If I had been able to write this yesterday evening as planned, it would have looked like this.

I’m feeling kind of sick.
To much rich food and drink?
My gut begins to squeeze
And spasm and I groan
Perhaps a drink of water
Will put me right again.

It’s happening again!
I’m going to be sick!
I bring up all the water
Still cold, that I was drink-
Ing. Pitifully groan,
As foetally I squeeze

Myself. My body squeeze-
S it all out again
I sweat and moan and groan
And now I can’t be sick!
Dry heaving, so I drink
Another cup of water

Why can’t I keep down water?
Why must my body squeeze
Out everything I drink?
What has it got to gain?
What’s making me so sick?
Oh, here we go! I groan.

It’s difficult to groan
When foetid, gooey water
Is rushing out. I’m sick
Of this. I try to squeeze
Myself, feel good again
And take another drink.

All I can do is drink
More water with a groan
I don’t think I’ll be gain-
Ing weight, just drinking water.
And waiting till it squeeze-
S out. I hate being sick!

Again I try to drink.
But feeling sick, I groan.
And out the water squeezes.

I have garden guilt.

Though she had always wanted her own garden.
She never really seemed to have the time
To give it the attention that it needed.
She’d stare out of the window with a growing
Sense of guilt, watching the buttercups and brambles
Slowly encroach and choke the once neat lawn.

She’d dreamed of having picnics on that lawn,
Of showing visitors her lovely garden
But she is so ashamed of all the brambles
Which have completely choked the lemon thyme
She planted years ago, thought it was growing.
But didn’t do the weeding that was needed.

But now she always feels like she is needed
Somewhere else. She hasn’t time to mow the lawn.
But now she gets the sense that something’s growing
Something she never planted in the garden.
She’s sure it’s getting bigger all the time
Insidious and hidden by the brambles.

She promises herself she’ll cut the brambles
Down and even put down weedkiller where needed
But then, she never seems to have the time.
It would be so hard to restore the lawn.
And still she knows there’s something in the garden
Malevolent and poisonous and growing.

And she does not know how to stop it growing
This thing is more tenacious than the brambles.
It’s reaching out towards her from the garden.
The very soil looks injured: bruised and kneaded.
The grass is poor and yellow where the lawn
Once was. This weed needs only time.

And she has given it a lot of time.
It’s out there: pale and fleshy. Lithe and growing,
It’s sprawling, covering most of the lawn,
It’s even starting to drive out the brambles
She feels some drastic action will be needed
To save herself from what is in the garden

She’d love a lawn of chamomile and thyme
But in her garden, something bad is growing
Among the brambles, intervention’s needed.

This one is a bit open ended. I don’t know how it will resolve…

This job ain’t for me
For a start, I’ve got fat.
I like moving around
Need that urgency that
Keeps me up on my toes
Here, I feel like a twat.

Why am I such a twat?
You would think that, for me
Being half comatose
At my desk, getting fat,
Would be bliss! Except that,
I don’t like being round.

And my belly is round
I cannot see my twat!
And I realize that that’s
TMI but for me
Getting lazy and fat
So I can’t see my toes

Shows that I’m comatose
When I love rushing round
Love to burn off the fat
Running round like a twat
Feels like heaven to me
But it seems to me that

I have stopped doing that
If I counted my toes
It would benefit me
More than mooching around
In suspense, like a twat,
Till they trim off the fat

(cause they can’t afford fat!)
And then I will find that
I have stayed, what a twat,
To be axed. On my toes
I will stay, hopping round,
But this job ain’t for me.

I’m no twat. Trim the fat!
Cause it seems to me that
On my toes, I dance round…

The bloody phone deleted my sestina!
At ten to midnight I was on the sofa
Attempting to ignore my naughty cat
Who, playfully, was trying to eat my feet.
I’d had a long and uninspiring day
But I was trying to get it done in time.

And it was getting done in record time:
This milestone, my eightieth sestina!
I would have got it finished yesterday
And then I would have got up off the sofa
And tended to my scratched and bitten feet
And had a cup if tea and fed the cat.

The poem I was writing I could cat-
Egorise as a bitter rant about the time
My friend went for a job but was defeat-
Ed by a tinpot despot. This sestina
– The one that I was writing on the sofa – It would have told about the fateful day

Of interview. But now instead, that day
Is lost to poetry. Because I cat-
Egorically can’t remember, so far,
Just what I’d written just before the time
And battery ran out for my sestina.
When busy counting keywords, stresses, feet.

My phone decided to admit defeat.
Because I hadn’t fed it yet today
But tried to write a piddling sestina
Despite being tormented by the cat
Because I fast was running out of time,
And was quite comfortable on the sofa.

I didnt have the charger by the sofa.
I had to find the charger – no mean feat
In this house. And by now I’m out of time.
The poem will be going up a day
Too late. And it is not about the cat This sestina is about, well, this sestina!

I’m out of time. I’m sitting on the sofa
My eightieth sestina at my feet
But it’s day eighty one! I blame the cat.

Yeah… I love my job…

First off, has everybody got a coffee?
Are we all here? Whose turn is it to chair?
Can someone volunteer to take the minutes
We’ve got a lot to get through, let’s crack on.
If something needs to go on the agenda
Speak now or hold your peace. Right, let’s begin.

Well, first of all, I think we should begin
By making sure we’re all paid up for coffee
The kitty’s three pounds short. On the agenda
It says we must resolve this. As the chair.
Can I propose we all pay up, come on!
By 5pm? Just put that in the minutes!

Oh really! Someone’s got to take the minutes!
Let’s sort it out, or else we can’t begin!
We can’t have petty quarrels going on.
She did it last time, and paid for your coffee,
So now it’s your turn. Why? Cos I’m the chair!
And I say so! What’s next on the agenda?

Why do you disagree with this agenda?
You’ve had it on your desk, with last month’s minutes
Since yesterday. You notify the chair
Well in advance, before we all begin
The meeting proper. You just drink your coffee,
Cause really, now, we must be getting on!

So, how is everybody getting on?
Let’s hear from all the teams. On the agenda
It says here ‘general catch up’ after ‘coffee
Fund’ so kindly put it in the minutes:
Who wants to go first? Somebody begin!
If no-one volunteers, then as the chair

I’ll have to pick on someone. Who’d be chair
Of you unhelpful sods? We’ll soldier on
We’ll wait in silence till you all begin
To crack. Because it is on the agenda
And must be done. We’ll sit and watch the minutes
Crawl slowly past, and sip our cooling coffee.

I am beginning to hate being chair
Only the coffee keeps me hanging on.
On my agenda? Torch the sodding minutes!

My wife requested a sestina where all the keywords were the same word. She suggested “grill”. I can only assume as a form of subliminal messaging regarding a certain long-standing disagreement of ours.

Voila.

My wife is always right up in my grill
Because she wants to buy a propane grill
(she doesn’t like our normal, charcoal grill)
And stand outside on summer nights and grill
Hamburgers. She could simply use the grille
On some old car, I tell her as I grill

Her. Which expensive propane grill
D’you have in mind? Why don’t you want to grill
On charcoal? Or just shove things on the grill
Inside? What’s great about a propane grill?
She says why are you right up in my grill
About this? It’s much healthier to grill

Than roast or fry, and I would like to grill
Nice dinners on our outdoor propane grill.
What’s wrong with that? It’s better than a grill
That takes an hour to heat. A charcoal grill
Is dirty, risky. I don’t need a grill
That could set us a light. You cannot grill,

Unless you’ve got all night, on such a grill.
There’s something nice about a charcoal grill
The food won’t taste of petrol, and the grill
Looks great, with orange flames. Your propane grill
Is clinical and boring. You can grill
In twenty minutes, but why would you grill

On propane? What’s the point? I hate to grill
you on this, but to buy a propane grill
Just seems insane. Why would you want a grill
Just like the one we have inside? Our grill
Is fine. We do not need another grill
And if you want to stand outside and grill,

We have a barbecue! A charcoal grill!
It’s silly, like a cake with “it a gril”
Emblazoned on the top, to buy a grill
Which is just like our indoor, kitchen grill
But put it outside. If you want to grill
Just come inside, or use the charcoal grill.

You want a grill. I do not want a grill.
I grill you, but You’re all up in my grill.
Why buy a grill? We’ve got a bloody grill!

Today I saw Watership Down, so today’s keywords are in Lapine, the rabbit language created by Richard Adams. Below is a glossary for the uninitiated. This is the story from Holly and Bluebell about what happened at the Sandleford warren.

Hrair: many (“u Hrair” – “the thousand”: all predators)
Inlé: death (“fu Inlé”: night)
Frith: the sun/God
Embleer: stinking, rank
Rah: term of respect, “chief”. (Elirairah is “the prince with a thousand enemies”: a rabbit trickster figure)
Hraka: droppings

Remember, at the warren we were hrair
So many rabbits, out until fu inlé
All under the protection of Lord Frith
Able, always to dodge and trick the embleer
Homba, aided by Elirairah
We thought no more of men, then than of our hraka

Until that springtime evening when the hraka
Hit the burrow. Funny little Hrair-
Roo and Hazel told the Threar Rah
That he could see the Black Rabbit of Inlé
And that the warren was completely embleer
With death. He’d had a message from Lord Frith

Himself. The Threar Rah did not think that Frith
Would treat the warren like a piece of hraka
And sent poor Fiver packing. Oh you embleer
Men! You are the worst of all u Hrair!
You plunged our lives into the blackest inlé
Forsaken even by Elirairah!

The ones who left, they followed Hazel Rah.
That’s what they called him – and they followed Frith
across the fields. Often came close to Inlé.
Kept moving, hardly time to pass their hraka
Always afraid that they might scent u Hrair
But what they’d left behind was far more embleer.

For humans came and filled our holes with embleer
Air, which choked even the Threar Rah
I’d rather have faced each one of u Hrair
Alone, than be abandoned by Lord Frith.
The stench of death and poisoned air and Hraka
Filled all our noses as we went to inlé.

It didn’t take them long, and by fu Inlé
Where once the warren lay, the air was embleer
With gas and earth and death and pain and hraka.
A few survived to search for Hazel Rah
And look up to the sky to ask Lord Frith
Why he’d forsaken us. No longer hrair.

When we pass hraka we must fear you, Inlé
U Hrair await us and their stench is embleer
We trust in Elirairah and Lord Frith.