BRANDY, PRINCE OF CATS

After being left to my own devices
Making marmalade with gorgeous spices

I’m pulling on my silver trews
And lacing up my pointy shoes

Then off to a castle in my flying car
And find the bright, spotty door ajar

Leaping slippery steps up slanty decks
Past anchors hauled from ancient wrecks

And meet again in his purpley hat
This Prince of cats, our Brandy cat.

 

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Decoding me with his wide, catty eyes
And smiling whiskers so full of surprise

He rose from his throne with cat-like ease
I saw he was happy and wanted to please

Clapping paws aglitter with diamond rings
He whispered his stories of many fine things

That landed him here in his spectacular home
King of his castle needing never to roam

Silk sofas, brocades, gold goblets and more
Great paintings and silver from ceiling to floor

Carpets from Persia and much Chippendale
Grace parlours and bedrooms in endless trail.

 

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Now fading this dream meeting Brandy Cat
Home through memory to our lonely mat.

 

   

 

Remembering Whisky, Brandy’s brother, who disappeared when they were one-year-old.  Our beautiful cats.

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COULD THIS BE LOVE?

Tousle me, tousle me
Tousle me, Beauty
I’ll laugh for a lifetime
Come, tousle my hair.

Come dance with me, Beauty
Prance with me, Beauty
Sing what you dare
For my joy’s in the air.

Fling with me finely
Swirl me divinely
Dance and enhance me
My heart is astir.

I’ll pull at your ribbons
Bright ribbons of silk
Entwine them around me
My lady so fair.

Say to me, say to me
Say that you love me
Come, Angel of beauty
Leap up from your chair.

Sing to me, sing to me
Say that you love me
Select me, accept me
My Beauty, my Fair.

Entice me, propel me
Enmesh me, delight me
Sweetheart, my True Heart
My life loving Dear Heart.

In Springtime and soul time
Your time and my time
Cartwheels and handstands
Let’s tarry us there.

So tousle me, dazzle me
Razzle and frazzle me
Sweet beauty jazz with me
Embrace me, my Fair.

Enlist me, invent me
Prolong me, make strong me
Devise me, allow me
And ever enthral me.

Inform me, reform me
Say you will storm me
Entrancing while dancing
My Lady so fair.

Enraptured and captured
I’ll be your Beauty
Quickly so true to you
Come away to the fair.

As light as a feather
I’ll love and endeavour
Let’s dance in the heather
My true soul, forever.

Advise me, revise me
Reach and high-five me
The flash of your moist eyes
Such a thrill to surprise me.

Don’t lose or refuse me
Be certain to choose me
Be keen to excuse me
As we dance up the stair.

Encode me, reload me
Sweep to my rescue
For I ever shall bless you
And I fancy you’ll care.

Can you spin and revolve me
Resolve and then solve me
Waltzing then twisting
In Life’s jigging affair?

Fingers touching, entwining
Encroaching my longing
And ever belonging
While dreaming, you’ll see.

I’m jiving, reviving and ever contriving
My Love in my hot arms ever aspiring
Engaging each other, deeply as one
We’ll jive away Time before we be gone.

 

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In the dreamtime, in the meantime
The lovers let be
In the Springtime and in our lifetime
This could be you and this could be me.

 

Penelope and the Suitors

J W Waterhouse

Image: Courtesy of Aberdeen Archives, Gallery and Museums

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IN MAUD’S GARDEN WITH CLAUDE

 

I’ll come into your garden, Maud

To see what we shall see

I hope you’ll not find me a fraud

When you chivvy me onto your knee.

 

I imagine this bench is insured

For you’re the pride of Wavertree

But my curious nature is cured

As I bolt to the gate and flee.

 

By chance a Cunarder is moored

And almost ready for sea

In such a dither thinking of Maud

But it’s the ocean life for me.

 

Returning later as Captain Claude

To see what I shall see

There’s the gate and there is Maud

And her smile to welcome me.

 

She told me I was the one she adored

So I on my blended knee

Said I was here to love and applaud

This precious Belle of Wavertree.

 

With grovelling apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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PANTO PIN PAIN

Little Miss Angel

Stepped on a pin

She screamed so loud

One dreadful din.

 

Hopping on one foot

She screamed again

Flapping her wings

To dampen the pain.

 

Teacher dashed over

Rescued the pin

Snapped at Angel

For audible sin.

 

Angel reacted

With shocking force

Reprimanded

By Mother, of course.

 

Her face was crimson

Off flew her wings

Stamped off the stage

Kicking nearby things.

 

The Panto ended

In fearful scenes

Angels shouting

While scenery leans.

 

With tumbling roar

The staging fell

No one was hurt

But it broke the spell.

 

Then out of the dust

Came a glad shout

This was brilliant

What Panto’s about.

 

It ended indeed

With much laughter

Everyone said

Couldn’t be dafter.

 

And so, dear children, when you act on the stage

You may find such fun you’ll recall for an age.

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ALAS, HIS GOLD FLECKED SOCKS GOT NICKED!

Confiding he had lost his socks

T’was just before the equinox.

 

The socks were green and flecked with gold

Amongst the most expensive sold.

 

Such beauty in a sock is rare

The sort adorning Fred Astaire.

 

Bedazzling some rotten thief

Such meanness is beyond belief.

 

Insurance people laughed out loud

And told him to get off that cloud.

 

Socks are socks, not a diamond ring

Don’t qualify as awesome bling.

 

Though this grim loss is untoward

Sadly, friend, you’re just not insured!

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No Time To Die Or Sigh

I knew I should’ve written songs

Instead of being a poet

For this is where the cash belongs

You’d think I’d always know it.

 

For example, the latest Bond

I could’ve joined the racket

I could’ve waved my lyrics wand

Sat back and made a packet.

 

It’s too late now but what the hell

Here below is my biggest sell.

 

‘Hey there baby, no time to die

C’mon baby, come fly with me

Tomorrow you’ll still be a spy

Let’s give ‘em death and misery.’

 

Maybe here is my new career

Hey baby, let’s enjoy a beer!

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Too Rude for Bude

He was an offensive fool from near Bude
Who enjoyed being quite shockingly rude
Last night he came one hell of a cropper
Hurling light ale at a furious copper
Since when sharing a cell with a nude.

 

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Dozing in Madrid

There once was a girl from Madrid
From whom all secrets were hid
She thought New Malden was north of the Mersey
And Gibraltar somewhat closer to Jersey
Which stretched even the patience of Syd!

 

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The Lady Wronged

She was never averse
To some scurrilous verse
Cursing the Count who had wronged her
She wished hot coals on his head
And dreamt he was dead
In Hell she believed he belonged there.

 

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Damn’ Golfin’ Gals of Muirfield

“Damn’ funny chaps, these golfin’ gals”,
The aged one vaguely remembers
“They’re full of froth with squeaky pals
To trample us when they be members.

“They damn’ well crave their rights with us
By Jove, they’ll mount a frilly revolution
They’d change our laws, just monstrous
Thank God for a cast iron Constitution.

“Our comfy rules can block their pesky plans
To scrub our g ‘n’ t, our pipes an’ whisky
We’ll mount the barricades with all our fans
No gal members here, however frisky!

“The Church, the Lords, MCC an’ many other splendid chaps
Succumbed an’ took the gals at last, as so may we perhaps.”

 

 

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Coffee, Honey?

‘Honey, d’ya wanna coffee?’
The sister barista shouted
‘An’ shall I add a toffee?’
As in the sun she pouted.

‘I’ll have it strong, I’ll have it now’
The sleepy beauty snorted
‘Forget the toffee, stupid cow’
Was what Facebook reported.

‘It’s comin’ up, it’s comin’ up’
Replied the qualified barista
‘Speak not like that to me, you pup
Or I’ll give you such a blister!’

Such flashy speech between these glitzy, slack-mouthed sisters
Would curdle milk and scald the mood of the gentlest of baristas.

 
 

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Ewe Beauty!

Jess

Hey ewe! Standin’ there
Givin’ me the once over
What’s yer flamin’ game?

Ewe woolly-back, paradin’
Long legs an’ fluffy jumper
Starin’ at me now ‘n’ forever.

D’you want a chase, like?
Through the trees to the gorge
An’ back ‘ere as fast as light.

Ewe are one smart woolly tart
An’ no mistakin’ that, gal
Yer’d make many mincey pies.

I’d race yer to a standstill
If me collar weren’t attached
To me lead me Master’s got.

Or if ‘e’d got another collar
Would yer come home with us
An’ be me pal forevermore?

 

 

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Motorway Loaves Onward Speeding

Hurtling north on the packed M6
Not chosen as the best of picks
Hurtling onwards at forty or fifty
No space at all to be extra nifty.

Northern loaves south speeding ever
Always onwards, it’s all so clever
Others northbound or east or west
Do they speed to where it’s best?

Slab sided lorries like dinosaurs
Appear to sprint to savage wars
Snarling grills and flashing tails
Pressing north or west to Wales.

Bread lorry sides adorned with signs
Promote their goods with fine designs
With special loaves quite gluten free
That taste like ceiling tiles to me.

Then there’s glorious ‘artisan’
Part of some cunning master plan
To part us from our common bread
Choosing pretentious hype instead.

First French baguette and now Italian
To delight the ever discerning man
Up north, down south or east or west
The lorries rush to consume each test.

Can such fierce and unrelenting action
Do more than feed sad dissatisfaction?

 

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The Wedding Hat

Ever so high on the dusty wardrobe top
Entirely motionless for ever so long
Sat a furious hat in a silent strop
But to whom did this splendid hat belong?

You couldn’t tell what the hat resembled
So wrapped in tissue with its muslin furled
But it missed the wedding then assembled
And lay unused in its own private world.

Now suddenly life changed for the snoozing hat
Down from a height, unwrapped on the table
She heard a voice cry, “Just look at that!”
As hat and wrappings made the table unstable.

Her silky grey tower showed no sign of ageing
No sign of fade and with lace exquisitely plain
Just a lack of occasion worthy of staging
Is this the hour she’ll be resplendent again?

With late hopes of glory improved by a daughter
Whose cool eye sensed an alternative morrow
At Barnardo’s, where the daughter brought her
Beckoned hen nights aplenty to buy or to borrow.

Amazingly so, our hat enjoyed her new hobby
Taking to hen nights with consummate ease
A drenching by Prosecco and arrest by a Bobby
Couldn’t alarm her, she’d become a real tease.

 

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The Wedding’s Off !

Give back the rock
Send back the frock
The wedding’s off
The wedding’s off!

Urgent action take
To freeze the cake
The wedding’s off
The wedding’s off!

Cancel the flowers
And hats like towers
This wedding’s off
This wedding’s off!

Forget those classy photo-shoots
Email those who are in cahoots
There’s now no need
No need for greed.

No need for fancy, sleek limousines
Or many vulgar unpleasant scenes
All’s cancelled now
There’ll be no vow.

The Vicar’s booking terminated
And all that we have instigated
The church and all the rest is off
And afterwards what’s posh is off.

My God, the fab reception must be scrapped
The vol-au-vents and veggie burgers bapped
Such extensive and expensive waste
Of all the finest dining taste.

The role of mother-in-law suspended
And all that artificial joy pretended
All over now though she’s in shock
All over now for her snazzy frock.

Return all bookings for the honeymoon
There’s none to celebrate or swoon
But hold on fast! A twist exploding!
A thunderbolt that needs decoding.

Good Lord! Reverse all recent actions
The wedding’s on, what contradictions
Get set for massive retro-action
Fast forward fragrant satisfaction!

The rock, the frock and all the rest
The flowers, the Vicar full of jest
Shall save the day and let us pray
Just as before, let others pay.

The mother-in-law and all her rivals
Can weep and pray for marriage survivals
And make more hay in the shining sun
Who’s the culprit with the smoking gun?

Who’s to blame for this freak disaster?
The best man’s as pale as alabaster
It must’ve, could’ve, will’ve been him!
What madness struck? And on a whim?

Or may it have been the groom or bride?
Perhaps there’s something they’d wish to hide?
For all our sakes give them a break
For pity’s sake, for heaven’s sake!

However, now this electric story’s ending
And all our comic disbelief suspending
Love conquers all and all may yet be well
Love conquers, while we are within her spell.

These shocks resolved, there yet remains the thought
That we, as humans, are forever caught
Within the turmoil of some celestial game
Wherein our fates are tossed for others’ fame!

 

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Teddy’s Fortune At Last

I’m just a plain old teddy bear
Long in age but short of hair
Who has been launched far into space
By a furious friend who thought it ‘ace’
To hurl me at another child
Who ducked and launched me back and smiled
Then shot me through the open door
And so I skidded on the wooden floor
Then kicked away by angry Dad
By now I’m feeling desperate sad
Fiercely captured by the family dog
I thank the God of Steiffs I’m not a log.

But loved and licked and guarded true
My terrier friend treasures me anew.

 

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Nightmare Nursey

Do you ever get that uneasy sense of dislocation?
And feel the world just wishes to impinge
On idle fascination with your chronic inflammation
As nurse advances with the ultra big syringe.

Such jumbled thoughts quick tumble in rotation
As Nursey’s jab is more than just a twinge
She shows a grinning pleasure at my agitation
Her reloading of the jabber makes me cringe.

She comes again to jolt my dry mouthed palpitation
And cannot understand what makes me whinge
She grimly says she has to save me for the nation
That I may just recover when next I’m on the binge.

O keep me from the close designs of nightmare Nursey
And latch me on to one who shows true quality of mercy.

 

Note: To all nurses and to all those who admire nurses, including me, – I’m only joking!

 

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Castles In The Air

 
Beware, beware
Those flying castles
Lying in wait
Somewhere beyond
The garden gate.

Revolutionary
In their defiance
Of Einstein
Who
Like the rest of us
Is gravitationally
A prisoner.

But they
Freed from a tiresome whim
Of a fanciful god
Hurtle
Tardis-like
Somewhere
Just beyond.

They might plague us
Hoping to entice us
To hop aboard
Sallying forth
Across the Forth
To circumnavigate
Wild galaxies.

Depositing us
In their own time
That might not be our time
In an unglamorous heap
Trapped once more
With Einstein
And his descendants
In an E=MC2 morass.

Castles in the air
Might or might not
Be a good thing
For me.
 

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Reaching Fifty? Bitter Sweet

Reaching fifty? Oh, what a bore!

Stunners glancing at the floor

Seeing me wrinkly and so mature

Devalued by my roaring snore

No longer flashing up a score

A frumpy grump and what’s more

Returning laden from the corner store

Unpacking Domestos, not Allure

Finding joy in a household chore

The mirror reflects a mother-in-law

Rush for the bedroom make-up drawer

Hot tears well up as they have before.

Now stop it, stop it, just don’t get bitter

Foundation first, but where’s the glitter?

 

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Who Might This Be?

Sad the vain man who never ran
Smoothing his mind with an oil can

Whose ideas never could be budged
Never made slippy and never fudged

Never sweet thinking in our cleaner air
But somehow trapped under the stair

Never alive to each morning’s story
Trapped in a vortex whirling in fury

Finding grave fault so passionately
My God! In the mirror, can that be me?

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The Untruthful Chorus Master

Sang the chorus master to his choir
‘I don’t quite know where I’ve been to
I’ve written this song that might aspire
To a masterpiece born in the lean-to’.

The choir responded with something tonal
That their chorus master was a just a fraud
For the composer was surely Señor Gronal
Coming not from a lean-to but from abroad.

‘Get out of our sight!’, trilled all the sopranos
In harmonic support thundered baritones too
The tenors as one threw over-ripe tomatoes
The Master fled for his life as he hid in the loo.

Melancholic the tale of this Master of Chorus
Whose untruthful claim I’ve set out before us.

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Did Your Hair Wash Nicely This Morning?

Did your hair wash nicely this morning?
Or was that peroxide melting the bowl?
Were your curlers not shouting a warning?
That where once there was hair, there’s a hole!

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Barbara of Mill Hill

Barbara, Barbara,

Swooning near the candelabra

Always suspected she was only

One or two misunderstandings

Away from being accepted

As an Opera

In her own right.

 

The Barber

Of Seville

Refused

Baritonally

At the end of a trill

To enlighten her.

 

Oh, where to look?

Unlocking

Perhaps the attic

Pursuing this most

Operatically dramatic

Of puzzles.

 

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Silly Frilly Nonsense

Silly Husband, silly, silly
Bought his wife a frilly frilly
When she wore it for another
He upped and went to live with Mother.

 

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