I think I choose to stay fifteen
I'll just refuse to age
Why should I give up being young
When Time turns o'er the page?
I'll still wear sassy skirts and shorts
And have my eyebrows plucked
And go to all the Brighton clubs
And count the boys I've danced with.

This moment is the only time
There is, and I'll delight
In living laughing through each day
And partying each night
So turn aside your jealous eye
You know this is the truth:
All doorways open wide to me -
For beauty and for youth.

I'll not grow older, I refuse
For I'm fifteen, and I can't lose.

 

Tags: dorian, poetry

Seek mere passion in those moments
When our selfish souls collide,
For happiness and pleasure
Only rarely coincide.

Tags: dorian, epigram, poetry

The winter chill had started to set in
The heating laboured all the long grey day
To give us warmth, while in the parlour room
We played board games to keep the cold at bay.

Enough! said I, enough! We shall repair
To those who deal in attic insulations
And purchase fibreglass; and thus we did;
But soon upstairs we found new complications.

The granary was strewn, as fields of battle,
With bits of history piled in a mess -
Toys, clothes and tents and books, a copper kettle -
So we cleaned up the past, with great success.

An ageing rusty Z-bed stubbornly
Refused to move; and so we let it be.

Tags: poetry, sonnet

A lonely dull-eyed fish regards our walk,
Beneath the morning sun, autumnal cyan sky,
Would ask us, puzzled, “Why?”, if it could talk.

Three women in a boat rowed gently by
As five strode out, we pilgrims seeking Woking
Beneath the morning sun, autumnal cyan sky.

The landlord said, “You must be freaking joking”,
But armed with GPS and OS maps
We five strode out, as pilgrims seeking Woking.

The stimuli to learning did not lapse:
We read of Kennedy and Magna Carta.
And armed with GPS and OS maps

We stumbled on to find Virginia Warter.
Before us Saxon woods and alien crater,
Behind us Kennedy and Magna Carta.

We sit on Horsell Common, six hours later.
A lonely dull-eyed fish regards our walk
Through Saxon woods to find an alien crater:
Would ask us why, but dead, it cannot talk.

Tags: poetry, terzanelle

il est mancunien, il ne manque de rien, il n'aime pas mon chien
il n'est pas lá, il n'est pas ici, il est ravi de ce que je dis
il n'est pas bavarde, n'a pas le cafard, toujours en retard
ni beau ni moche, ni fou ni cloche,
pas parasseux, parfois travailleux, pas trop sérieux,
il est tout comme je veux
ensemble a deux

Tags: poetry

For Chris

Where are you going to, my bonny lad
with your long curly hair and your blue eyes so sad?
As you scry out your course to the hills far away
Do you know where you'll be at the end of the day?

You've a tune in your head and a story to write
As you journey by daylight and make camp by night
For the girl that you love at the end of the land
And uncharted terrain in the palm of your hand.


Does the jig fill your heart and the reel dance your feet
Is your blood pumping fast to the pulse of the beat
Do your dreams drive you further from where you begun
Are your hopes rising higher and bright like the sun?

Will you cross the dark forest and meet the mad elves
Who will reach you and teach you the best of themselves?
Does the rainbow inspire you to breathe more and live more,
Does the old magic call you to give and forgive more?



"Toronto: Generic term for anything which comes out with a gush"

Tags: poetry

So here I am, a Cambridge man:
Our boat ran out of luck
Our dreams have all gone down the pan
Although we rowed like the powerful, young and virile athletes that we are.

The Oxford guys just inched ahead;
The umpire was unfair:
He ordered us to row aside -
We lost our rhythm there.

And once you're on a losing streak
You just can't help but lose
So, out of puff, not strong enough,
We got the Boat Race Blues.

Dejected, knackered and pissed off
We threw our boat away,
And headed back to Jesus Green
For beer and a good lay.

[If you want to read the smut verse, you'll have to say please.]

Tags: boat race, doggerel, poetry

Sir Humphry Davy
Abominated gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered Sodium.
E.C. Bentley

Sir Philip Larkin
Was utterly barkin'
Up the wrong tree
Writing poetry.
Me

Tags: poetry

In Ramadan the blood runs thin,
The Lenten fast removes the earth
From view; high on adrenaline
And far from chains of logic thought.

On Everest, the blue is close,
The clouds below obscure the norm.
And held in heaven's calm repose,
A dizzy map of paths is drawn.

Work, 3pm: it's hard to find
Language for thought; the words are gone
This vertigo spins through the mind,
Three times converge, all futures merge,
Rules can be broken, ventures won.


[Pls forgive the shortcomings of this attempt! ]

Tags: lent, poetry

You have multiple coins of each denomination from 1p to £1.

What numbers between 1 and 100 can be formed by using 3 coins?

What is the most efficient way to work this out?

Can you write a poem about this?

[actually that last bit wasn't in the workbook]

Tags: maths, poetry