SKYARTUK

The vodka martini

The potent concoction
of vodka and vermouth;
a worthy opponent
to earnest emotion,
coherent conversation,
rational feeling,
logic and reason
and nodding agreement.
The vodka martini:
a fiery cohesion

of pyrotechnic potential
and underhand treason.
Subversive, coercive,
bewitching devilment
distilled in a genial
spirit of friendship.

Sight Seeing Tour Bus Diva

My passengers came via Mauritius,
they think rain is 'Delicious!'
Mamma's glued to her nail file,
kids are running up the aisle.
- Do we stop at Blenheim Palace?
- I wanna meet ALICE!
- HOW many colleges to go?
Emergency Stop!  For cappuccino.
The wheels on the bus that go round and round
have run aground
outside Trinity Gates
when we're already late.

Bus driver is having a fag
Tour guide's exhaling into a paper bag.
Tourists alight, with a cheeky tip
'Try that skirt higher up ya hips?'

Aquamarine

Escaping the seascape, 
the breakwater steeplechase,
the far cry of the seagull
fades into the faintness
of your past life of quaintness
in that backwater sea shanty
town drowned out by fate.

The call to the freshness
of the city of letters
and unfettered invention
wrests you from the sea salty
restlessness of festering lexical indirection.

A new path of intention
where the idle Isis slowly slides
before it turns to tidal Thames.

Coming up

Carfax strikes again,
cyclists get pissed.
Posters, posters, 
too much to make the most of.
Taxis fly by, too quick for 'Hiii!'
Brahms or Shostakovich?
It's carbon monoxide that gives us the itch.
To burger king we cling
for air conditioning.
To keep exhaust fumes out
take your lunch at the Trout.

Executive wife

She sells weapons of mass destruction
on her outbreath.
Her brain is a shrine to the migraine.
Toxic lady
diamond-tipped tongue
swords on the souls of her shoes
embodies all of human suffering
in a liberty bodice.
Arsenic smile's welded shut with pink lippy
and the warmth of a Mr Whippy.
Deeper in the debts of a Park Town semi
the portico's bland as a fish slice
that's how it goes down
for the professional ex-wife.

Death and the lampshade

Jim's stuff is outside the house
in a skip.
The kids are indoors
carving up the petty cash.
It's Xmas
and it's snowing
but a gentle breeze
reminds us that Autumn is still in town.

Daughter wants the dinner plates 
sister wants the carriage clock
(silver plated, antique)
the son just wants to get home
with or without the Baby Belling
(new, hardly used).

The wind blows a lampshade across the road.
A passer by 
(like great Aunt Georgia, twice removed)
is left wondering if it's anybody's.