Tuesday, 5 June 2012

Number 36, Streuth it's Christmas!

I wrote this a few years ago; one of the ten that predate this challenge, and of course it is a song rather than a poem.  I have a simple tune in my head for it, but if someone would like to compose a fantastic number one hit for it for the Christmas charts, get to it!  Maybe we can make our fortunes!


Streuth it’s Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone,
Not too hot for you out in the sun?
Come on let’s strip, take a skinny dip;
There’s plenty of time before dinner!

Christmas comes but once a year,
And always in the summer here;
It’s not the turkeys who get scared,
It’s the shrimps that need to be prepared!
Down on the beach it’s 32 degrees,
Put another shrimp on the barbie please!

It’s sunny, it’s hot, it’s a beaut is it not?
We’re down on the beach for a barbie;
Cold beer, pass it here, Christmas cheer, another year,
Everyone’s having a party!

And everyone knows that it never ever snows,
Because Christmas always comes in the summer,
With sky so blue I’d say to you;
A white Christmas would really be a bummer!

It’s sunny, it’s hot, it’s a beaut is it not?
We’re down on the beach for a barbie.
Cold beer, pass it here, Christmas cheer, another year
Everyone’s having a party!

© Stephen Saunders


To book Steph'nonsense for a rhyming evening:
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Agent / publisher wanted.




Number 35 No Aliens.

This one still needs work and I shall revisit it as I do with all my rhymes to tweak and change it here and there.  However, perhaps it conveys some of my thinking: The idea that there is a God is difficult for many people to grasp, especially those who rely on scientific proof of everything,  and it is equally difficult to believe that all the matter in the universe exploded out of a singularity (a single sub atomic particle that was so densely packed that it contained everything).  Out of nothing either way, therefore. But with no God in the equation, the scientific argument requires us to believe that one day, for some reason that had not existed until then, this miniscule thing, presumably floating in an empty universe went bang in a very big way.  What was the reason, why the particular moment, and most of all, how?  And for there to be a reason for it happening there had to be something, some force, some difference between conditions leading up to the bang, and the moment that triggered it. What was that force and who or what exerted it? In order for it to happen there has to have been a pre-history to it as well. These things may well be provable scientifically, but right now they are asking a lot of any brain to comprehend; rather more, I would say than believing in a supernatural power, which many people call God.  Indeed, it is this that led Wittgenstein, one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century to make a very succinct and powerful statement to shake the scientists.  He said, 'The question is not how the universe is, but that it is'.

So scientists ask us to go along with the idea that life, soul, love, intuition, consciousness, conscience and many other intangibles were also contained in that singularity, merely to evolve and create the wonderful complex and beautiful world we see, for no reason at all.  But the only explanation for the singularity is that all matter was contained and compressed by gravity into something so dense that not even light could escape.  But in order to do so, why was it there in the first place?  Wittgenstein's question again. Not how, but that it is.

It requires a much greater degree of faith to believe that, than it does to believe that these things are God and the Holy Spirit.  So, my poem contends that if we are simply an accident, mathematical probability decrees that there will be other similar results in other places in the universe. But if we are, as the Bible says, created on Earth in the image of God, then we are alone.  Nowhere does it say that we are merely one experiment among many.  There is as much proof of the existence of God, to those willing to see it, and to those who are prepared to devote their intellect to the difficult subject, as there is scientific proof of the origins of everything around us. Of course, science can explain a great deal, just as historical records and the Bible can too. It is a subject well worth deep consideration with as open a mind and heart as possible.  Either God created us out of nothing, or nothing created us out of nothing. Take your pick.


No Aliens.

I’m going to stick my neck out here,
And boldly state there’s no-one near.
No-one at all, not even far
Beyond the very furthest star.

No aliens, no UFOs,
No-one else who vaguely knows
Their way about the universe,
As well as us, better, or worse.

We humans here are all alone,
The Earth the only place that’s home;
The universe completely void
Of any other humanoid.

I grant the possibility,
That somewhere else there may well be
Amoebic life, or creepy things,
But not that ever talks or sings.

Mathematically the odds are on,
That we cannot be alone,
But that is only if we be
The product of calamity.

An accident, a bang or crash,
Quite by chance a cosmic smash;
All out of nought, no reason why
The world appeared by and by.

All this came out of bits of stuff,
Heated up and moulded rough.
But this is asking quite a lot,
And probably a load of rot.

It is like asking us to say
That it could happen any day:
A bolt of lightening and some rain,
And dinosaurs appear again!

Where was the stuff of which we are,
Before the bang had flung this far?
The bits of rock, the grains of sand,
Supposedly that made this land.

We’re told it was a single bit,
Much too small to measure it.
So small it almost wasn’t there;
And suddenly it’s everywhere.

That culture, consciousness and love,
Instead of coming from above,
Crawled out of the primordial slime,
Evolving slowly over time.

Take a rock and study it;
Add some heat and smash a bit.
Do anything you care to do;
It will never make a you.

And though all things return to dust,
An accidental thing we must
Believe we are, as we are told,
By scientists both young and old.

Science might answer ‘what’ and ‘how,’
But that is not the question now;
That it is at all‘  does test
Not theologians, but the rest.

Wittgenstein it was who said
To ask this question now instead.
So what if we know DNA?
Why it exists no-one can say.

How much less likely could it be
That God created you and me?
From out of nothing we were hurled,
Or that God designed the world?

Both are difficult to grasp,
The latter though more kind to clasp,
More meaning and more comfort there,
Less an abyss in which to stare.

So rather why not be inclined,
To think that we have been designed;
Nowhere else to have our birth,
Nowhere else but planet Earth? 

The miracle of light and life,
The love between husband and wife,
The many aspects of the soul,
That make the world and make it whole.

These things are not the things of chance;
God is the reason that we dance,
God is the reason we exist,
But soulless souls will still resist.

And as you doubt whichever way,
There is something I should say;
It takes more faith to not believe
That God is with us when we leave.


© Stephen Saunders

To book Steph'nonsense for a rhyming evening:
bowleyfarm@gmail.com or 01428 741212

Agent / publisher wanted.

Monday, 4 June 2012

Number 34, Getting Legless

This one is pretty odd, I admit.  As I have remarked before, although I write this stuff, it is as if I am being channeled, as what ends up on the paper is not really the product of any planning or forethought!  I think what happened here is that I sometimes get asked by children how I lost my leg (I really do only have one), and make up wild stories about it, and several of them got caught up together:


Getting legless.

I used to have more legs than now,
But lost most of them, this is how:
The first to go was on a farm;
The baler was what did it harm.

The next one came off when I crashed;
That leg against a bus got mashed.
It put a stop to driving fast;
Although that leg was not my last!

Another one was lost soon after;
I think the shark was drawn by laughter.
As we frolicked in the sea,
It made a beeline right for me.

A crocodile or alligator,
Inevitably got me later.
Silly though it sounds to you;
It happened in my local zoo!

Frost bite got another one,
By now I’m down to nearly none,
But luckily I had some spares,
Until I broke them on the stairs!

Not everyone is quite like me;
And you might say, that’s luckily.
But I can warn you to beware,
And of your legs take greater care.

Don’t fill your boots with alcohol,
Make abstinence your protocol;
Walk straight and tall and don’t see double,
And keep yourself well out of trouble.

Because there are so many ways,
That a leg can end its days.
I have only one leg now...
I’ll try to keep it anyhow!


© Stephen Saunders

To book Steph'nonsense for a rhyming evening:
bowleyfarm@gmail.com or 01428 741212

Agent / publisher wanted.

Number 33, Doing Nothing

It's June the 4th I think, bank holiday Monday, Queen's Diamond Jubilee.  You'd think I could write something about that, but no.  Maybe I will some other time, but I have found that when I sit down to write the result rarely has anything to do with any preconceived topic or idea. Whatever appears on paper is usually a surprise.

This is number 33, and I estimate that I am on day 39.  I could be wrong, but it will all tally up in the end.


Nothing Doing.

I might have to go to bed,
Very little having said.
It’s well past late and I’ve been staring,
At blank paper; long past caring.

I sat down at half past three,
Full of good intentions me.
Before I got one sentence down,
Two friends arrived from up in town.

I gave them both a cup of tea,
And asked them if they’d come and see
My work, and offer me advice;
They both said it was ‘very nice’!

That’s no good, I told the pair
I need the truth to make it fair.
I need to hear if what I’ve done,
Is bad or good or second to none.

I gave them each a couple of drinks,
To get what each one of them thinks.
Unless it is a Trappist monk,
The truth comes out when someone’s drunk.

But try to ply them as I might,
This went on late into the night.
One of them began to say...
But what came out was ‘It’s OK’.

And so I persevered till morning
When I heard the sound of snoring.
Like screwed up paper in a heap
They both fetched up there fast asleep. 

Now it's too late to go to bed,
So maybe I will write instead.
But just for now I'll skip this one,
And hope the next is much more fun.


© Stephen Saunders

To book Steph'nonsense for a rhyming evening:
bowleyfarm@gmail.com or 01428 741212

Agent / publisher wanted.




Saturday, 2 June 2012

Number 32. Bare With Me!



Bare With Me!

Many people cannot spell
Their English language very well;
A name, or address often writ,
Without a capital in it!

They know not how to punctuate,
Use made up words like 'unctuate',
Does it mean apply a lotion,
Or maybe some new dancing motion?

But that is how language evolves;
A new word comes, one more dissolves.
George Bush was one who contributed,
As he got things convoluted!

Uneducatified he was,
Even though he was the boss;
The president of his great nation,
Where every verb has got an ‘ation.

Some people put apostrophes
In plural words like spuds or knees,
Then leave them out where they should be;
In children’s or in I’ll just see.

Less is employed more and more,
While fewer less and less for sure.
Less water or less sugar’s fine;
Less people is a worrying sign.

Fewer water people know
Sounds daft, so why then go
And get it wrong when using less?
It has become an awful mess.

And while we try to champion fewer,
We get more language from the sewer.
Plus, as if that’s not enough,
We’ve; no wot I mean, like and stuff!

Maybe it doesn’t matter much;
We get the gist of it as such.
But it would be that much better
If we perfected every letter:

My son’s head teacher’s quite a bird;
When it’s written and not heard,
She needs to know her spelling’s right;
Or she might get a nasty fright:

She sent an e-mail to me twice,
And though I know she’s very nice;
She had a problem, as it were,
And asked me if I’d bare with her!

© Stephen Saunders


To book Steph'nonsense for a rhyming evening:
bowleyfarm@gmail.com or 01428 741212

Agent / publisher wanted.


© Stephen Saunders


Number 31. Sneezing


Tuesday 29th May today, Day 34 I think, so I am 4 behind unless I rattle a few off tonight.   I have been thinking about busking the rhymes, in Covent Garden or somewhere like that, but this takes a lot of courage I think.  I am also thinking about printing a collection of them which will always be incomplete.  So I thought of giving it a title page something like this:

The Incomplete Works
of
Behind The Wheel

Silliness, nonsense and deeply profound rhymes

by Stephen Saunders


Agent, publisher, illustrators wanted

Bookings taken for entertaining readings and talks by the author

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07758 555 6796

Number 31, Had a few probs with the computator today, so not sure what's what.  Hope this goes in OK.


Sneezing. 


I’m really fond of sneezing; I do it quite a lot,
And very often find I do it nine times on the trot!
I’ve no idea why it should be the cause of irritation,
But my wife insists upon immediate cessation!
Her sneezes only come in ones, or at the most in pairs;
To all concerned they really are most trivial affairs,
But when they creep into my nose they take on quite a status;
Seven coming all at once, and then a brief a hiatus.
Two more then follow as a rule, by which time I’ll have heard,
All I need to on the subject from my darling bird!
The truth is I enjoy my sneezing, and I feel that I,
Should have the benefit of any sneeze that might be passing by!
I don't wish to silence them, or even hold them back,
I’ve developed their expression into quite a serious knack.
But her indoors is not amused, and she regards it badly,
I know she thinks it rather rude, like farting, I think sadly.
The fact that hers are small and single is really more her loss;
Of course I wish it otherwise, but you know who’s the boss!

© Stephen Saunders



To book Steph'nonsense for a rhyming evening:
bowleyfarm@gmail.com or 01428 741212

Agent / publisher wanted.



Number 30, Strapped


I spend a lot of time driving, either in a truck or car.  I drive two different trucks, and have five cars, one, the MG is for sale at this point.  Nevertheless, driving allows some opportunity for thinking, and for inspiration, which I imagine is already revealing itself, as quite a few of my rhymes are to do with the road.   I have been experimenting with recording myself reading my rhymes, and I have given myself a kind of performing name of Behind the Wheel. It seems to sit well with me.  I might go to an open mike session and try them out one day. There is one in Petersfield called Write Angle.  I've been twice, a long time ago, and it might be a good trying out spot to see if my rhymes get a laugh or not.  


30, and catching up.  I think it is day 33.


Our daily bread.

Ever since I was a lad
I’ve tried to emulate my dad.
He was never in a hurry,
Neither did he ever worry.
Somehow he was always able
To put some dinner on the table,
To pay the rent and pay the bills
On a decent house in the Sussex hills.
I’ve no idea quite how he did it
What his job was, how he hid it.
He an enigmatic bloke,
Hung out with the coolest folk!

Meanwhile life for me has been
A bit of a disaster scene;
No home that I can call my own,
No way of paying off a loan.
I have tried a million things,
Planning that one of them brings
A bit more cash to pay for stuff,
And all I want is just enough.
While hoping every scheme makes money;
What I s’pose is really funny,
Is though all these things are fun
I seem to end up making none!

But I always count my blessings,
Now my secrets I’m confessing;
Friends I have, a wife and son.
I think we’re liked by everyone,
We’re happy, healthy, not gone blind,
Got our marbles, I think you’ll find.
We go to church, and sometimes pray
For a bit more cash to come our way,
But really there’s not much we need,
As long as every day we feed,
And somehow every day we do...
We’re really very well, thank you!

© Stephen Saunders





To book Steph'nonsense for a rhyming evening:
bowleyfarm@gmail.com or 01428 741212

Agent / publisher wanted.