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PINS
AND NEEDLES
Sit cross-legged playing Ludo,
hide in a really small box,
lean on your elbow for more than an hour,
wear some very tight socks,
go to sleep on the sofa,
perch on the back of a chair,
squat on your haunches a little too long,
stand with your hands in the air;
first you feel the creeping freeze
of a limb that's growing numb,
then there's an eerie tingling thing
in your arm or leg or bum,
next there's a tickly prickling -
that's when you know he's been,
the Small Invisible Chimpanzee
with his Pins and Needles Machine!
You know what I'm talking about.
You know who I mean!
The Small Invisible Chimpanzee
with the Pins and Needles Machine!
No-one has ever talked to him,
I don't think he's ever been seen,
but he's two feet tall and totally bald
with a Pins and Needles Machine!
He wheels it in on a trolley
and attaches a wire to your toe,
then he winds a handle round and round
to make the machinery go,
it siphons all the comfort out
and leaves you with only the pain
of needles and pins piercing your skin
again and again and again…
Sometimes it lasts just a minute or two,
sometimes it lasts for ages,
it depends if he's feeling kind that day
or if he's in one of his rages.
He gives you a jolt and a bolt and a volt
then zooms off out of the door,
leaving you rubbing your paralysed part,
sad and sorry and sore.
So the next time you sit for half an hour
on the loo with a magazine,
remember, I warned you about the Chimp
with the Pins and Needles Machine!
LINES
TO A BAT
Echo
guided
Soaring, swooping
Acro-Bat
Bat loop-the-looping
Barrel-rolling
Bat amazing
Airborne gourmet
Insect grazing
Supersonic
Bat
High-tech
Keeping vermin hordes
In check
Bat
resilient
Bat elastic
Bat who trips
The light fantastic
Bat
with fruity
Inclination
Bat involved in
Pollination
Fur-lined
Bat
Bat swathed in leather
Staying home
In stormy weather
Bat
in winter
Hibernating
Bat with long-range tanks
Migrating
Bat
in summer
Dating, mating
Single offspring
Bat lactating
Flying
mammal
Nature's freak
Upside-downer
Bat unique!
Bat
of morbid
Fascination
Bat with dodgy
Reputation
Stuff-of-nightmares
Bat nocturnal
Vampire Bat
Bat mock-infernal
Rabies
bearer
Bad news bringer
Hair entangler
Curtain clinger
Churchyard
lurker
Belfry dweller
Bat in attic
Bat in cellar
Fragile
Bat
With friendly face
Appealing to
The human race
Bat
with white-nose*
Bat who sneezes
Bat a prey to
New diseases
Pipistrelle
and
Little Brown
In their thousands
Falling down
Bat
with dwindling
Room to roam
Bat in need of
Hearth and home
Bat
who only
Craves a cave
Bat we have
A chance to save.
Richard Medrington
November 2008
*A
new fungal disorder, dubbed white-nose syndrome (WNS)
because of the presence of a white fungus around the
muzzles of some affected bats, is a major concern to
the bat conservation community.
Click
here for the Bat Conservation Trust
THE
DAY I DIED
On the day I finally died there was
a lot of confusion. People kept bringing me things
they thought I might need for the journey.
Most of them turned out to be quite unnecessary:
a
warm cardy in case it was winter when I reached
the other side; magazines to read on the way;
travel guides; a thermos of minestrone…
But the trip took no time at all
and
when I arrived it was mid-summer
and so quiet in the forest I could hear
the haunting, half-remembered tune
that on earth had always eluded me.
So
this is death, I thought, an end
to all the distractions! A chance
to sit on the porch with your feet up
and play along, finding your fingers
still
know the chords. I opened my mouth
and the words were there - they just came out,
together with all these extra verses
I'd somehow learned while I'd been away.
Old
friends kept dropping by to say hello
and staying for a song and a beer.
It seemed I'd only been gone a week
instead of… How many years was it again?
Everyone
here sends their love to you; it's hard
to explain, but I'm seeing things in a new light.
Oh, and there's no need to bring anything
with you - just the words and music of your life.
Richard
Medrington
This poem has in
the past been requested as a funeral poem - please feel
free to use wherever appropriate
THE
ORIGINAL (SELKIRK)
AND THE ALTERNATIVE GRACE
(with
apologies)
Some
hae meat and canna eat
And some wad eat that want it:
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.
But
some hate meat and girn and weep,
Resisting all coercion,
So bless the tatties, bless the neeps
And the vegetarian version.
Then
filled wi' fruits o' field and vine
And feelin fairlie frisky,
The One who water turned to wine,
We'd ask to bless the whisky.
Extra verses by Richard Medrington
now
available from Amazon
Richard's
poem Bully
Cat
and Elspeth Murray's Flip
Flotsam are both
included in the new Anthology of Children's Poetry
published last year by the Scottish
Poetry Library
Common Ground: Around Britain
with Thirty Writers (Paperback)
by John Simmons et al.
now available from Amazon
including :
STILL NOT MUCH GOING ON -
EDWARD THOMAS AND ADLESTROP
by
Richard Medrington
Common
Ground includes
chapters by
Ali Smith and Niall Griffiths
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