[Brian Allgar]

Oh, Douglas, that's very naughty!

[Graham King]

Mary had a small ovine -
A lambkin, lambchik, lambadillo -
That followed (pursuit its design,
As a persistent peccadillo!)

All the way to school… école,
Establishment for education…
Causing there bemusement droll:
Disturbance, laughter, consternation.

There the little ones took up
(With glee, delight and childish playing)
The cry: ‘It’s supped a loving-cup
With Mary!’ - teacher’s ire defraying.

Discerning opportunity
For tutelage amidst the fuss,
Wise teacher spoke: ‘And this, for why?
‘Twas Mary’s own love moved it thus.’

[Brian Allgar]

O astral body, stelliform, sidereal,
Effulgent, coruscating, incandescent,
Relucent, scintillating, iridescent,
Yet tiny, seeming almost immaterial,

I speculate as to your composition:
A constant thermonuclear reaction
Of plasma bound by gravity’s attraction
Until destroyed by entropy’s attrition.

How high above our world is your abode!
The light that reaches us is conical,
The distance truly astronomical
To travel down that vast galactic road.

By what dark forces is your radiance bent
Before we wish upon you with such hope?
A metastable carbon allotrope
That glitters brightly in the firmament.

[Roger Slater]

Good one, Brian. Reminds me of one whose author is unknown (at least to me):

Propel, Propel, Propel your craft
Placidly down the liquid solution
Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically,
Existence is but an illusion.

(Actually, I found this online but I've come across and forgotten smoother versions).

[Roger Slater]

My own version:


Actuate, drive, impel your craft
And steer it with precision.
Blissfully, buoyantly, cheerfully, joyously,
Life is a sleeping brain's vision.

[Graham King]

Humbert D. Umperdinck sat on a wall
Till its property-value increase;
From on high, very blithe, looking down on us all
Fat, round-cheeked, with a feeling of peace.

But a market-crash suddenly came, with a fall
In the value of bricks and of mortar;
‘I’m bereft! Woe! What worth has wall left?’ was his call:
‘Just a fraction of value it oughter!’

In despair and dismay his bank-balance was lost
To the taxman and creditors sundry;
As well (rising relatively), living’s cost
Was to Humbert’s ascendancy plundery.

He fell from Wall Street to the street, where he lies
Now: no magnate, but flea-magnet only;
No mansion but box of cardboard greets his eyes:
He is broken and hollow and lonely.

[Roger Slater]

What legal person owns the fee
To this woodland I lack information,
Yet in the contiguous township he
Maintains his habitation.

He shan't bear witness as I pause
To scrutinize the blizzard's white.
My gelding is confused because
No farmhouse is in sight.

He agitates his harness bells
And pulls against his tether.
And I can hear but nothing else
Apart from blusterous weather.

The boscage tempts me, I confess.
My cares I'd disencumber.
But I have pledges to address
And a voyage before I slumber.

[Brian Allgar]

I wandered lonely as a Cloud, or more precisely
A mass of liquid droplets hanging in suspension
Within the troposphere (I really ought to mention
Its type and form, but strive to write concisely),

That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills - I mean to say,
It hovers and perambulates without support,
Defying gravity, perplexing human thought,
Traversing gradients and valleys on its way -

When all at once I saw a crowd - to put it stronger,
I suddenly perceived a vast conglomeration,
A very multitude, a massive aggregation ...
Of what, you ask? I’ll keep you in suspense no longer:

Narcissus Pseudonarcissus bedecked those hills
(A member of the Amaryllis family),
All swaying in the gentle breeze so balmily -
In other words, a host of dancing Daffodils.

[Peter Goulding]

As we say over here, what a load of prolix.

Happy Birthday to you

May this, the day, the very day
the sun’s enormous girth
is lined up in the self-same way
vis-à-vis the earth,
as it was long, long ago
upon your day of birth,
bring to your life no tale of woe
but rather joyous mirth.

May this, the day...

[George Simmers]

In retrospect, yes, as it happens, the name Adlestrop,
Rings a definite bell with me. In June the Cotswold Express
Made an annoying and totally unscheduled stop
At the place, rendering me, I have to confess,
Mildly surprised, the line between Evesham and Wolvercote
Having no reputation for unpunctuality.
Be that as it may, the train stopped and did not
Move for a considerable period. I could see
No reason for this, and in fact could see nothing much
But noted wild plants (mostly weeds) growing around
The yard, concerning which I resolved to get in touch
With the railway authorities, when a blackbird made a sound.
At first it performed solo, but the point of my account is
That it was joined by larks, sparrows, grebes and possibly a pheasant,
As though this were a congeries of avians from all the surrounding counties
As well as Gloucestershire. The effect was not unpleasant.