Endure

One thing our present situation has taught me, is that we all have to learn how to endure.  Some of us are better at it than others.  Some can do it without any support, and others need a helping hand or twelve.  We’re all in the same boat, and the sooner we can face up to the fact that Cyrus the Virus isn’t going to disappear any time soon, the better equipped we’ll be to face whatever the future throws at us.

To that end I’ve composed a little poem to help us all on our way …

ENDURE, BY STEVIE TURNER (copyright Stevie Turner 2020)

Keep a social distance

To add years to your existence.

How much isolation

Can you stand?

Wash your hands.

 

Cabin fever rife,

Couples full of strife.

Nowhere to go,

And no toilet roll.

Life ain’t grand.

Wash your hands.

 

Sanitiser shortage,

Can’t pay the mortgage.

Kids are fighting

But the world is uniting

To fight the disease,

It’s a little bit frightening.

 

People you meet

Cross the street

If they cough or sneeze

Have they got the disease?

Everyone is suspicious

Situation pernicious.

Cancel all plans.

Wash your hands.

 

No Paracetamol

Police on patrol

Issuing fines

For being outside.

Queues at the shops

At last they’ve stopped

That person whose goal

Is buying every toilet roll.

 

The virus spreads

Many thousands dead.

Medics full of courage

TV’s blanket coverage.

Boris demands

Wash your hands.

One thing we know,

Until there is a cure…

Endure.

 

Image by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pixabay

Selling My Soul for Some Bog Roll

Some bright spark has decreed that because of the Coronavirus there is going to be a shortage of toilet paper.  I read that men in Australia are actually fighting in the shops over the last roll on the shelf.  This morning when I went to the supermarket there were hardly any packets of toilet rolls left, and what’s more, men who I presume are usually at work, were already leaving carrying as many packets of toilet paper as they could.  The strongest and fittest of the species obviously gets the most toilet paper.

This caused me to compose a little ditty, which I’ve added below:

TOILET PAPER BLUES, BY STEVIE TURNER

Oh me, oh my

What shall we do?

There’s a crisis

Due to Coronavirus.

 

There’s no hand sanitisers

Or hand wash too,

And there’ll be a problem

When we sit on the loo.

 

A siege mentality

Has gripped the country,

I’d sell my soul

For a little bit of bog roll.

 

I rush to the shops

But all hope is wilted.

They’re carrying out armfuls

Of Andrex Quilted.

 

I make straight for the shelf

No toilet paper left.

One chap holds

The last sixteen rolls.

 

“I want some of those”

I say, “It’s no fun

“That you have sixteen

And I have none”.

 

“That’s tough.”  He replies,

“You know what to do,

Cut up newspaper

Like your granny used to do.”

 

Back then in the Fifties

Your arse wasn’t tattooed

With all the print

From yesterday’s news.

 

I look on Ebay

It’s not very nice,

Bog rolls are selling

For quadruple the price.

 

So there you have it

What a caper …

Hope you can find

Any toilet paper!

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Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay

Thoughts on a Tortoise’s Alimentary Canal

ALL CLOGGED UP,  BY STEVIE TURNER

 

Where the snow falls and the skiers ski

That’s where you’ll find my son.

He’s left us a little present behind,

A tortoise; name of Sheldon.

 

Sheldon eats salad and fruit,

He loves broccoli, tomato and greens,

However, my son advised

He also likes baked beans.

 

I stuff Sheldon full of lettuce and cress

As you would normally do,

But Sheldon has a problem…

He doesn’t seem to pooh.

 

Every day the straw stays dry and clean

I talk to my son on Skype

About how nothing is coming

Out of Sheldon’s exhaust pipe.

 

“He doesn’t go every day”,

Is the advice I am told.

But four days have passed

Since anything came out of Sheldon’s arse.

 

I eat some beans on toast

And give Sheldon the dregs of the tin.

Within a few hours their wizardry

Puts us out of our misery.

 

There on the straw is a parcel

From Sheldon, the little blighter.

Thank goodness for baked beans,

Sheldon’s now two pounds lighter!

Smorgasbord Posts from Your Archives 2020 – #Poetry Who’s Worse? by Stevie Turner

Thanks to Sally Cronin at Smorgasbord for sharing one of my more popular posts…

Smorgasbord Blog Magazine

Welcome to the current series of Posts from Your Archives in 2020 and if you would like to participate with two of your posts from 2019, you will find all the details in this post: New series of Posts from Your Archives 2020

This the firstpost by author Stevie Turner and it is a thought provoking poem that explores our natural inclination to comfort ourselves by reflecting on another person’s misfortunes.

I had another clear scan last week, and found this poem I’d written back in 2017 when I was sitting in the main concourse of Addenbrooke’s Hospital nervously drinking tea before having radiotherapy.

Who’s Worse? by Stevie Turner

Here I sit and drink my tea
Before my appointment in Oncology.
A sea of people pass before my eyes,
Fat ones, thin ones; every shape and size.
On their way to who knows what?
Maybe to see a…

View original post 712 more words

January Blues

I don’t know about everyone else, but to me January tends to stretch out rather flat and depressing after the Christmas lights get taken down.  I’ve written a poem below about January, my least favourite month of the year.  I also asked Sam to take January away and bring the sunshine.  He says he can do it, but it’s going to take him about 6 months…

January Blues, by Stevie Turner

Copyright Stevie Turner 2020

 

Twinkling Christmas lights

Green, yellow, blue and red

Are strung around the garden

And over the roof of our shed.

 

Sam is creative

When it comes to lights

The neighbours all look

And say “How nice!”

 

But now Christmas is over

And the garden needs to be fixed,

It’s unlucky to leave lights up

Past January the sixth.

 

Sam scrabbles around

In a cold stiff breeze

Unhooking strings of coloured lights

From the branches of our trees.

 

Sodden grass all churned up

By his huge Wellington boots,

As he pulls out wires

Down amongst the trees’ roots.

 

Brown mud, bare branches,

And spring bulbs shooting through

Are all that is left

And the odd broken bough too.

 

The garden has lost its former glow

That both of us adore,

The lights have gone for another year

Until it’s Christmas time once more.

 

But spring bulbs promise warmth

And a sun that brightly burns,

We raise a glass to summer

While awaiting the lights’ return.

Magical

I had to laugh (and agree) at Brian Lageose’s ‘The 12 Pains of Christmas’:

The 12 Pains of Christmas – Part 2

After the less than pleasurable drive to the supermarket this morning, I used Brian’s title and made up this poem whilst sitting in a queue of traffic.  I only needed to buy 6 things, but it took me 2 hours to get back home.  The magic of Christmas has started to bite.

On the twelve pains of Christmas

I hope that you’ll agree …

Twelve miles of tailbacks

Eleven diversion signs

Ten loos shut for cleaning

Nine ladies desperate

Eight road closures

Seven people shouting

Six cars competing

No spaces left …

Four honking horns

Three potholes

Two boy racers with a stripe,

And a white van up my exhaust pipe.

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Image by shilin wang from Pixabay

Knees, Please

This gallery contains 34 photos.

Originally posted on lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown:
Think of all the things you wouldn’t be able to do if you didn’t have knees!…

Rate this:

Conduct Unbecoming

 

One’s memory has lapsed,

One doesn’t recall

If one had sex with that girl

Or not at all.

 

The photo shows one

With an arm around her waist

Upstairs in his house

One denies it took place.

 

Whoops, one has made a mistake,

How would one know …

If it was upstairs

When upstairs one didn’t go?

 

One danced with her at Tramps

In a fevered sweat

But one doesn’t perspire

It’s a medical complaint.

 

Deny, deny, deny

That’s all one can do

When the press start hounding

And that woman does too.

 

Amnesia strikes

It’s plain to see,

One didn’t have sex,

It wasn’t me.

 

Having witnessed the denials

The country is bemused

Mother however,

Is not amused.

A Poem for You

I had another clear scan last week, and found this poem I’d written back in 2017 when I was sitting in the main concourse of Addenbrooke’s Hospital nervously drinking tea before having radiotherapy.

Who’s Worse? by Stevie Turner

Here I sit and drink my tea

Before my appointment in Oncology.

A sea of people pass before my eyes,

Fat ones, thin ones; every shape and size.

On their way to who knows what?

Maybe to see a doctor and find out what they’ve got.

Whatever they have I bet I can see

Someone here who’s worse off than me.

Yes, there he is, a little old dude

In a wheelchair and with an oxygen tube.

*

Here I sit in my wheelchair and seethe

‘Cos I’ve smoked all my life and now I can’t breathe.

I’m on this pill and that one, green, red and blue,

Still no difference; I can’t even walk to the bloody loo.

Never mind, my old lady will wheel me off

To Respiratory, where they’ll get me to cough

And breathe out into that tube which I can’t do,

Because of cigarettes, ‘cos I’ve smoked quite a few.

Oh well, Maybe I can see

Someone here who’s worse off than me.

There she is, poor old cow,

No arms, no legs, just a torso.

*

My motorised wheelchair is the best,

I get around from east to west.

Along the hospital corridors I fly

To see my mate who’s going to die.

I was born this way, I know no other,

I’m used to it; it’s really no bother.

I overtake a dude with an oxygen mask,

Who’s wheezing like every breath’s his last.

And a thin woman sitting drinking her tea,

No hair under that scarf that I can see.

Poor lady, so sad to be that way,

At least I’ll see another day.

She gives me a smile as she sips her tea

As she probably thinks… there’s someone who’s worse off than me.

5th Halloween Poem Contest – 2nd Group Of Submitted Poems —

Thanks to Aurora Jean Alexander for publishing my Halloween poem that I submitted for her contest.

Writer's Treasure Chest

Picture courtesy of: http://preventioncdnndg.org/

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Pleaserespect each authors’ and poets’ copyright. The rights remain with the writers. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from each of the poems author’s is strictly prohibited and violates copyright laws in the country you are reading this work in as well as in the country you are trying to re-publish this work in. – Aurora Jean Alexander

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Halloween

by

Donna Matthews

goblins and ghouls shrieking all night
it’s halloween! the witches dance and sing
haunting humanity with terror and fright

vampire bats wake and take flight
tender young necks a delicious thing
goblins and ghouls shrieking all night

gravediggers shovel dirt; sneering with delight
human spare and found parts they fling
haunting humanity with terror and fright

the boogeyman tall, fearsome and might
terror and dread his shadow will bring
goblins and ghouls shrieking all night

zombies moan…

View original post 577 more words