1) mmmm
you tell me to say the word
all your friends, theirs say the word
drumming fingers on your hips
waiting, waiting, waiting on my lips
you want to play the lear with me
demand that i profess it, dear
lear? get real, early on
i thought we’d gotten past the word
sing to me the way you used to sing
my mmmm is like a red red rose
all you need is mmmm like a big
pizza pie that’s a mmmm
still the fingers drumming waiting
your friends, i say, theirs, they say
mmmm at anything: i mmmm your hair
i mmmm your dress, the colour of your nails
regan’s anger seethes beneath
a smiling face and words of mmmm
and goneril? now there’s one girl
whose mmmm sounds a rook’s caw
i’ll prove my mmmm in thirty years
when nestled mmmm, i mmmm, you mmmm
and you say: not now, my mmmm,
i have a yeast infection, mmmm
2) Invisible Ducks
(a manly poem)
I hunker in my mucky blind,
taking pot shots at invisible ducks.
My hunting pals insist there’s
gross packs squawking overhead
but I see nothing; hear nothing.
Shouts say: Look, reds and golds,
in streaks across the sky,
wings that flap a rainbow,
banners tied to tail feathers,
towing signs that read:
Eat At Joe’s – Free Parking.
But for all their manly rah-rah
cigar-smoking whisky-flasking
camouflage-coat-wearing
hoo-haw, the dogs come back
empty-jawed and disappointed,
because, as I tried to explain when
we left the camp this morning,
the ducks are invisible.