Question

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

Apple Barrels

Apple Barrels

*

Some apples make cider

And some apples not

Some ferment as expected

Some do not

There may be statistics

I suspect not a lot

That predict the existence

Of possible rot

Schrodinger’s cat

Is wise to the plot

A cat in a box

Or a wolf in a cot

In the barn there are barrels

To keep cold or hot

The cider is coming

Ready or not

*

by Gail

Choosing Choice

dreamland knickers

The Devizes Neighbourhood Plan referendum

at the Town Hall on Thursday 17th September

*

My alarm clock shouts at me with noisy voice

“Wake up!  It’s Thursday and you have a choice!”

Of what to have for breakfast, eggs or bran

And of voting or not voting on the Plan

I’m not that sure quite what it’s all about

Perhaps I’ll go online and check it out

The library know their stuff, they’re pretty fair

Could ask at the Town Hall, there’s people there

That funny poet woman says “Vote Yes”

Or otherwise the town will be a mess

Without a Plan we just won’t have a clue

Of what outside developers will do

But other folk are saying “No! Vote No!”

I’m so confused about which way to go

If I don’t vote I haven’t had a say

It’s only a few moments from my day

I’m going to go to town now and the Market

Could take the car but it’s a job to park it

Might take my bike or simply take a walk

And wander round and meet some friends and talk

I wonder what they think, I’ll ask their views

They might, like me, be wondering what to choose

Meat from the butchers, or some humble spam

Or whether to have a quick one in The Lamb

I’ve chosen breakfast eggs, I’m on a roll

I’m going to town, I’m going to simply stroll

I’m going to look at options and take note

I’m choosing choice and I am going to vote

If stuff goes wrong I’ve got till ten o’clock

The day is long, I’m on it (where’s that sock?)

 *

by Gail

The Devizing of a Plan

IMG_0431 - Copy 

A personal view of the Devizes Neighbourhood Plan

and the referendum at the Town Hall on Thursday

*

All careful plans of men may fail and fall

And falter, crumble; leaving broken stone

No reason to devise no plan at all

For no man lives by wild chance alone

There has been an edict from on high

“Thou shalt build houses here within ten years

Three hundred homes and thirty three…” then why

Not have a say and ease those planning fears

This Plan has seemed quite hard to understand

To many folk irrelevant, a bore

Yet now the vital hour is at hand

The issue far too pressing to ignore

“What consultation has there been?” the voice

Comes from the floor, comes loud and with an edge

“No one told us that we had a choice

And where are all the leaflets, in the hedge?”

It goes like this; the Trust have made a plan

Consulted up the Brittox, in the post

Collated all the info, then began

To work out where we wanted homes the most

They spoke with Parish Councils, factored in

The traffic, schools, the shops and open space

They put in measures to avoid the sin

Of building ugly stuff that spoils the place

Without the Plan the builders have free rein

To ride roughshod across our lovely land

At which point, just don’t bother to complain

The horse has bolted, galloping, unmanned

If jobs for boys there are let them be ours

Let local builders lay their firm foundations

On brownfield sites, not green fields full of flowers

With guidelines from the Plan’s considerations

No plan is perfect; yet no plan at all

Will simply give us no control, not clever

Consider this; vote Yes at the Town Hall

Or mourn the loss of favoured fields, forever

*

by Gail

 

Brutal Truth

Brutal Truth

 Should we view images of death and evil in the media?

*

Brutal truth; how dare you burn our eyes

How dare you mark our quiet hearts with pain

Our gentle ears are deafened with your cries

Our worlds will never be the same again

Brutal truth; without you we deny

Ourselves, our fear, the part we have to play

So shine your fierce searchlight from the sky

Force in to form the shadows of the day

Brutal truth; unchain our memory

And rend the veil that shrouds a lie from sight

The evolution of humanity

Is in your hands; stir us to flight or fight

To know ourselves and know our enemy

Shifting deserts, oceans flowing free

*

by Gail