WHERE THE BATTLE RAGES

33. ANGELS WITH NO WINGS   Have you ever spared a thought For persons of a certain sort? Some with flock to tame and ward Those that search when hills are pored Some scan rubble or sniff for bomb All tasks done with great aplomb Persons I say and add no clause Though you’ve guessed these have four paws   Now please indulge me as I drone And speak of some that I have known First comes Caesar, son of Yorkshire Royally named and what a corker! Happy his days but came to grief His an acquaintance far too brief Next along trots little Benji Quite the fiery character he! Gentle Rodders kept him calm (To me too was quite the balm)   Chatty Henry starts a line Filled with plucky Westies fine Though she liked to stay low-key No fault you’d find with sweet Suki Now Charlie Farley is the boss Sees food on floor is never lost!    Last, charging stoutly up the line Silly Millie, his partner-in-crime   In va...

  RE YOUR CURRENT INVESTIGATION Re your current investigation Could you ease my agitation? Said you'll come full twenty times  Yet never once has my bell chimed To say so oft that you will visit Doesn’t seem to be quite licit I have a ready practiced drill But am yet to show this ready skill To hear from you would be a boon (I promise not to call you ‘goon’) A further word upon your letters These never seem to get much better A myriad such are on the pyre Yet still my name is ‘occupier’ I find your correspondence crude Must you always be so rude? I watch no Sky, no BBC TV is not my thing, you see? I find the soaps as dull as rocks So why assume I watch the box? And since my name you have defamed I may now file a compo claim  

DOWN OUR WAY On merest whim I thought one day To have a wander down our way See the street where I was raised Each and every change appraise ‘Cross childhood sights my eye did range Relieved to find not much had changed! Road and homes all quite the same Save coats of paint on window frames Still there my tree and hidden den Though was it not much bigger then? No shift I saw till second look Was then sharply brought to book I had sought for what was there For what was not I‘d had no care For all the time that I was stood No leaf did stir in that neighbourhood  No mam on step collected news Or heard her neighbour’s firmest views Neither boy nor girl did e'er emerge To play on street or roadside verge No, not dad nor gran, child nor teen  Not a soul was to be seen Think we might be in a rut When every door is firmly shut? None within from phone will stir As life speeds by in digital blur Have we lost, if I speak free All sense o...

37. ALWAYS CHRISTMAS AND NEVER WINTER   Now myriad things can make me blue Fuel my inner Victor Meldrew But one that most my peace confronts When Christmas lasts a full four months In sweltering heat I find it hard That shops are full of festive cards Neighbour, could it be too soon To put up all those lights in June? Now lest I've made the reader flinch I'm really not at all a Grinch For when the bells for real do ring I'm quite prepared to dream like Bing And what a jolly scene would make If Big Day would see a single flake But never once do we have snow Weather's always just so-so All in all it’s kind of trueish How we have inverted Lewis Made it, when with all we tinker Always Christmas and never winter.