Category: Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

A Poem Of Unsuccessful Excess

Ogden Nash is the finest.
The snobs who dismiss his work
are knobs and jerks
whose heads should be examined
and given an F minus.
Of his talent they have not a tenth.
I mean, flipping heck!
Lacking depth is his strength.

And
now for some
HAIRY QUESTIONS… 
Werewolf?
Whywolf? Howwolf?
Whenwolf? Whatwolf? Whowolf?

Questions like those never can
be answered
because the facts are tactless 
and the fangs
will leave you gutless on nights
of a full moon.
The lycanthropic topic is one
best avoided
and thus I will always avoid it.

I made myself a sandwich.
I made it for my health.
I am a self-made man
despite my lack of wealth.

I made myself a promise
I would be a bitter gourd 
cut into fancy segments
by an even fancier sword.

Unlike okra I’m not slimy.
If you ever dare to try me
I’m a vegetable Cockney,
I must say, “gourd blimey.”

Is that all?
No, it certainly isn’t.

Lady Rickshaw claims
we are all ghost ships
on the streets of cities,
drifting here and there.

That’s modern civilisation
for you: please join the queue
for the time machine.

But in more barbaric times
in chillier climes…

Our cavemen noses
glow in the cold.
They never grow 
when we are old
but snowmen’s noses
linger for longer
and their nostrils
resemble craters.

The comet made from ice,
interstellar, vast,
oblivious, very fast,
will strike that fellah dead
when it hits his head.

And now
let’s take a trip to
ANCIENT GREECE

A gorgon’s internal organs 
must be clever forgeries.
She turns heroes to stone,
in pairs or if they’re alone,
and when destiny calls
and Greece finally falls
those statues will be taken
to Rome, their new home.

But the gorgon’s heart
will never beat a rhythm
you can dance to.
It won’t thump like
a man-bull’s hoof-shaped
shoes, that’s true.
No swirling sonic brews
amuse our motley crews.

I’ve had better days 
lost in this maze:
one time I almost 
found my way out,
said the Minotaur…

Fenugreek Mythology 
featuring Hercules 
and Coriander leaves,
Turmeric and Ulysses,
Centaurs and Bottle Gourds
on a bed of saffron rice
is nicer to devour than plain 
old Greek mythology.

Tell me honestly:
have you ever seen
A GHOST?

Death’s anniversary,
is a ghost’s birthday:
blowing out cake candles
with supernatural breezes
he teases the ectoplasm,
a professional phantasm.

Are spooks international?

I am turning Japanese
after a sneeze
because some wasabi
went up my nose.
Kimonos are my clothes.

Also, I play shogi
with my toes. (Shogi is a
kind of chess: I’m glad to
get this off my chest).

Now let’s have a
SELF-REFERENTIAL HAIKU

Counting syllables 
when confronted with haiku
ruins the effect.

That’s done.
Where else can we find our fun?

Do you know the tale of
Patriarchy and Mehitabel?
Do you know the tail that
twitches on the windowsill?

The proof is in the pudding,
or so they say,
but I think I know a better way:
the waterproof
is in the puddling duck.

A vestige of a visage?
My face is the place
where my luck never runs out.
It may lack grace,
a waste of features
belonging to other creatures,
but each to their own.

The philosopher doesn’t like
my tone: he tells me
to ponder harder
but not to think about
swamp imps named Marsha.
Easily done: I don’t
know anyone with that name.

Harsher, he calls me timid,
says I am a coward.
Coward? But how?
I don’t know the meaning
of that word
but I can work it out
and applied to me it’s quite absurd.
It means to move
in the direction of a cow,
or many cows, a herd.

Have mercy if you’re thirsty.
Be ruthless if you’re toothless.

Do farm girls 
grow on you over time,
seasonally?

A question I can’t answer
because I am a scarecrow.
No one planted me,
I do not grow. I do not know
a single thing.

But I can take a guess
about the mess
made by guests at dinnertime.
Billabong Monkeys
dunk their feet in the soup
in groups much larger
than gorillas are long.

Is that a SONG?
Somehow, I don’t think so.

And now
let’s have some
Soliloquies for Stringless Guitars.

Kiss her through the mask.
Miss her through the cask.

Foxglove Alley.
Weasel Stockings.
Garter Snakes, real and fake.
Rotten Shed and Rusty Rake.
I venture down
the Cul-de-Sac of Frogs.
I lost my way in the fogs.

That isn’t fog: it’s sand.
That’s no frog: it’s a panda.
Are you an understander?
There is no great demand
for sand disguised as mist
and so we insist you redo
the list of things you wish
to purchase in the sopping
shops that underwater lie.

Swinging on a garden gate,
it’s far too late
to palpitate at sunset
but the day’s still too early
to fly away and so you may
barbaric be,
barbaric bee, barbaric beer.

Beer comes in at the mouth.
Jokes come in at the ear.
Foam comes out of the nose.
POOR ATTILA lost his clothes
during a drunken stupor.
It’s not ideal but he is super.

Attila was very short.
Only one metre tall
and nocked with battle scars
at one centimetre intervals. 
No wonder he was such
an effective ruler!

He wanted his wife
to call him ‘Darling’
in the marriage bed
but she insisted on
calling him ‘Hun’ instead.

Oh dear!
Have no fear:
King Lear has shed a tear
that splashes
on the lashes of the whip
that thickens cream
in dreams.

When I was younger 
I had a narrow mind 
and only thought of
narrow things:
tight corridors, 
blocked canals,
mountain ledges,
malnourished gulls,
ladders designed
for stick insects,
crevices into which no
man could fall.

But now I am older
and think only of
wide things like
canyons and gulfs,
the open mouths that
shout bravo at gigs,
the taste in literature
of well-read people,
the square bases of
the mighty steeples
perched on churches
in historical towns,
the flapping gowns
of aristocratic vamps,
the pipe bowl of my
eccentric gramps and
the prehistoric snouts
of pigs snuffling for
unripe but fallen figs.

Listen closely, my dear…

My love for you
might sound hyperbolic 
to hyperactive alcoholics.
But it will sound 
perfectly fine to
good romantic folks.

Now here’s a thing:
sea roofs on the inside
are called sea lings.

Freshwater otters in Goa.
Salty authors in the shower.
Both are so clean
but only the latter dare dream
of rivers of cash.
The former dream only of fish.

FOR A FLUTE?

Love
for a flute
is holy love
because a flute without holes 
is a stick
and love for sticks 
makes me sick
but flutes have holes
thus my stomach will settle
at the base of the kettle
and I will laugh:
tea-hee cough-hee.

The frozen lion
thaws before he roars.

A thaw in the old ball bearings 
and the machinery of his desire
began working again.

The machine marks time
like a strict examiner
puffing out his metal cheeks
in the weeks
before the summer holidays.

Do machines
really play the drums?

As a rule of thumb, yes!
Keeping the beat with steel feet.
How neat. What a treat.
The soul of the dance 
is deep in the soles.
The heels heal the heart.

We have 
our whole lifetimes 
A HEAD of us
in which to try out 
new hairstyles, she said. 
She knew what 
she was talking about.
The barber’s wife.

Mourning becomes Electra.
Evening becomes etcetera.

The gentle love drizzle
puzzles the riddler.
The lion is sizzling 
in the meri jaan frying pan
over the fire
of our heartfelt desire.

And that’s
the end of the line
for the wandering rhymes
and the Nomads
of the Bone will soon end
up back home.

*meri jaan is an endearment in Hindi meaning my life

Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.

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