New Poem

So far, so good

Roger McGough

  

Take comfort

Take comfort from this.


You have a book in your hand


not a loaded gun or a parking fine


or an invitation card to the wedding


of the one you should have married

but were too selfish. Always imagining

there would be someone better out there

but there wasn’t, and you missed the boat.

And now you’re pushing forty, what are the chances

of your finding that perfect elusive partner? Highly unlikely.

Like an empty glass on a bar-room counter, loneliness beckons.

Not an empty glass, or a bottle smashed on a bar-room counter

a photograph of the one you will always regret not marrying

not a letter from the hospital, the results devastating.

After the disaster, the dust and the screaming

a child’s arm thrust out from the rubble.

You have none of these in your hand.

A dirty syringe or a deadly scorpion


A Molotov cocktail or an overdose


not a loaded gun or a parking fine


you have a book in your hand.

Take comfort from this.

Roger McGough

3 ways to stop alligators from biting your bottom when you are on the toilet

1) Do not go during the rainy season.

2) If you must go, use only toilets in the first class sections of aeroplanes.

3) Using face paints, make your bottom so scary it will frighten them away.

Roger McGough

“Lost in the desert, the interior designer quickly went insane”

Roger McGough

Fame

The best thing

about being famous

is when you walk

down the street

and people turn around

to look at you

and bump into things

Roger McGough

Punk doll

Last week

I bought my favourite niece

a cute little doll

from a punk toy shop

in the King’s Road.

When you twist the safety pin

in her rosy cheek

she vomits and shouts

‘shitshitshitshitshit’

in a tinny voice.

The doll is pretty strange too.

Roger McGough

Dear Scott

This is just to say

I have drunk

the plum brandy

that was in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

forgive me

it was delicious

so cold

and so numbling

x  Zelda

Roger McGough

(para a menina da pastelaria)

Cake

i wanted one life


you wanted another


we couldn't have our cake


so we ate each other.

Roger McGough

Q

I join the queue


We move up nicely.



I ask the lady in front


What are we queuing for.


'To join another queue,'


She explains.



'How pointless,' I say,


'I'm leaving.' She points


To another long queue.


'Then you must get in line.'



I join the queue.


We move up nicely.

Roger McGough

roger mcgough

by norman mcbeath

Let Me Die A Youngman's Death

Let me die a youngman's death

not a clean and inbetween


the sheets holywater death


not a famous-last-words


peaceful out of breath death



When I'm 73


and in constant good tumour


may I be mown down at dawn


by a bright red sports car


on my way home


from an allnight party



Or when I'm 91


with silver hair


and sitting in a barber's chair


may rival gangsters


with hamfisted tommyguns burst in


and give me a short back and insides



Or when I'm 104


and banned from the Cavern


may my mistress


catching me in bed with her daughter


and fearing for her son


cut me up into little pieces


and throw away every piece but one



Let me die a youngman's death


not a free from sin tiptoe in


candle wax and waning death


not a curtains drawn by angels borne


'what a nice way to go' death

Roger McGough

Survivor

Everyday,


I think about dying.


About disease, starvation,


violence, terrorism, war,


the end of the world.



It helps


keep my mind off things.

Roger McGough

(dedicado à ana cristina)

For want of a better title

The Countess

when the Count passed away

During a Bach

cello recital

Married an Archduke

the following day

For want of a better title

Roger McGough

A: The answer
Q: Which came first, the question or the answer?




Roger McGough

Writer’s block

The excitement I felt
as I started the poem
Disappeared on reaching
the end of the fourth line




Roger McGough