die.’
‘Cliff-jumping’s fine!’ they said. ‘Don’t trust doctors, trust us!
We read all about it on the side of a bus.’

Worried, I met up with my local MP.
I shared my concerns. He was forced to agree:
‘Why the rocks below would smash you to bits!
Where did you get this idea of jumping off cliffs?’

‘It was the will of some of the people,’ I said
and his expression changed to another instead.
‘I think,’ he revised, ‘you’re being melodramatic.
The problem is you. You’re undemocratic.’

On the clifftop, we waited. In silence we stood.
Then a voice: ‘Remind me, why is cliff-jumping good?’
But we looked down at our shoes, baffled and stumped.
Then, out of embarrassment, we held hands and jumped.

Some Lesser-Known Collective Nouns

$
0
0

A distraction of smartphones.
A reckoning of spreadsheets.
An indolence of poets.
A conspiracy of subtweets.
 
A pile of haemorrhoids.
A bunion of personal trainers.
A grope of presidents.
A condescension of mansplainers.
 
An abundance of foodbanks.
An underfunding of schools.
A pathy of voters.
A cabinet of fools.
 
A collection correction of pedants.
A sesquipedality of long words.
An invention of collective nouns.
An oven glove of non sequiturs.

There’s a Supermarket Where the Library Once Stood

$
0
0

There’s a supermarket where the library once stood.
I sometimes forget that it’s now gone for good.
Last week I asked if they had any Flaubert.
A shrug in response. ‘The cheese counter’s there.’

There’s a supermarket where the library had been.
I’ve been reading some Dhal in ‘Indian cuisine’.
No golden tickets, witches or giants, of course;
just chickpeas and lentils in a creamy spiced sauce.

There’s a supermarket where the library once was.
I had tried to hand back an old Grapes of Wrath.
Sorry, they told me, but it’s really too late,
they’ll be shrivelled and well past their best-before-date.

There’s a supermarket where the library once stood.
A Sainsbury’s Local has bulldozed my childhood.
The library had been starved of state funding, I guess.
Take books off the menu and live well for less.

Alexa, What Is There to Know about Love?

$
0
0

Alexa, what is there to know about love?
What is there to know about love?
A glove is a garment that covers the hand
for protection from the cold or dirt and –

Alexa, how does a human heart work?
How does a human heart work?
Blood is first received in the right atrium via
two veins, the vena cava superior and inferior –

Alexa, where do we go to when we die?
Where do we go to when we die?
Activating Google Maps. Completed activation.
Would you like to start from your current location?

Alexa, what does it mean to be alone?
What does it mean to be alone?
It is the silence left by words unsaid,
the cold expanse of half a bed.
It is the endless stretching of the hours,
the needless tending of plastic flowers.
It is an echo unanswered in a cave,
the fateful ping of the microwave.
It is the fraying of a worn shirt cuff,
and the howl –
Stop, Alexa. That’s enough.

At the Intersection

$
0
0

It’s the birthday of John Venn today (born 4th Aug, 1834) so here’s a poem inside a Venn diagram to celebrate.


Poem for International Cat Day

$
0
0

International cats
assert their right to relax
in international laps
at any time of day or night.
If disputed, they will cite
the Universal Declaration of Feline Rights.

International cats
sit on international mats
that proclaim WELCOME
in each of the world’s languages.
International cats can sleep
in up to seven different languishes.

International cats,
proud flouters of human orders,
support comrades across borders.
They extend the paw of friendship
to cats who flee catastrophe,
terror and cruel adversity.

Liberty, equality, caternity!

Love Excels

Love in the Age of Google

$
0
0

is love an abstract noun
is love a verb
is love actually on Netflix
is love a word

love is a temporary madness
love is a hurricane
love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs
love is a losing game

can love last forever
can love break your heart
can love2shop vouchers be used online
can lovebites scar

love can build a bridge
love can set you free
love can hurt ed sheeran
love cannot heal me

does love cure depression
does love have an age
does lovejoy marry charlotte
does love always fade

love does not need an explanation
love does not exist
love doesn’t need a slogan
love is all there is

 

This poem was constructed entirely from auto-completed searches about love on Google.

Fall

Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Love

$
0
0

I convened an academic symposium
and gathered together the great and the good
from a wide variety of disciplines
to consider the question, ‘What is love?’

The philosophers said we must first start with Plato.
The historians showed how it had changed over time.
The chemists spoke of oxytocin and dopamine.
The psychologists thought it was all in the mind.

The political scientists declared it undemocratic.
The sociologists deemed it a social construct.
The economists said that nothing else mattered
except for how little there was, or how much.

The linguists explained the word came from Old English.
The theologians claimed it came straight from God.
The media studies professors weren’t present
but they said they’d send their thoughts in a vlog.

The anthropologists spoke of love across cultures.
The mathematicians tried to work out its square root.
The neuroscientists pointed at MRI scans.
The musicologists played its song on a lute.

The art historians said it was all about perspective.
The geologists believed it from molten rock hewn.
The classicists read extracts from Sappho and Ovid.
The astrophysicists thought it to do with the moon.

The geographers tried to map all its contours.
The literature scholars quoted Auden and Keats.
At the end we were no nearer an answer;
we reconvene on Wednesday next week.

This Bookshop Life

$
0
0

I’d buy everything from a bookshop if I could.
All my food would come from there.
Atwooden tables I would sit, eating Dahl,
Kipling Tartts or chocolate Baudelaires.
There’d be flat tortillas, focaccia and the rye:
it would be a literary-luncheoned life of pie,
all washed down with a glass of Carver
or a Swift half, if I’d rather.
 
I would make myself an Eco-friendly home:
go Greene and buy recycled tomes.
It Wodehouse a Self-portrait in the attic,
where no-one else could look at it,
and a looking-glass, of course, for the hall,
(amazing how I’ve not changed at all).
My house would Spark delighted looks;
I’d build a coffee table out of coffee table books.
 
I would also buy my clothes from there:
ragged trousers, experimental novel underwear,
dust jackets and striped pyjamas.
Boyd by the comments that I would Garner,
my days would pass quite Harper Lee,
this bookshop life, these books and me.
 

Selfies

$
0
0

But he had so many friends, they said,
on hearing the news.
And they went back through his posts,
searching for clues.

But no, there was nothing
to explain it away.
Just selfies, with filters applied,
from that last day.


Penguins

$
0
0

They were sighted off the south-east coast,
drifting in towards the port;
their boat, a snapped-off block of ice,
melting slowly in the warmth.
 
By the docks, a crowd had formed itself;
mob-angry, it looked on.
Placards were thrust. A chant began:
GO BACK TO WHERE YOU’RE FROM.
 
‘They’re just economic migrants,’
declared a spokesman for the right.
‘They’ve come to rob us of our jobs.
It’s as clear as black and white.’
 
‘Tragic,’ said the Home Secretary,
mock-sadness suppressed his smirk.
‘We’d let them stay but here’s the rub –
they have no paperwork.’
 
‘They’ll undermine Our Way of Life!’
The warnings raged on Twitter.
‘They stink of fish.’ ‘They’ll rape your wife.’
‘There’s bombs beneath those flippers.’
 
‘PENGUIN CLAIMS “MY HOME IS MELTING!”’
The Sun printed in disgust.
‘But whose fault is THAT – except THEIR OWN?
What’s that to do with US?’
 
The last of the ice had disappeared.
The penguins battled through the foam,
swimming, swimming,
from land to land,
searching for a home.

To Do List

$
0
0

1. Delay with an urgent hesitation.
2. Be unwavering in vacillation.
3. Embrace the art of equivocation.
4. Read a book on procrastination.

5. Dilly-dally; dither; be dilatory.
6. Drink tea through the day continually.
7. Look up ‘avoidance’ in the dictionary.
8. Ignore all forms of worthwhile industry.

9. Break for lunch

10. Ponder the intrinsic nature of work.
11. Re-prioritise which tasks to shirk.
12. Allow three hours to hem and haw.
13. Lollygag; chew my jaw.

14. Stroke the cat; lose my pen.
15. Re-do tasks from one to ten
16. Lurch and flounder; loll and wallow.
17. Write To Do list for tomorrow.

Diary of a Somebody

$
0
0

I’m really pleased to announce that my new book ‘Diary of a Somebody’ will be publishing in June with Picador.

The novel takes the form of a diary interspersed with about 150 poems and explores themes such as love and death, crime and punishment, family and loneliness, Wittgenstein and custard creams.

It’s available for pre-ordering from any bookseller. The page below provides good links to some of the online sellers:

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/brian-bilston/diary-of-a-somebody/9781529005547

It’s been lucky enough to receive some kind early reviews. Here are a few of them:

‘Nobody must find out about this unique gem, because I’m giving it to EVERYONE, and I want to appear clever and discerning. It’s a very funny/touching/novel/ poetry kinda book all about the big/little stuff, and above all, it’s eminently wrappable.’

Dawn French

‘Glorious. I will be astonished if I read a more original, more inventive or funnier novel this year.’

Adam Kay, author of ‘This is Going to Hurt’

‘The English comic novel, whose death this year was announced prematurely, is actually alive, well and in the safe hands of Brian Bilston. Here is a wonderful, laugh-out-loud comedy of suburban despair in the great tradition of David Nobbs and Sue Townsend. And it comes, of course, with the added bonus of Bilston’s poetry, sparkling here with all the wit, intelligence and humanity that has won him more than 50,000 followers on Twitter.’

Jonathan Coe, author of ‘Middle England’

‘Highly original, genuinely funny and clever, with a gentle humanity in between the lines. Brian Bilson should be Poet Laureate.’

John O’Farrell

‘In the future a new word will enter the language: a Bilston, which will denote one of those times in the day when we see the world from a perspective that is strange, wonderful and packed with a kind of gleaming joy. This book is a clock ticking with Bilstons.’

Ian MacMillan

I’ll stop talking about it now.

Thanks,

Brian

Announcements

$
0
0

We would like to apologise for the delay.
This is due to the wrong kind of deal,
which indeed is any kind of deal
that might make your forward journey possible
at this time.
 
Passengers are advised to seek
alternative countries
where available.

We would like to apologise for the delay.
This is due to a mechanical fault
in the machinery of government.
A team of engineers is working to fix this problem.
We hope to continue on our journey
in the autumn of 2055.

Passengers are advised
that a government replacement service
will not be operating on these routes
at this time.

We would like to apologise for the delay.
This is due to leavers on the line.
A buffet car serving refreshments,
including hot and cold snacks,
will not be available.

Passengers are advised
to somehow keep their sense of belonging with them
at all times.
 
We would like to apologise for the delay,
signalling failure
at this time.

Unseen Poem

$
0
0

OK. Turn the page. Right, here goes …
The first line’s straightforward, I suppose.
At least I know what the words all mean.
It has an AA BB rhyming scheme.
 
What’s that French word for when one line
runs into the next? Jambon? Never mind.
Susan Jenkins is smiling, I bet she knows.
Oh great! Now the rhymes have disappeared
 
and the language is getting more obfuscatory
by the stanza. The voice keeps changing.
At first, it was confident. But now it’s confused
uncertain (?) and … hesitant?
 
and as for this bit
what was the poet even thinking?
 
(personally, i think
they must have been drinking)
 
Susan Jenkins needs more paper.
I hate her. There are ten minutes left.
What’s this poem all about anyway?
No idea. I shall just have to guess.
 
I’ll say it’s a metaphor for death.

Viewing all 278 articles
Browse latest View live