A Sonnet on The Apprentice

So we all know who won. It was marvellous of course. Here is where I imagine the business will be in, say, a years time (in sonnet form).

Made in Taiwan

"You think that this is good enough, do you?"
Howled Tom Pellereau at the sweatshop kids
He'd bought in secret to bring his back-chair through,
"You don't have a fucking clue about business!"
Nick watched on, tutting disapprovingly,
Whilst Karen crunched the numbers in the back.
Nick needed these chairs made and damn quickly
(He probed his spine, his vertebrae went Crack)
"Sometimes you've got to walk before you run."
The sagely wisdom of Head Salesman, Jim.
Nick pistol whipped him with a massive gun,
"You talk to me again, I'll break your chin."
In Head Office, Lord Sugar filed his nails
Obliviously, pleased with this months' sales.



Keep your eyes peeled, as I will be doing a video of me doing a topical ballad (in the poetical, rather than the power sense) and I'm also writing my first ever Diss Rap. Who is it about? It could be you? (it's not you, probably)

THANKSBYE

Edinburgh and a New Poem

Hello there everyone.

Hope you're all well? Ah, that's good/sad.

Well, here is some news - I'm going up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with the good people at Misshapen Theatre - there are to be two plays performed, on Love, Sex, and the Internet. I'm involved with Phillipa and Will Are Now In A Relationship (directing) and the other one is be-named The Sexual Awakening of Peter Mayo. Both written by award-winning playwright Jon Brittain, and both extremely funny plays about. Well. Love, sex and the internet. (Look at the website for more info - IT'S UP THERE!) I do need to do a little bit of quasi-begging for any monies that can be spared... If you could visit our WeFund page (click the word 'WeFund') and have a look at the video, see if you agree, maybe give some money (incentives are listed there). THANK YOU.

RIGHT. A poem. This is a vilanelle, for some reason.

Friend

I had a friend who came to stay one day
But now it seems he simply won't go home.
I only wish that he would go away.
I go for breakfast - he's there - I say, "Hey
You're still around. I thought you might have gone."
I had a friend who came to stay one day.
I mean, it's great when he brings up a tray
With supper. I really don't want to moan.
I only wish that he would go away.
I went to Europe for my holidays
And he was there when I returned from Rome.
I had a friend who came to stay one day
And now he's hanging round me like a stray
Cat I once fed milk, but now can't send home.
I only wish that he would go away
But no such luck, I guess he's here to stay -
Maybe I'll pack my bags and hit the road.
I had a friend who came to stay one day.
I only wish that he would go away.

Thanksbye.

Wedding Poems

Hello there,

My two excellent friends Tom and Jemma got themselves married (to each other) yesterday. A wonderful time was had by all and I'm genuinely honoured to be have been part of the day (I was an usher). I wrote them a couple of poems which I then said which I shall now put here. These:

Marriage

Two people are married, happily.
Let's call them 'Tim' and 'Gemma' (with a G).
Everyone cried at the ceremony.
Mainly due to the poetry.

Wedding List

Wedding, a wedding, callooh and callay!
We're all at a wedding, pip pip hooray!
The best thing about weddings is all the booze,
It's that or the food, I can't really choose.
Or all of the ushers who've ushered so well
And the two - two! - best men who've turned up, as well.
It's all of you present and all of the gifts
You've given so gladly; you've all made my list.

And of course, I'm forgetting, no wedding's complete
Without bridesmaids to catch the bouquet!
And of course Tom and Jemma, together
Forever. My list just says 'This is their day'.

On Having Nothing Original Left To Say

This is just a short little poem I wrote the other day. It's one of very few with actual structure and rhyming so... savour it, yeah? It's about the wholly unoriginal notion that there is nothing original left to say in the world any more thanks to people bloody blogging about everything. Yea gods, who'd keep a blog, eh? Only a total berk. Big lolz.

Thought

I thought I had a unique thought, but then I Googled it.
The internet revealed to me a hundred, thousand hits.
A hundred, thousand people weblogging the same tired thought –
Having nothing left to say, so cutting themselves short.

Short Poems: Volume VII

Hello again! More longer poems will be forthcoming as I try and get my arse in gear with this whole thing (it took me ages to write that rap, you see - This One that is.

Here are some tiny morsels of poems.

68. Oh crap, thought the crap pedlar, that’s good.

69. Dave spewed vomit all over himself. ‘Lol,’ he said, before puking himself into a coma.

70. Herbert the Sherbet Dip Dab Dipstick coated his head in the sweet, sweet dust. Crunch. His brains went EVERYWHERE.

71. An ocelot raced down the motorway, going much, much slower than the cars.

72. Thomas Leslie parked his car, desperately sadly. His handbrake was sodden with tears. His face was strewn with mascara.

73. Graham marched across the open field. Unbridled joy! Glorious summer’s eve! He cried. An Owl swooped down, picked him up, dropped him on some rocks and ate his corpse.

74. Carlos then spat his words into a cup.

75. Insert poem.

76. He slunk into the haunted house. A ghost popped up instantly! But he wasn’t scared. The ghost possessed him. But he wasn’t scared. The ghost that was possessing him walked him into a room filled with corpses or something. But he wasn’t scared. He was blind; I forgot to mention that I think.

See you soon!

NEW RAP

Exciting news! Here's a new rap! So have a watch.

RAP VIDEO

I Am A Romantic

I'm currently in the Lake District, glorious part of the country, beautiful. Majestic. Sweeping. And, just as Wordsworth was those many moons ago, I have been inspired to write a poem eulogising nature and such.

On Nature

Oh babbling brook, your whispered path scythes
Through this dale.
And my heart.
Oh bumbling bee, with your wings so small
And body so big.
And my heart.
Oh skittering slate, your cracked, gnarled face
Supports my weight.
And my heart.
Oh well worn path, you guide my way
Through history.
And my heart.
Oh Sky TV with your many channels,
I never need see any of that other shit
With you doing all the babbling for the brook
And the bumbling for the bee.
I needn’t step on slate,
And I can see the path
From 32 different angles.
In HD.

I'll also point you in the direction of my Eggheads poetry trilogy in performance. (Those three words are links to the trilogy in order)

THANKS

ANOTHER Video

Here is me performing an old classic.

Very dark stuff. Literally.

VIDEO HERE

On Irony

Hello!
A new poem, eulogising the life of an extremely ironic fellow, I'll never forget him. But I can never remember his name. Ironic really.

An Ironic Man
1959-2000

His eyes, poor bugger, his eyes, his eyes,
His eyes had been eaten by moles (which are blind).
His spine, dear bugger, his spine, his spine
Was constructed from the fossilised remains of invertebrates.
(His original spine was lost when he fell on the spine of a large porcupine
Whilst frolicking around in a pine forest.)
His feet couldn’t walk; they were worn out from walking
And nor could he talk; his voice was worn out from talking.
Oh, no, wait. No, a liger tore out his voice box, that was it,
And now his voice box is constructed from a party blower.
Poor bugger, dear bugger, all this from playing silly-buggers,
And insufficient preparation for the Millennium Bug.
Oh yeah, and trying to high-five a liger.
Silly prick.


You can expect a performance video soon enough, possibly of this, possibly of an old classic.
You probably know better than me.

BYE(-winning)

Video

A video of me performing the poem Peter Sleep

Have a watch if you want

VIDEO POEM

Monday-day Mash-up

Hello my darling little pearls,

What a treat we have for you today (I say we deliberately, for reasons you shall find out presently). Presenting, me doing a poem for cult sleep-based photo blog Pete Asleep which shows the omnivorous Pete Ralph asleep time and time again. The picture that inspired this poem can be found HERE

Peter Sleep

His gummy eyes creak open.
He wipes away the drool.
He blinks away the booze-fuelled fug
And peers around the room.

Smash.
Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle.
On the floor
A single, wilted red rose
Resting in a pool of glass and murky water.
Hhm, it must have been balanced on my head.

The lights are out, the doors are locked
The Sticky Toffee Pudding he had ordered eight hours ago
Sits untouched
In a congealed pool of so much muck.


I must have fallen asleep again,
Thinks Pete,
Tucking into the cold
Gummy pudding.


Feedback welcomed/actively encouraged (eg. did you enjoy this mash-up? Do you enjoy mash? etc.)

Politics

I'm taking down the British Government piece by tiny piece. Starting with my Political Haikus which saw the back of the Brown era, I'm now tucking in to Cameron and Clegg. They won't know what's hit 'em. Could someone get this to them? Maybe?

Politicks (ie. 'ticks')

David Cameron did something bad, right?
And Nick Clegg, he’s just a drag, right?
I didn’t vote for this!
In fact, I didn’t vote at all.
Poor organisation on my part (whoops).
But I would have voted,
And not for this.
Don’t even get me started on George Osborne,
His fiscal policy is totally wrong!
And the shadow cabinet,
Can we shadow-shut-it-yet?
Politics will never work,
So let’s just get naked and hug
Each other.
Including Cameron, Clegg and Osborne
And the shadow cabinet.
They need love more than anyone.
I could vote for that.
(Maybe not the naked bit.)


I think that's something we can all get behind.

ONE YEAR!

A Rational Fear of Sharks is now One Year old! How cool is that! Thank you if you've been reading for the whole year. If you've recently had a peep, then thank you as well. If you're yet to have a gander, join in the celebrations and hope no-one notices that you haven't been here for the whole time. Here's a variation on the famous 'pop' song 'Happy Birthday' in celebration.

HB (Happy Birthday)

Happy birthday to you,
My dear sweet, precious blog,
I write stuff on you,
You just sit, smile and nod (cybernetically).
Not like my human friends,
When I write poems on them,
They say stuff like ‘leave me alone,’
‘Actually stop writing on me.’
But not you, dear blog.
Not you.
Until you develop consciousness.
But until that day,
That fateful day,
Not too long now to go,
I’ll write on you,
More poems on you,
And I hope that you will know:
I appreciate it.

Sum ('some') Nu ('new') Shorties ('short poems' [in this context])

Hello, hello. Here are some more short poems for you and you alone.

55. ‘Take that!’ said the Pope, listening to Take That.

56. Nomadically, he brushed his teeth.

57. Dork alert, thought the Nerd.

58. Here come the Nerds, thought the Dork, to the tune of ‘Here Come the Girls’.

59. The Swot rubbed his hands with glee, looking for all the world like a Rotter.

60. Christopher cautiously climbed into his chrysalis, which clung to the rim of a chrysanthemum.

61. Having ingested the candle in his own inimitable way, Pedro sneezed, showering the front row with wax and wick.

62. Two dolphins were 69ing. When they blew air out of their blowholes, the force of it made them spin like a Catherine Wheel.

63. Dragging his doughy body around. Darren was disgustingly fat.

64. Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, GOOSE! What the fuck are you doing here?

65. A monkey? Wearing a hat? Well I never? Well, I never.

66. A cheetah sits ‘twixt a rock and a hard place. It stayed there for the night. Then it moved on.

67. Not why, but when did the chicken cross the road? If he did at a peak time, on an off-peak ticket, then he must owe the council a fine. (note use of ‘peak’ which sounds like ‘beak’ which are on chickens)

See you soon. Hopefully something will happen soon that I can write a poem or something about.

Topical Poems

Given the furore over the sexism rife at Sky Sports, I thought it would be remiss of me not to make up two topical poems, one for Richard Keys and one for the delightful Andy Gray

The first is simply called:

Smash It

‘Did you smash it?’
Asked Richard Keys, expecting raucous laughter.
‘You definitely smashed it.’
Said Richard Keys. Awkward silence, after.



The second is called:

Clubbing

The nightclub fell still,
The DJ’s records slowed to a halt,
The Garage song rapidly losing beats-per-minute (bpm).
The ladies, wiggling their bums on poles,
Oscillated ever slower.
The men tossing bottles of VK down their gullets
Started dribbling VK down their Ben Sherman shirts.
Everyone looked to the entrance way,
Pissed as fuck stands Andy Gray,
He gazes out, eyes glazed,
Sweat oozing from his face.
‘Who wants to get felt up by a celebrity??’
He roars.
And the party starts again.


Yeah, I bet they never thought they'd get satirised in poetry form.

New

Hello to you all. Thank you to all who said they liked my last poem, very good of you and, well, it means a lot to me, so it means a lot to me that it means something to you. Here's a new poem about new things.

New

I’ve a new New Year’s resolution.
To make new new stuff up.
Do new new things like more poems
But I’ll probably just give up.


Satire.

Here's some pick-up lines I might try on some girls.

Girl, you like Pidgeotto , cause you super-fly.

Girl, did you fall from the sky? 'cause you remind me of Clefairy

Girl, you're the Moon Stone to my Jigglypuff , allowing me to evolve into Wigglytuff, should I choose to.

Girl, you like Woobat, shit and a game designer running out of ideas.

And finally (mum look away)

Girl, you like Squirtle - 'cause I only ever seen you spit.


Whoops.

Rest In Peace, Elsie Jackson.

This is a poem for Grandma Jackson who died recently. I hope she'd like it, and I hope you do to.

Ooh No

I remember, I was, what, eight or nine,
That age when time seems to blend
And I - loving action films and rolling around,
Getting muddy, explosions, and “down on the ground” -
I wanted to be a stuntman.
To jump through windows and land on my back,
To get thrown through a table, get thrown out a train
Get thrown for a living – not engaging my brain, you know?

So I say to my Granny, that fountain of knowledge,
Such wisdom stored in that grey-framed head,
Those spectacle framed eyes
In the eye of my mind she is wearing red,
A jumper, I’m sure, of the finest weave,
And, of course, with tissues up one of her sleeves.
I say to my Granny,
‘When I grow up, I want to be a stuntman.’
Back comes the reply, preceded by a sharp
Intake of breath.
‘Ooh no. You don’t want to do that.
You want to be a librarian.’



And you know what? Maybe I do... Maybe I do...