Oh quivering quarrelsome wreck!
Your anointed point barks
Its magisterial presence.
Humdrum no more.
Suits and boots
Traipse around your oblique sides.
A colony of workers
Fetching precious metal
For shiny trinkets.
What a wonder to behold!
An empty shell screaming aloud.
Look at me –
All shiny and new.
Oh what a vista!
Stretching into the sky
An affront to Above.
The dome of St Paul's
Whispers in fear.
Blocked from sight;
Forgotten relic.
Seen from the hill
Like a lash in the eye -
An irritant on the view.
Up in arms and perplexed
Little Englander's press
Our finest barbarous sharks.
In four centuries will you still stand
And be a beacon of light
Or our generation's folly?
Oh glorious shard.
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Bubbles
Plop,
Plop,
Plop,
Gone.
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Metropolis
Tall monolith – oh how you sit
And stare down upon me,
Crushing me with contempt;
The sun dazzles off those panes;
The light atop flickers;
Warning those stray jets
And illuminating the darkness of night.
I cry when I think about the glory above,
Crumbling into nothing;
Gone and forgotten,
Your mocking will be over.
Jumping from the roof,
In your business suits,
Arms flapping like dodos,
Soon to be dead too,
Your wallet falls from your pocket,
Money tipples out,
And old Abe is smiling up at you.
Gone and forgotten,
The black widow’s heart melts,
Their country vacation gone,
Private schooling put on hold,
Jewellery sold,
And growing old.
And smiling down from above,
He is pleased with his work.
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The Man Who Tamed an Elephant with an Ice Cream
Yes, I remember the man: a short sort of fella; grey flecks in his hair; like a stick insect. He stumbled along the dusty road swinging a pair of worn-out slippers in his right hand. Straggly tufts of curly hair protruded from his armpits and a ragged ruby cardigan hung limp from his bony shoulders. And that wide eyed optimism; his gawping mouth; a grin that took up half his face; rotten crooked teeth; red stains around his lips – evidence of a serious paan eater. His feet kicked out at the dirty, dusty, litter strewn pathway. He came to a stop in front of us and saluted.
It was an unusual gesture; we weren’t officialdom; merely tourist with a desire to see some pachyderms. But there he was – no longer a grin on his face; replaced by the serious scowl of a man demanding respect. Nose aloft; chin and chest pushed out. A bead of sweat dribbled across his forehead, down a wrinkle and onto the bridge of his nose. It dangled on the edge; he strained every muscle – erect. And then it fell.
I saluted – what else could I do: it was clear the poor fella wasn’t going to move. I then stretched out my hand to shake his. This was a mistake. He put his hand against mine and I felt a gummy substance. As I pulled my hand away from his it stuck a little and it definitely needed prising apart. But I couldn’t stay annoyed for long as I was confronted by that toothy grin and a swaying of the head.
“Good to met you sir. It’s a pleasure, sir”.
A real charming fella: I couldn’t help but like him. The rest of the group were growing impatient though – they had come to see elephants and elephants were what they wanted to see! Not some scabby old Indian. And so some voices started to pipe up.
“Hey look here old chap!” “This is outrageous!” “I’ve paid good money for this and what do we get, nothing!” “Standing in the midday sun – it’s just not on!” “They wouldn’t treat us like this back home!” “I want to see the elephants!”
The English like nothing better than to complain and they will find any opportunity to do so. If there were a world cup of complainers, England would win hands down every year.
Eventually the Indian decided to move and shuffled over towards the trees. Our guide, a burly man with a twirly moustache, turned to face us; a proud beaming smile planted across his face.
“Ladies and Gentlemen. Prepare to be amazed. Set your eye glasses at the ready. Turn your brains on. Open your mouths and get ready to gawk in absolute amazement. Now is your turn to witness one of the greatest creatures on planet earth: swaying ears, muscular trunk, powerful tree-trunk like legs – THE ELEPHANT!”
And from the bushes came walking out the small, skinny Indian man. He stood there looking a little perplexed.
“The elephunt has gone.”
“What’s that?”
“The elephunt has gone.”
“Gone where?”
“I dunno. It’s gone.”
“Well you better bloody find it.”
And with that the man turned and re-entered the bush, still swinging his plimsolls to the rhythm of his walk. The rest of the group were seriously getting annoyed at this point. And I couldn’t blame them.
We stood under the basking midday sun for a good twenty-minutes and there was certainly some grumblings amongst the group.
“Shall we go?” “I can’t bear it.” “I turned down afternoon tea for this.” “Well I’m going home tomorrow and I definitely don’t want my last day spent waiting for nothing.” “Bloody third-world countries – they can’t do anything.”
But with reassuring words from the tour operator, the mass was kept placated for the time being. And then we heard it.
No. Not the low grumbling of elephant footprints: something all together different. It sounded like a song. It sounded like our Indian friend. At first, fast and quiet.
“Hey chucky, chucky, chucky. Hey hey chucky, chucky, chucky.”
And then a bit louder.
“Hey hey hey chucky, chucky, chucky. Hey hey chucky, chucky, chucky.”
We saw him. Shuffling. Not walking. But dancing. Sideways. And shuffling. Is that dancing? We were all a little confused. His arms were swinging around like an orang-utan. But in time to the song that he was spitting out. He headed towards us.
“HEY HEY HEY chucky, chucky, chucky. HEY HEY chucky, chucky, chucky.”
His arms swayed even more; knees bending; legs kicking out and then scrapping across the floor. A whisper.
“Hey chucky, chucky, chucky. Hey chucky, chucky, chucky. Chucky, chucky, chucky.”
And then we saw it: the glorious hulking beast. Its ears were flapping wildly, trunk aloft. It was pretty close and didn’t seem too happy. It was clear the song and dance weren’t to the elephant’s pleasing. The Indian continued to whisper his song, head swaying, dancing back and forth across the path of the animal, who continued to head straight for us.
“They’re crazy!”
“What is this?”
“We’re going to die!” screamed an old woman who lifted her umbrella as a form of protection.
The elephant was within metres of our group, when suddenly the Indian stopped singing; stopped dancing; began grinning and pulled from beneath his dhoti an ice cream: a small wafer cone; a chocolate flake inserted precariously in the Mr Whippy ice cream.
The elephant stopped; ears stopped flapping; trunk was at rest; eyes fixated on the sweet treat. The Indian glanced over towards us.
“I think in Englend you name this the ninety-nine ice cream, ladies and sirs.”
He took a bow, held the ice cream aloft and with one swift movement the elephant’s trunk had picked the flake out, twirled it in the air and caught it in its mouth. A loud round of applause rang out from amongst the expectant tourists – I was so amazed that I stood with my mouth wide-open hands apart, not clapping, but waiting.
The Indian started his little song again; ever so quietly to begin with; he started to sway, moving around in front of the elephant. He pirouetted; fell to his knees and held the ice cream in front of the elephant. The trunk once again stretched out, this time grabbing the whole cone, which it brought to its mouth. A thick red tongue appeared and delicately licked the top of the cream. I was certain the elephant was smiling.
The Indian turned to us for the final time and once again lifted his arm in salute. This time I was not alone in returning the gesture as all of us planted our fingers into our temples. That wide eyed smile. Damn, it’s making me grin just to think back; him standing there in front of us, grinning like a naughty school kid. He lowered his arm, walked over to our tour guide, took some coins for his efforts and sauntered back down the path from where he had come, slippers swinging by his side.
Derek the last ever Dodo
Derek was the last dodo on earth. And he knew it. Not a day went by without somebody reminding him of the fact. It was a cruel existence. He was desperate to keep the species alive, but it really depended on whether he could manage to reproduce by himself. And try with all his might he just couldn’t do it – probably something to do with a lack of female dodos. But then again the saying is “as dumb as a dodo” and so he kept on trying.
Derek wandered the lands looking for a purpose to his life. If he was the last dodo then surely he should do something with it – make a name for himself. He wanted to be remembered for something other than being the last one. And so he tried his hand (or wing) at any opportunity that would present itself. In his life time he was the first dodo to bungee jump, the first dodo to paraglide (he wanted to know how it felt to be a real bird), traveled the world and saw the pyramids of Giza, Machu Picchu and Victoria Falls, worked as a rickshaw driver in Delhi, and sold oranges on the streets of Beirut. And in all this time there was one constant thought preoccupying his mind: he must do more.
He fell in love. With an ostrich in Somalia. She was the most beautiful bird he had ever seen: big and voluptuous. But sexual intercourse was haphazard at best and he feared for his life. If she was ever to go on top then it would pretty much be over for him. And so with a heavy heart he left her and kept on wandering. He flew the English Channel in a bi-plane, sailed through the arctic waters to flirt with several penguins, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, white water rafted down the Grand Cannon, and suited up as an Astronaut and blasted into outer space.
But after all his years of travel he returned to his home and felt depressed for he was all alone and none of his adventures had filled that empty gap in his heart – the longing for another dodo. He sat down to rest and contemplate his future. He fell asleep.
A man stumbled upon this most mysterious of creatures – is it a dodo? My God I thought these had died out years ago. This must be the last one! What luck! Nobody will believe me. What can I do? I know!
He took a gun from his pocket, blew a hole in Derek’s head and took him to a taxidermist to have him stuffed. And then showed the world the last ever dodo.
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The Incredible Poking Sloth
The incredible poking sloth is one of the most exceptional and pointless creatures on this planet. Hardly anything is known about this mysterious creature and I would be pretty certain that this is the first time you have ever heard about it. I have been lucky enough to learn a little bit about them and so I would like to pass on this knowledge. However a word of warning, if you do attempt to ever try and find one you will be bitterly disappointed as they are extremely shy and will dive for cover as soon as any footsteps approach. Oh I should also note that if you do manage to catch one of them they will start poking you and you will never escape; they will poke you until you are red raw, most probably dead. So I do sincerely wish you luck in your mission as you will most certainly need it. The poking sloth who is currently poking me concurs.
The first thing that is obviously prominent about the poking sloth is that they love poking. In fact poking is all they live for. They poke in the morning, poke in the day, poke at night. They even poke whilst sleeping, which is a pretty remarkable feat if you ask me. The index finger of their right hand is elongated to help assist with their poking. They also have extremely strong biceps and triceps that enable them to poke all day long and they stand in a stooped posture which enables the maximum amount of leverage for strong pokes.
The question that is probably stirring in your mind at this moment is what do they poke? Well it’s pretty obvious, they poke each other. And once they start poking they don’t stop (unless of course a fool like me stumbles upon them), which makes them one of the most pointless creatures in the entire universe. More pointless than both the dodo and the fruit fly. It is so pointless that it has gone unnoticed for thousands of years and it was only by accident that I eventually stumbled upon them. Darwin would be completely perplexed at how evolution has led to such a pointless beast.
The poking sloth begins life by poking its way out of its mother’s womb and from that moment on it begins its journey. The first poke in life is an inquisitive stab on the shoulder of another poking sloth in an attempt to get its attention. However, there is a huge problem as the sloth that it is poking is so immersed in poking of its own that it fails to notice that it is being poked. Obviously this sloth is poking another sloth and so on and so on until a sloth starts poking our original sloth and the circle is complete. It is a whole ecosystem based around poking.
It carries on like this until one sloth dies from over poking and then they all begin to drop like flies. The main cause of death in the other sloths, in fact the only cause of death is shock. They all suffer pulmonary failure when they eventually receive the attention of the sloth that they have spent their whole life trying to achieve. The sloth that they have been poking will turn around to see who is poking them, at which point the sloth that is doing the poking will not know what to do and keel over. It continues like this until the whole community dies, although not before they have impregnated each other, for their reproductive organs have evolved so that they are position in their poking finger. It is a sad existence and one of the most pointless to have ever graced my mind.
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A Short Story About Mr Jones, Mrs Jones, Mr Smith and Mrs Smith.
Mr Jones loved Mrs Jones, but Mrs Jones loved Mr Smith. Mr Smith loved Mrs Jones. Mrs Smith loved God. She went to Africa to become a missionary; she was happy. Mr Jones was unhappy. He wanted to kill himself and blamed Mrs Jones for everything that was wrong in his life. He often thought about the different methods of suicide. He decided that shooting oneself was too messy, a failed overdose would result in him dying slowly and painfully, and hanging seemed far too tragic. He decided that death was not for him and he sought out a therapist.
Mr Smith and Mrs Jones were married and were very happy. Mr Jones was invited to the wedding, but he refused the invitation because he did not feel comfortable seeing another man with the love of his life. He turned to drink and became depressed once again. Mr Smith and Mrs Smith lived very happily into old age. Mrs Smith never felt any regret about leaving Mr Jones. She did not love him.
The first Mrs Smith still loved God and lived out her days in his care. Mr Jones was all alone and had nobody to care for him, especially not God. He wanted to end it all. He was desperate; no way out. He wanted to come up for air, but was heading down; deep down; deeper down into isolation; no way back up. He was looking for oxygen. His head was spinning. He saw shapes and dark sombre colours; life was dripping away; head was becoming too heavy to hold; limbs were like bricks.
He died. They all died. And there was nothing. Not even God.
The end.
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