Welcome to the May 2009 poetry challenge.  Tou can send in your poetry challenges for the April 09 poetry jam.  So off you go – feel free to send me a TITLE or THEME to write to in the comments section and up to the end of April, you’ll find I’ve responded by posting a poem here addressing it.   Come on, give it a try.  And don’t forget, any of you coming to see us at any of the upcoming gigs for Donna and The Aspinauts may actually see some of the poems performed, complete with gestural signing and characterisations.

Here’s the poems so far…

LAMP POSTS, copyright, Donna Williams, May 2009

Give me lice, oh give me fleas

a pestilence, a plague

a one way ticket to The Hague

and sit around the shiny justice table

and talk of shrinks and being unstable

And that will be a hundred dollars

silent treatment, paid per syllable

all part of the service, so do the honours

pass the bullshit please

Oh fool, oh heretic, blasphemer

Did you not know, to question is a misdemeanour?

Take the Prozac, take a seat

Your life’s been mapped by cartographers

and dissected for your viewing pleasure,

and posted on the lamp posts down the street.

 

SHAKESPEARESE, copyright, Donna Williams, May 2009

Out it goes, the panty hose doth flee,

And, nay, whilst mind has gone astray,

It seems there’s still the barest shred of sanity

I found it in the garden,

in a pink and yellow bucket

and inside it were the words inscribed

though hast nought to do…. so…….

fill this lovely pail

and just watch out for the holes

for life is like that, don’t we know…

and blu tac doesn’t grow on trees,

just ask one who attempts to speak in Shakespearese,

for, O, hath nobels, done a better job,

At least I’m just a common home grown nutter not a snob.

 

SMELL THE MONEY, copyright, Donna Williams, May 2009

 

Smell the money,

does it make you smile?

Does it fill your soul,

with images of hundred thousand

ways to dig yourself a hole?

 

Smell the money,

will it keep you warm at night?

Will it fill you with delight

Will it make you’re boring jokes suddenly funny?

 

Is it green,

is it obscene,

does it fulfil your wildest dreams?

 

How high’s the pile?

Will it buy you half a million more air miles?

Can you afford that small donation?

Or would that be spiritual castration?

 

Don’t forget to smell the roses, Baby,

while you hang out with the posers

you’d better hope you got deep pockets

miser meany.

IT AIN’T SPINACH, copyright, Donna Williams, May 2009

Take a touch of Schmodellop

and add some whoodellee woo,

mix it with degoitzian

and three spills of boggledee boo

you can call it Emperor’s new clothes

or a type of ancient spinach

But you know it when you smell it

Here, behold, a bullshit sandwich

 

IT’S ALL GOOD, copyright, Donna Williams, May 2009

 

I wouldn’t cost so much if I could just eat grass,

then I wouldn’t have to work and I could just sit on my…

velvet chair

staring out into space

and musing at how I’m outside the human race.

I wouldn’t need for much and I’d have no no existential angst,

I wouldn’t fret about the wars around the world

or the greed and power of global banks

or freaks like Bush who probably pushed the banker wankers

till we all went down the hole,

but at least I see a few of us still kept our souls

 

 

it’s good

it’s all good

 

TATTY BYE , copyright, Donna Williams, May 2009

Turn around and jump three times

Smile like Mona Lisa having a good time

Dance that slinky dance in mini skirt

Come and let me watch you eat mud pies made from organic dirt

Here’s a bowl, and here’s a plate,

Kissy kissy, running late

Your collar’s ironed and pressed and hanging on the bedroom door,

I’ll be back a little late, somewhere near 4.28

A.M

on account, I got this friend, you see,

and I can’t let her down, she’s new in town,

Now don’t you give that look to me.

I’ll get a dog, I’ll get a pup,

hell, I got the Yellow Pages, I can look one up

and have one in a blink

feed it on a shoe string

and bathe it in the sink.

Tatty bye, and au revoir,

just leave the keys,

and don’t take the car.

 

And, because some of you are budding poets yourselves, this is now where you can also ask others or me to challenge YOU with a title too. So let’s see what happens!

Also if you are a published, self published or street poet, this is where to let people know.

Donna Williams *)

author, artist, composer, screenwriter.

author of the poetry book, Not Just Anything , published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

http://www.donnawilliams.net