Who sat with coils akimbo.

Then he awoke and cried, ‘Alas!

I’m lost in mental limbo.

I wish I was a poet like

My old mate Arthur Rimbo.

Then I‘d have words to wish for you

A truly Happy Crimbo.’

His wife unforked her tongue and smiled

‘My slithery and slim beau!

You just have done, my darling one,

So don’t be such a dimbo!’

‘And New Year too,’ the cobra said,

And whizzed off up the chimbo.

Sadie Goes to Sea

A dinner lady

Whose name was Sadie

(Her boy called Roy

And her man called Stan)

In an old Land Rover

Went galloping over

The tussocky fields

Of the lsle of Man.

They met a squirrel

Whose name was Cyril

(Who came from the Wirral)

And gave him a lift:

They found a bonnet

With badges on it

And draped it over

That old gear-shift.

A water-logged welly

Name-marked ‘Kelly’

They slung right on to

That rusty exhaust:

They picked up a rider

Who’d been astride a

Stallion but sadly

Got de-horsed.

They scooped up a piglet,

Thin as a twiglet,

And fed him up on

Potato peel.

Which they kept in the boot

For just such a cute

Young porky person

To gobble a meal.

They found a donkey

Whose legs were wonky

And settled him down

In the back of the car:

They stole a rhino

With skin like lino,

Wrinkled and worn

In a public bar.

Now, that old Land Rover

Was spilling over

With animal extras

And people too,

But it kept on bumping

All over the jumping

Fields of Man

With its personal zoo –

Till the dinner lady

Whose name was Sadie

Her boy called Roy

And her man called Stan,

The squirrel called Cyril

(Who came from the Wirral),

Mistreated, unseated,

The horse-riding man,

The twiglet piglet,

The wonky donkey,

The lino rhino

And all the rest

Jumped over a hedge

By the ocean’s edge

And drove in shouting,

‘WATER’S BEST!’

March Dusk

About the hour light wobbles

Between the day and night,

On paving-stones and cobbles

Rain hisses with weak spite

And plane trees dangling bobbles,

Drip leafless from numb height

Where wounded springtime hobbles

That soon will leap with light.

Fishing Vessel

The hawthorn tree

that trawled its catch

of crimson berries

in its scratchy net

a wild way out

in the rending winds

dreams at anchor

but soon will hoist

its new white sails

on the late spring tide.

Sid the Rat

Sid was a rat

Who kept a hat shop,

Ordinary sort of stuff:

Pork pies,

Panamas,

Old flat caps,

Bowlers,

Boaters

For old fat chaps,

Deerstalkers,

Stetsons…

And that was enough

For that shop!

Yes, Sid was a rat

Who kept a hat shop,

Ordinary sort of trade:

Eels,

Elks,

Dirty old foxes,

Skinny

Kittens

In travelling boxes,

Elephants,

Owls…

And business paid

In that shop!

One day the Mayor knocked on the door,