Author: Gail

Drawing a Line; for Hayley Nutland

I wrote this poem for Hayley, a homeless girl who apprehended a villain who viciously mugged an old lady in my home town.  There is a link to the newspaper article beneath the poem

*

The word on the street is that Hayley done good

A considerable feat for the girl from the wood

She caught him, she taught him, that crime doesn’t pay

She sought him, she fought him, he got put away

There are good folk and bad folk, it’s not always clear

Some folk have a toke, and drink buckets of beer

But at mugging and stabbing, this girl draws a line

She witnessed the grabbing, gave chase, and done fine

So think twice when you say that someone is a zero

Today, doff your hat, because Hayley’s a hero

*

by Gail

*

http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/13848969.Elderly_told_still_safe_to_walk_alone_after_mugging_in_Devizes/

Cyber W*nk

The following rhyme contains sexual references

It was written in response to a provocative post in an online writers’ group 

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You took a break from masturbation
To indulge in provocation
Badly judged, son, what bad luck
For most of us don’t give a f*ck
Now that you’ve expressed your issues
Best clean up with man sized tissues
We’re writers, kid, we’re hard as nails
Pointless posts and epic fails
Provide our mills with grist to write
For we make gold dust out of sh*te
So thanks for your ejaculate
If you were hoping for some hate
You’ll get some now, so good for you
You’ll get some love and humour too
And feedback and some cyber hugging

…

Have you logged off now?
Bet you’re tugging…

*

by Gail

What’s the crack with rugby?

Rugby

for Ian Diddams, and my Dad

*

So what’s the crack with rugby?

My father used to play

He’d come home with an injury

Every other day

My mother used to worry

He was quite deaf to her fears

Her futile protestations fell

On cauliflower ears

Oh so many broken bones

As trophies he would wear

Those would be the only times

I heard my mother swear

My father didn’t drink much

He didn’t do the pub

But he’d sink some with the other lads

In the rugby club

He had a book of rugby songs

Some of them were crude

Dinah, Dinah, show us yer leg

And other ones more rude

A weird way to learn about

Sex and funny stuff

Sex ed in the seventies

Was really pretty rough

Now I watch a rugby game

And find the blokes quite hot

Got to love a massive thigh

And firmly muscled bott

Oh how they thunder up the pitch

And grunt and sweat and shout

Got to love testosterone

It’s what it’s all about

Never mind the odd shaped ball

Shape doesn’t make me frown

It’s how they chuck the thing that counts

And how they smack it down

The scrum’s a thing to marvel at

A tad homo erotic

What if someone breaks their neck

Not sport for the neurotic

And then there is the line dancing

And shouting things in code

Like massive noisy warriors

With faces streaked with woad

Not partial to the gumshields

I suppose they save the grief

Of ruining a toothpaste smile

And choking on the teeth

The thing I don’t quite understand

Is how they pass the ball

What’s the crack with backwards?

I don’t get that at all

I’m a girl who loves a tryer

It’s hardly a perversion

It just don’t get more exciting

Than a finely placed conversion

Snorting mist like horses

Hot blokes running free

Imagine the baths afterwards

Oh it’s all too much for me

I have memories of autumn

Fields all churned up with mud

My Dad and Son played rugby

There’s some rugby in my blood

So, here’s my final word on this

Rugby’s hot, but makes me sad

For when I think of rugby

It reminds me of my Dad

*

Love you, Dad

*

 by Gail

Strange Poets

light on metal

*

strange poets never cease but to amaze

with words describing things we had forgot

or never knew to start with; who knows what

may move another poet’s muse to phrase

the simply indescribable in rhyme

within a string of sentences enshrine

the essence of complexity sublime

with every word a jewel within a line

strange poets see things hidden in the light

and force the formless mist within to matter

express the indefinable and flatter

dead love to life and nothingness to sight;

by use of sense and symbol and the will

they stir to movement that which once was still

*

by Gail

Mortality in Flight

IMG_0680 - Copy-01 - Copy

for him

*

wafts of smoke and apples

custard, autumn, damp, decay

forgotten roses over blown

black berries blet away

rubber hot on tarmac

methane, lactose, chips and fires

smears of leaves of shedding trees

made ghosts beneath his tyres

the thrust, the thrill, the shuddering

sensation of vibration

illegal speed, adrenaline

such dangerous elation

accelerating recklessness

in swerve, in weave, in chase

catching breath and missing beats

defying time and space

the fear of death, of love, of life

a shadow’s blink, a distant call

my lover has a nose for speed

and I am in my lover’s thrall

what madness is this motorbike

this dark and risky wild delight

unworldly joy, insanity

mortality in flight

*

by Gail