[John Whitworth]

Thank you, David. I wrote it about a year ago and I had no idea what it was about. With a few changes it is now - what it's about. Odd.

[Adrian Fry]

Mrs Harris thinks Miss Paris is no better than she should be,
To Miss Paris, Mrs Harris seems a snob.
But they both think Mr Whiteside shouldn’t drink so much – well, should he
When, so far as they can tell, he has no job?
Mr Whiteside, on the bright side, likes to flirt with young Miss Paris
While that Harris woman tuts behind her nets.
But Miss Paris thinks him harmless and so blithely on she carries;
Mrs Harris says ‘I’d take him down the vets.’
Mr Whiteside has a right side and Miss Paris cultivates it,
Mrs Harris, being a joke, cements the pair,
They hold hands out in broad daylight (knowing she will see and hate it)
While in private neither one would ever dare.
In a few months Mrs Harris and old Whiteside are both married
To each other, yes; Miss Paris quits the scene.
And though neighbours claim their ménage is emotionally arid,
It goes to show how little curtain-twitchers glean.

[Jerome Betts]

Nice one. Adrian. Marion, I must learn to read more slowly. Yours has just clicked. Ingenious angle and impeccably done. This comp is clearly hotting up.

[FOsen]

My neighbour’s always fancied he’s a poet.
Perhaps he is, he’s got a book or two,
and Lord, is he at pains to let you know it.
He prattles like no one you ever knew.

But I can tell you that the next-door bard
can’t do a simple chore or run a farm;
once, when he set a buzz-saw in his yard,
I thought for certain that he’d come to harm.

Today we re-set boundary stones, and all
He did was fumble—clumsiness unending.
“Someone there is that doesn’t love a wall,”
I said, to needle him. “You’ll soon need mending.”

He gets a look. At first I think he’s ill,
but no, he tells me that he's “got to work,”
then takes off through the orchard, down the hill.
Boy, was I glad to see him go, the jerk.

Frank

[Barbara Baig]

Thank you all for these poems! They made me laugh--a wonderful end to the working day. I'm so happy to have discovered this forum.

On the subject of (all too?) appropriate names, radio fans in the US will probably be familiar with the show "Car Talk," hosted by "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers." In real life, Click and Clack are Tom and Ray Maggliozzi (hope I spelled that right), owners of the Good News Garage in Cambridge, MA. At the end of the radio show, during the credits, they would acknowledge the assistance of their lawyers, "Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe." One day I was walking through Harvard Square, in Cambridge, and looked up to see those names written on a second-floor window in gold script. Alas, I didn't have time to climb the stairs to find out whether there was a genuine law firm up there!

[Spindleshanks]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey,_Cheatham_and_Howe

Barbara, be enlightened.