Barnabas Rhymes

by Joshua (J.E.) Dyer

  You thrive on plants or bread or meat,

  Recycle roughage which you eat.

  Nothing useful’s ever lost,

  So thank you for our new compost.

  And after settling down inside my study

  Hoping for Inspiration from the Computer

  When I sit before the screen here and I wonder where to start,

  If my thoughts are disconnected, badly jumbled, even loose,

  Then the object that I’m looking at is not the slightest use -

  For it cannot stimulate me, cannot touch my heavy heart.

  It does not share my agony, it does not share my pain,

  It may record my ramblings, but it cannot show the way,

  For it never has ideas, or any inkling what to say

  And it fails at every juncture to bring comfort to my brain.

  It can tell me what the time is, it can do a simple sum

  It can also check my spelling, which may save a little time

  But it doesn’t have a clue to help me find a tricky rhyme

  And as far as inspiration goes, the bloody thing is dumb.

  So it’s not a good companion, nor a tried and trusty friend,

  Just a box of wires and silicon, unthinking to the end.

  A bad outing to the supermarket lead to less cheerful thoughts.

  Home Sweet Home

  Home - where my specs lie lost or hidden,

  A place where bills arrive, unbidden.

  The children’s room’s a filthy midden -

  I shut the door to keep it hidden.

  Home Sweet Home! You must be kiddin’!

  And murderous ones when a squirrel ran amok in the garden.

  Squirrel

  There’s a wretched squirrel nutkin with no morals – how he steals,

  And I’ll have his guts for garters when I lay him by the heels,

  For he likes to raid my strawberries, the peaches or the fig,

  He drops a lot and eats the rest, the greedy little pig!

  But I’ve bought a squirrel trap to set – I’ll bait it with some bread

  And when it’s caught the criminal, quite soon he’ll be stone dead.

  My farmer friends eliminate these vermin without fail,

  For they recognise a squirrel’s just a rat with bushy tail.

  Youth, and Love, and All That

  Early School

  Please share my sweeties, use my glass,

  Hand in hand walk home from class,

  In the playground stay by me,

  And when the bell at half past three

  Rings out loud and sets us free,

  Meet me by the apple tree.

  Let me take your satchel bag,

  Deter those ruffians playing tag,

  And after we have had our tea

  Come quickly round and play with me,

  Then we’ll go and sit and see

  Something on a DVD.

  When we’re grown up, by and by

  Then we’ll marry, you and I.

  Snug inside our little flat,

  Full of toys – we’ll live like that,

  And raise babies, three or four.

  We’ll be happy evermore!

  But somewhat later –

  William’s Lament.

  Girls are soppy, girls are swots,

  They try to tie boys up in knots.

  There’s some disease big brother’s got,

  Girls make his face go red and hot.

  Girls are bossy, girls are bad,

  They almost drive a fellow mad,

  Telling tales to get good marks.

  Spiteful also – teachers’ narks,

  Girls will cry and make a fuss,

  They have no courage, unlike us.

  We put up with pain and blame.

  Girls shed tears – no hint of shame.

  Girls will wrap the teacher round

  Their little finger – this I’ve found.

  If anything in class is broke,

  They’ll all blame me or some poor bloke.

  Girls have caused me so much pain

  Not once but time and time again.

  That now I’m going out of doors

  To join my decent male Outlaws!

  And later still -

  The First Dance

  When the time comes round for the village hop,

  And the disco booms with a rhythmic beat,

  I sit by the wall and my spirits drop

  For I’m one of the lads with two left feet.

  At the start the hall’s completely bare,

  ‘Till in shiny shoes fat slick-haired Pete

  Starts twirling round with comely Clare,

  But I’m one of the lads with two left feet.

  As the lights go dim the numbers grow,

  There are girls over there I long to meet.

  Can I cross the room to that shapely row,

  For I’m one of the lads with two left feet?

  When the dancers are packed and the steps are small

  And the music’s slow I leave my seat

  And I shuffle around to the other wall

  Though I’m one of the lads with two left feet.

  They know that I’ll make their insteps sore

  But now that I’m up there’s no retreat,

  A kind hand in mine and we head for the floor –

  Even this shy lad with his two left feet.

  Adolescence

  Life hath not anything to show more strange

  Than agonies of growth, red spots and shame,

  When childhood’s left behind and hormones range.

  A changing youngster scarce knows words to name

  The passions, urges, young embarrassment,

  The voice that breaks, these new small breasts that grow.

  Such changes hard, whence has this storm been sent

  Transforming each in ways they scarcely know?

  And parents also find this hard to bear –

  The mess, muck, odour of a young man’s room,

  The daughter who each day must wash her hair -

  Almost eight years of these disorders loom.

  These rites of passage, wrongs of puberty -

  ‘Til Mum and Dad both long for liberty.

  Once grown-up, life may be even more complicated and puzzling for the young.

  Basic Philosphy.

  Courage comes in many a guise, surfaces to our surprise,

  Love is also multi-faced, sublime, self-seeking or debased.

  Passion is a tricky thing – like death can hide a nasty sting!

  Were the Stoics really right enduring life without a fight,

  Should Cupid’s pudgy winged male be stripped of arrows, locked in jail,

  Had the monks and nuns of yore wisdom from some holy store?

  So there’s a balance to be struck, instinct should not run amuck,

  But the species needs to breed, which requires some certain deed.

  As Evolution’s ages run, the race was fortunately won

  By those who found the process fun – a cheerful thought for everyone!

  While later still

  Night Out

  There was a girl divinely built, but shy and most withdrawn -

  I planned to be her special friend through brains instead of brawn.

  How can we reach in womankind each soft and rounded hummock?

  In men the way to melt a stony heart is through the stomach.

  So I supposed to win my lass I’d need to wine and dine her,

  I took her to the Cafe Royal, no menu could be finer.

  She said “I don’t eat caviar. I find it too suggestive,

  Please may I have a biscuit now, plain chocolate or digestive?”

  We left and walked the city streets. I bought her chips with haddy -

  We ate it from the Daily Star - said she “I’m rather faddy.”

  I led her to the Butchers Arms, the air was thick and smoky

&nb
sp; We found we could not speak at all over the karioke.

  I bought a gin and tonic to dispel her inhibitions,

  And then she stood and belted out two scandalous renditions.

  Before I had adjusted to this startling transformation

  A burly bouncer muscled in, his object - consummation.

  I tried to lead my lass away to where my suit might suit her,

  The bouncer waved a craggy fist below my fragile hooter.

  My dear girl laughed and lit a fag, she looked distinctly older,

  Then stroked his burly biceps and his deeply tattooed shoulder.

  There is a moral to this tale - Think hard before you booze ‘em,

  Select the venue with great care, lest other men seduce ‘em.

  And once settled and married

  Fleeting Encounter

  A passing glance, a movement, tone of voice

  Will sometimes send a message, covert, clear,

  That passion, lust, primeval urge to mate

  Is waiting for encouragement, to grow

  And thrust aside the settled life we know.

  And who can say an episode like this

  May not excite, cheer up a gloomy day,

  A glimpse of vistas new, perhaps sublime,

  The feeling that we still could please, embrace,

  A partner, bed-mate in another’s place?

  But then remember blessings held in trust

  The life already held, and long-time shared,

  The memories, adventures, jokes, the ways

  Two people grow together and adjust,

  Admire and tolerate, as lovers must.

  So though there can be few if any men

  Or women too who have not fantasised

  About a different person in their arms,

  Yet mostly love will make them smile, unvexed,

  Ignore the signal, change the subject next.

  And if our fantasies engender guilt

  Remember that without some sort of test

  A virtue may be just a lack of choice!

  Decline with quiet grace the proffered move

  And loyally confirm a steady love.

  So that after many years

  A Happier Ending

  Love thirty, love forty, Oh! weakness of joy,

  The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,

  With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,

  I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.

  Love forty, love fifty, our play is maturer

  No longer so swift, but the service is surer,

  And the lobs subtly placed – our opponents must run –

  I adore close fought matches with Joan Hunter Dunn.

  Love fifty, love sixty, oh! passage of years,

  The creaking of joints and the deafness of ears.

  To stretch to our limit’s no longer such fun

  But I still enjoy sporting with Joan Hunter Dunn.

  Game love at game eighty, the fires burning low,

  The breath now comes hard, while the legs are so slow

  That I’ve given up games and must sit in the sun

  With my wheelchair and Zimmer by Joan Hunter Dunn

  There’ve been double faults, tantrums and sometimes wild follies,

  But good aces and passing shots, match winning volleys.

  We have lost a few sets, but the others we won,

  With our mixed doubles partnership, Joan Hunter Dunn.

  But love often leads to difficulties and sorrows, even for the ancients

  Hero and Leander

  Sweet Hero was a demi-god – Leander was her lad,

  Besotted with his lady love he visited each night

  Departing in the early dawn, the faintest morning light

  Showed him the way he had to swim back to his modest pad.

  The Hellespont lay deep between Leander and his squeeze,

  Great luck that Hero lived within a cosy small lighthouse

  Whose flame she tended promising she’d never let it douse,

  Though sometimes that was difficult in gale or gusty breeze.

  And slowly summer drifted by – each night and every day,

  ‘Till autumn equinoctial gales made crossings rather rough,

  But still Leander battled through, that lad was very tough,

  Drawn by the flame of Hero’s love, her light showed him the way.

  But then one stormy wicked night while Hero took a nap

  The light blew out – without its help Leander drowned, poor chap.

  And Hero blamed herself – in grief leaped splash into the bay

  She also drowned – how sad it was – what more is there to say?

  The moral of this sorry tale – by night or yet by day

  If Hero had insisted that he’d brought his things to stay

  Without those swims across the straight, his ardour had been greater

  And had their flame gone out one night – they’d just have lit it later!

  And the moderns

  The Conductor’s Tale – in Love with the First Violin

  She’s the new girl of the group

  She’d be the star of any troupe,

  As I watch her hold her bow

  This is it – I’m sure! I know!

  Powerful magic has occurred -

  I’ve been shaken, deeply stirred.

  Oh my darling, oh my lovebird

  Let me hear you whisper one word

  Hear your perfect lips say “Yes”.

  Though my life has been a mess

  Yet I know our combination

  Could reach any destination.

  We have practised hard for this –

  Heights of unimagined bliss

  That we will achieve together

  For your bowing’s like a feather,

  And when I ask you to be bold

  Then as soon as you’ve been told

  You’ll be fierce yet gentle too -

  Make me tingle through and through.

  When we play Bach’s stirring Mass

  With the strings, the drums, the brass,

  I urge on the flowing sound

  And my heart begins to pound,

  Worshipping your auburn curls

  As our full finale swirls.

  Then my heart cools down to stone

  As I walk home on my own.

  Inevitably sometimes things don’t work out.

  Woman!

  Hell hath no fury like a modern woman spurned,

  Her fury festers, grows, and deeply, deeply burns.

  While the bloke whose offer is declined just shrugs and says “Dear me,

  The sea has many better fish. Another day maybe?”

  This difference is surprising, it is puzzling and it may

  Perhaps be due to culture, but I think it’s DNA,

  For that extra bit of chromosome, the double stranded Y

  Lies behind a lot of mysteries – two Ys the reason why.

  I admit that I approve of certain ladies’ style and form,

  The best of them are smooth and soft and comfortably warm,

  But others are as hard as nails, and scratchy now and then,

  Quite a lot are prone to gossip, others peck just like a hen.

  But taking all together I suppose I must confess

  That if there were no women then our lives would be a mess,

  For the female of the species, though more deadly than the male,

  She is absolutely needed for our complex human tale.

  Strife and Worse

  My father was just too young to be called up in the Great War, while I was just too young for National Service after the Second War and so lack any direct experience. The first lines tell their own story.

  A Miracle on the Western Front.

  One of my favourite vicars,

  Long re-united with his Celtic forefathers

  Once told me of his military miracle

  Over a whisky after even
song.

  During a misty morning in an earlier life,

  As he was spotting from a French Church Tower,

  He peered upwards to a wooded ridge

  Hidden in the fog.

  A gap appeared through which he saw the trees,

  And the slope below. Was that an extra shadow?

  While he watched the first tanks moved from cover –

  A Panzer Division.

  Unsteady handset held to mouth, he called the base,

  Requested help - artillery required,

  Knowing well the slow tempo of authority

  At the other end of his line.

  He watched more tanks appear, group, begin

  To roll down open ground towards his post,

  When with a whistle, shriek, apocalyptic crash

  The hill above erupted.

  Amazingly, by some tremendous fluke,

  His lowly private’s call for heavy guns

  Slipped past the surly sergeant, sleepy captain,

  And went directly to the battery.

  As the surviving tanks retreated,

  Leaving his unit and his Church Tower saved,

  The system, protocol, inertia had unbelievably been

  Bypassed to yield a victory.

  This miracle, through which my favourite vicar lived

  Seemed real enough to him.

  Divine involvement in the Western Front led onTowards faith and ordination.

  And yet, still yet, to one who doubts too much,

  The shells that tore those tanks

  Tore into men and lads, conscripts like him

  Sent without choice to kill or die.

  A miracle that slays and maims, whose victims lack an option to refuse,

  Whose mothers weep as mothers always have, to me holds little of divinity.

  Prayer

  Dear Lord,

  If I am one of those who die tonight

  Be kind and make it swift and clean.

  And if I kill during this fight,