Trapped Inside a Poem

Walking around this poem

like a king in his kingdom

but one adorned

with greaseproof paper pants

and hand-knitted balaclava

with Viking horns,

I am struck

by how small everything is.

What wee words!

Such teenytiny thoughts

jumping up

like excited bandicoots

trying to get my attention!

I feel like Gulliver

amongst the Lilliboots.

 

 

What possessed me

to put this phrase here

and that image over there?

Crazy meter patterns

swim before my eyes

and the lack of rhyme!

(It's an abominable crime)

These metaphors must have seemed

like a good idea at the time.

 

 

It is all too much.

I step outside for a breath of 'fresh air'

(sponsored by Messrs Lambert & Butler)

but the smell of burning plastic

presses against my face

like a mask of Shatner,

mingled with eau de sewage

from the local tearooms.

 

 

I step back inside

to find my father

(portrayed by John Nettles,

overacting only slightly)

holding a tape measure,

a thesaurus

and a pheasant under his arm.

He shakes his head at me sagely

and says

 

 

"This house of words is poorly constructed;

it is an ill-conceived mistake.

Don't be surprised

if it subsides

and you wake up in the industrial estate."

 

B.R. 04/05/2016

 

 

John Nettles as a strangely effeminate-looking Sherlock Holmes and Elaine Banham as Miss Faulkner in 'The Hound of the Baskervilles', 1997 (BBC)