the friendly writers group

Anne Neuhaus

 

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 Incommunicado

(June 2020)

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II’m in Communicado

The land of Zoom and Skype

Where people with bravado

Can chatter while they type.

 

A land of teeming zooming

Where no one stops to hear

Where tinnitus is booming

In each bombarded ear.

 

My telephone may call me

My neighbour ring the bell

I’m safe inside my headphones

Reclusive in my shell.

 

I study tell-tale backgrounds

In everybody’s rooms

The learned tomes, the tattered blinds

The vase of faded blooms.

 

But if I’m in pyjamas

My webcam’s switched to veto

l see and hear but disappear

Happily in Cognito.

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Sonnet

                                        

I set upon the task that now awaits

To peel potatoes by the kitchen sink

Set saucepan on the gas, pile up the plates

Prepare the table, working while I think.

 

I feed my children, nourish them with thought,

Protect their dreams and guard them as they grow

Preparing for the world give quiet support

Set them upon their path and then let go.

 

They meet the world and enter its delights

Suffer its ills and struggle to be true

Find their own humble path or scale the heights

As individuals not the ones I knew.

 

So now they have their own tasks to fulfill

I peel potatoes, but am with them still.    ©

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Quartet on the Move

 

The Queen’s got to move, the plumbing’s so bad. 

Hussein flees Sudan, a price on his head.

And Parliament’s quitting the House where they’re sitting.

The fabric is crumbling, so MPs are grumbling.

Joe Bloggs can’t stay put in his poky old flat

He’s too many bedrooms and can’t pay the tax.

 

They’re all in despair

Oh whither? Oh where?

 

Well, Holyrood Palace might do for the Queen

The scenery is lovely, the air’s nice and clean.

Hussein makes his way to the Med’s tempting shore

Trusts himself to a dinghy with two hundred more.

The erstwhile Olympics might well house the House,

Joe Bloggs found a cubby-hole fit for a mouse.

 

When Scottish air palls, the Queen might locate

To Sandringham Norfolk, her spacious estate.

Hussein, lucky devil, has made it to France

Leapt on to a lorry and taken his chance.

Birmingham’s library beckons the Gov

With Hansards a-plenty, a café to love.

Joe Bloggs is now safe – till they put up the rent

Then out on the street – if he’s lucky, a tent.

 

 

 

A Thinking Person's Menu

    

Soup for trouble

Fish for compliments

Lamb for mildness

Beef for complaints

Gravy for riches

Onions for knowledge

Carrots for encouragement

Beetroot for embarrassment

Pie for pleasantness

Raspberries for scorn

Crackers for madness

Cheese for discouragement

Butter for flattery  ©