Odds and Sods – Tesco’s and the Devil

This is another poem that was written for reading out aloud. I’m not exactly certain why, but it always makes me think of Jake Thackray. It’s silly and pointless and just the way it should be…

I was in the checkout queue at Tesco’s – Friday last
When the Devil approached me and said,
“Before the die, for your future is cast,
Let me give you an option instead.”

“I will give you three wishes, with a full guarantee
Not to limit your statutary rights.
I’ll throw in a bottle of egg-nog for free,
If you order by Saturday night.”

“I just wanted a small tin of tuna,” said I.
“And a few custard creams for my tea,
But I can’t help myself and my trolley’s piled high
So I don’t think I’ll manage your fee.”

“I don’t want your money,” Beelzebub said.
“Your soul is the normal receipt.
Most people I speak to don’t need to be led,
So come on now, don’t drag your feet.”

Well, I have to admit, the temptation was great
‘Cos I never had much time for soul.
To tell you the truth I always preferred
Some reggae or plain rock & roll.

“Buffoon!” cried the horned one. “You great stupid prat!
We’re not talking Diana Ross.
It’s your spirit I’m after, so make up your mind –
Tell the truth, I just don’t give a toss.”

Well, the checkout girl had started to sigh
She was filing her nails with a will.
When the Devil ate up my pre-packed Birds-Eye extruded fish crumb and dehydrated potato meal in a pot for one with individual sachet of tomato ketchup,
She stretched for the bell on her till.

The security man made a big, big mistake
Well, you don’t push the Devil around.
He just tapped his trident on the mock parquet floor
And opened a hole in the ground.

The guard and his cap just plummeted down
And were braised in the fires of Hell.
Then the Devil turned round and he grinned when he said
“Those Hob-Nobs would go down quite well.”

He said, “It won’t take long to finish this pack
So please make your mind up by then.”
Three wishes were quite a temptation to me,
But really I needed about ten.

I wish that I knew all the lottery numbers
An hour or so in advance.
I wish I could dance without looking just like
A hedgehog has died in my pants.

I wish I could cook a soufflé
Or whip up a sex on the beach
I wish I could fly, I wish I could draw,
I wish that success was within reach

I wish I was taller, with much longer arms
So my hands reached the end of my sleeve.
I wish that I didn’t have the sneaking suspicion
That people cheer up when I leave.

I wish that I wasn’t the sad kind of person
Who finds falling over funny
But most of the time, I wish most of all
That I had an abundance of money.

So I turned to the Anti-Christ, prepared to say `Yes’,
But he’d gone with my Dairylea spread.
He’d decided he didn’t have use for my soul,
But the girl at the checkout instead.

By now there was no way to reach her conveyor
So I wandered on out through the aisle
And walked past another security guard
With what I hoped was a confident smile.

If the point of this story is hard to decipher
I’m sorry, you see I’m not sure,
But a sixteen stone, 6 foot 2 inch store detective
Arrested me outside the door.

So, if you meet the Devil in Tesco’s
And this offer to you should be made,
The only advice I can give you
Is to make sure the shopping’s been paid.

Zoo #6 – Spider

Though we tried so hard to hide her,
Tried our very best to guide her,
To a space that’s open wider,
Still she looked around and spied a
Teeny weeny little spider –
Sad to say it terrified her.

A true story. We were on holiday in Northern Cyprus. The apartments were new and recently opened. On the second night I was cleaning my teeth when my wife screamed. I ran through into the bedroom as she was running out. When I finally calmed her down with the application of gin and pretzels, she told me that there was a mouse in our bed, under the pillow. I went through and, sure enough, there was a little tail peeping out. I went into the kitchen to grab a pan and returned to catch it. I lifted the pillow and discovered that the ‘tail’ was, in fact, the leg of a tarantula! Panic set in as I did not want to try and catch it, only to let it escape under the bed, so I went for help. The man at the reception followed me back to the room, his eyes full of ‘Oh you English’ amusement when I tried to explain how big this spider was. I showed him into the bedroom, lifted the pillow and he flipped. When I eventually calmed him down – I had to buy more gin the next day – we carried the pillow outside together and shook the giant spider off. It wandered away un-phased and the man from the reception tried to climb the wall. The following day men in full protective suits arrived and sprayed the undergrowth all around our apartment. A week later, as we packed to go home, we found the spider’s spouse behind the curtain…

Like ourselves, I’m sure you will not believe that there are tarantula’s in Cyprus. Look it up, you’ll find that there are.

Now, you’d think, wouldn’t you, that such an experience would ensure that my wife was in no way scared of the tiny little fellas that we get scuttling around our house in the UK? Well, you’d be wrong…

Odds and Sods – The End of the World

It’s quite a while since I’ve published ‘poetry’, and I feel that I need to give a little context to this particular piece. I was reading a poem by James (James Proclaims) the other day and the style of it encouraged me to look back on something of my own from long, long ago. Many many years ago I started a book which, much like a lot of what I have done since, I didn’t finish. It was called ‘The Six Days’ and it was about the end of the world. There have been many such books and films both before and since – at least one of which, I note, has utilised the same premise and exactly the same time scale as my own. My book was actually a collection of short stories, vignettes and poems telling the story of how little the forthcoming Armageddon actually impacted on everyday life for most of my cast of misfits. It stalled about half way through. I wasn’t old enough to write it, and before I was, somebody else had done it. Not as I wanted to do it, but close enough to make me look like the sub-plagiarist if I persisted – so I didn’t. In my head, the book I intended to write was like a ‘concept album’ and this was the title track. I have played with it from time to time ever since. This will help me to leave it alone…

The End of the World

Bloody ‘fridge has packed in again.

A pool of water spilled onto the floor

Where the cat sleeps.

Froze as solid as a rock, it did;

Had to ease him out with warm spoons

And that’s no joke.

I think it must be the warmest place in the house –

Except, maybe, for the freezer

Which stopped freezing almost a month ago –

The milk has turned to cheese,

The cheese has turned to mould

And the little light doesn’t come on anymore

When you open the door.

Still,

At least the walls are thin –

We can hear them rowing next-door.

Screaming and swearing because the dog has lost control

On the Shepherds pie

And the central heating has developed a mind of its own:

Equatorial temperatures killing off the house plants;

Giving the children heat bumps;

Melting his favourite nylon vest…

It seems that Jim at number three

Arose the worse for wear;

Fell down the stairs

And cut his head on the ornamental pig by the door.

Yelled the house down.

Woke the whole bloody street.

Such a fuss!

Went to hospital on his motorbike.

Strewth! What a noise it makes,

Set the baby off

Screaming…

I wonder if she knows

About the end of the world?

And now the power’s gone.

The government says we could grind to a halt unless we tighten our belts,

Pull together

And get back on our feet.

But nobody cares about inflation, taxation, education, or unemployment;

About food rotting on the supermarket shelves

And children screaming into the emptiness of dark

Because there’s no time left to die

And life is still the toy of the few who can play:

A gift for those who know

That food is power among the starving,

God is strength among the poor

And death is the only truth they’ll know

About the end of the world.

You see, it’s about the end of the world and yet it still sounds, to me, unduly bleak. The rest of the book was more uplifting I suppose; funny in parts, sentimental, but not bleak. This frontispiece was just not right, and I couldn’t make it so, so I stopped trying and now, I hope, it has gone.

I would hope to be able to wait for the final curtain on a grassy hillside somewhere, with my family, a picnic and a bottle of wine, playing football and toasting marshmallows on the bonfire – it has to be the way to go, doesn’t it?

“The year 1999, seventh month, from the sky will come a great King of Terror: to bring back to life the great King of the Mongols, before and after Mars to reign by good luck. The present time together with the past will be judged by the great Joker: the world too late will be tired of him, and through the clergy oath-taker disloyal. The year of the great seventh number accomplished, it will appear at the time of the games of slaughter: not far from the great millennial age, when the buried will go out from their tombs.” – NOSTRADAMUS (The Prophecies of Nostradamus) – Is it wrong to suggest that he might have been twenty one years adrift?

PS The new photo has nothing to do with the end of the world, it’s just that I thought I probably needed to update it, to prove that I am not a bot (whatever they are). As far as I can see, the only thing that has changed is the specs. I still look like a dork – and I still have to look at my hand when I’m trying to take a selfie…