The Deciding Test By Patrick Henry

It's not cricket, old boy; never like this among The Members at Lords. We played the game, not sledging and slanging these bad words. An Aussi Umpire gruff as a bear: a stern Paki, each call each unfair. War is diplomacy by another means. Both kinds now test out these teams Try it in dark countries, Mustafa. Nobbling the ball gets hands chopped off there; And balling top officials out, gets your testimonials cut. That Paki captain, It's-The-Man-The-Hook, The Mosque terror-stirrer, Hid in white pads and flannels for the perfect cover;

But gives the game away setting out his field like that. He's got two slips, long-leg, mid-off, deep cover, strokes to fine leg: how's that? He's had four maidens, two googlies, three extras, a leg-bye, a third man. Transsexual orgies are ruled strict out of play in Islam. It's suspect how the whole team quickly change their name. Ali Baba, Izzie Out, Cassius Clay, to: Ahmed Ten, Mustafa Moan, Mohammed In. Though we've got them by the ball's scuffing warning, They might strike and fly off the handle in the morning;

Hit the game for six clean out of the ground, Fold their tents and stumps, heading to Ali's desert land. If you catch the same plane yearning for peace in sunny Tenerife, The changed flight-path near that Tower Block looks a bit unsafe.

Copyright ©2006  Patrick Henry

Poetry - Terminal Crisis By Patrick Henry
	Icarus on wax wings crashed failing to reach the sun. Quest for the sun in sure, high-speed flying, carries on For those from grey islands who long for Tenerife: Long since Icarus, the journey easy, safe and brief, Planes go faster, but airport queues grow long and slow. Soon round the world in one Read more...

Poetry -One She Was In Care By Michelle Dee
	So, she took her first gulp of air At the age of one she was in care Father in prison, mum nowhere "She's got something wrong with her heart" they told her. "That's why she doesn't love you, Read more...

Poetry - Be all you want to be By Michelle Dee
	Being all you want to be For you meant the world to me Would be good to set you free Being all you want to be Maybe you could not believe See you smiling in my sleep Read more...

Poetry - Novel Moves to Montmartre By Patrick Henry
	Place Cliché high on city squalor reeks of Henry Miller or Henri Toulouse- Lautrec, And one character here come-lately. I invent myself in a cheap attic Down Rue Barbes, Street of Beards, at times assuming the guise Read more...

Poetry - Let's Blow Up America By Patrick Henry
	Stan Freeberg writes the scenario, Tom Lehrer does the songs, "Let's Blow Up America", best musical since Springtime for Hitler won the gongs, When Jews of Manhattan broke a leg to get hot tickets to catch Read more...

Poetry - The Fallen By David Morris

	The church bell tolls It's heard 61 times In honour of those who have fallen In honour of those who gave their lives. Those who battled for us They won us our freedoms Remember those who did that Read more...

Poetry - Jimmy By Shaun Heesom
	Jimmy was a Corporal, he went to fight in France Ellis only had one leg, so couldn't really dance Aunt Ada came with Ellis, her house so dark 'n' grim "Come into the parlour", and me Dad shoved me in Laura worked in a butter factory, on the banks of the Hull Jimmy shaved in an enamel bowl, Laura kept it full Inside an air raid shelter, Read more...

Poetry - I Confess By Mike Watts
	Coming home one Friday night Scranning burgers and half pissed Me and a mate stopped to talk to three prossies All smoking in the doorway of a charity shop. "What would I get for a quid?" Me mate said belching and flicking onion Read more...

Poetry - Trouble At Number Ten (a.ka. my next home) By Katherine Horrex
	I find him in the kitchen angrily carving potatoes into polygons, because he feels at fifty three that he's washed up already. Beads of sweat now slide from where creases of smiles once shone. He is singed by age like a tree - Read more...

Poetry - Public Display of Sandwich By The Mouths of Madness

	Chilling choking on bits of bamboo Cold frustrated stomachs fucked too Vast islands of clover in the Grass always grew. But in the winter The thistles so small Read more...

Poetry - The Final Scapegoat By Patrick Henry
	From dope-peddling terrorist dens where the late Taliban Blew up everything they hated out of all proportion, Another lark to test lads in the closed season can be The Afghan's ancient sport of Buzzkashi. Misheard as 'Bush-catchy' it is unpopular in Washington, Where George dreads another presidential assassination. But this lines up teams of Read more...

Poetry - Shove It By Shaun Heesom

	If I dreamed a new dream and I've dreamed a few then let the new dream Be that old dream I once dreamed of you! If I speak unspoken, words I've never spoke before let Those words be spoken in a way I've Often Spoke before! Read more...

Poetry - The Land of The Free By Del Abe Jones.

	On Independence Day this year We'll wave our Flag, salute and cheer We'll thank all those who've gone before And those today, we send to War. We'll think about what Freedom's cost Those who fought and those we lost Read more...

Poetry - She Can See The World From Petrin Hill By Tom Gant
	Yonder Summa! Green faerie queen my thoughts are your own, in thinking. Raise a finger to edge a table whilst I raise a glass, dear as crystal. Sugar revolution; coat yourself in crowds of bubbles and linger long and loud as you desire. Smoke: Read more...

Poetry - Feast of Violence (At Scarborough in The Fall) By Patrick Henry
	Time of mist and pumpkin-lamps Keats might call fall of the year. Ten days and two centuries back, twenty-first October, Five thousand sailors, one called Nelson, died at Trafalgar. Feasts of violence make dates upon the calendar. Stick a pointed hat on an excited child. Black-paint-daub their face, Read more...

Poetry - An Un-Comic Poem By Shep

	I thought about writing a comic poem But I couldn't find anything funny I put pen to paper several times But still couldn't earn my money I though about people falling down And kept repeating the word 'wiggle' Read more...

Poetry - Test of Character By Patrick Henry
	From Afghanistan comes word of fair play and decency From the visiting President of the MCC, That the Jihad desperadoes and Kamikaze ghouls Have given way to cricket-mad flannelled-fools. For the influx of this dose of common-sense. Our wise Wisden man says Read more...

Poetry - The Looking-Glass War By Patrick Henry
	Fort Polk could steal headlines from Baghdad and Guantanamo. A camp down in Dixie will become heroic as The Alamo. It rehearses scenarios in line for Middle-Eastern war GIs are tested out by all-comers down there. Amputee veterans of Pearl Harbour, Korea and Vietnam Replay their parts of war Read more...

Poetry - Thirst By Mike Watts
	Sprawled like a victim I shrink on the heat of the bed. Closing-time poltergeists Rattle beneath my window. Glass shrieks across concrete As young voices drip, Go forth and multiply Read more...

Poetry - A Yorkshire Princess By Mike Watts
	This proud bird parades no vanity She paddles her feet in the Humber Muddies her dress to show she's working, As hard as they'll let her. Breathing in, breathing out, A great warehouse, a production line For the conquerors' of Kings, of Read more...

Poetry - The Underdogs Of War-Games By Patrick Henry
	8 groups in The World Cup, imagine the worst in each to win Through to The Quarters, The Semis, or The Final Game. From defence to attack they might spring up surprising. What have these minnow nations got going for them? Talk of red cards, Paraguay once lost five million men In their big 3-Nations War, facing Read more...

Poetry - Aliens Make Great Movies By Patrick Henry
	Great old Science-Fiction films are not released today, When metallic strangers taller than lone cowboys landed to say Their masters ruled distant weird worlds now at galactic war With this frail Earth unless we wise up to the danger. The Capital of Science-Fiction must be The United States. All those terms together add up Read more...