The Weekly Muse

The sun comes to a building site,

A brickie on the scaffold sees

Through early mist across the fields

A light-green haze upon the trees

And further off, forsythia

To stain the distant gardens gold

When aches and pains will settle down

And mornings won't seem half as cold.

Was Betjeman a wartime spy?

A new biography claims so.

A few unpublished stanzas here

For readers to judge yes or no:

Low-shot light of a sharp December?

Put poetic pens away,

Haul the hated Morse transmitter

Over to the window bay,

Contact the Colonial Office,

Give them what I've gleaned today

Skulking round in social circles

Here in Dublin doing my bit

Working as a press attache.

Glamorous, duckie? Not one whit.

Most of us are merely mushrooms,

Left in the dark and fed on... dit

Derdit derdit derdit dit dit...

So Hague has sacked his spin doctor,

Just jettisoned the wretched man

Who, if you think about his job,

Was usher for a lame pavane

And caller for a clubfoot clan

Who can't remember how to dance.

It's not surprising that he failed,

The poor sod never stood a chance.

The famous Terry's Chocolate Orange

Rhymes with something, I've no doubt,

But since the trade war carries on

American must go without

Such luxuries as the above,

Which seems to me appalling luck

And all because we won't accept

Their beefsteak-laced-with-hormone guck.

Now if this thing should escalate,

As is the way with some embargoes,

Maybe we could stretch the ban

To certain of their other cargoes:

Ricki Lake, McDollar's ads,

A tendency to litigate,

TV trials, Lewinsky smiles,

A host of stupid words I hate -

Thatspooky? Whatsyerstarsign? Yo!

But hey! I think they're rilly great... Not.