3 poems by Johan de Wit

These read at the last Writers Forum, Saturday June 29, 2008...


either is home to streetwise or
more is to come like one
pair one and two contracted
out to cut three leaves
no trace but to run with
the sun makes minus tea
the best steak when it was
cooked it was healthier
than assistants who part why
from how like stockbrokers
mortgage lenders ideas
include entries from overleaf
as ugly as awful as slug as
tug begins a stint of theory
to meet is to be you at times
as to why bank failures
are immediately present
to when I say why
I may also say why is Belfast now
more lateral than literal
even if no-one should really be
ashamed to ask for tailor
trash unless served as introduction
to drill sink or give way to
ground a cigarette together
eighty per cent used for
greyhound racing global chants

*

pop corn one — home front nil
make shift two — eye patch one
rock hard one — more so two
blu tack three — cue ball four
home town one — door stop two
cut back nil — long day nil
top spin one — tram line two
up front three — help desk three
grass court two — foot fault one
price tag one — hard back one
odd ball nil — all so four
Putney two — Balham two
high street five — back yard one
bus stop two — pass port nil
sex change nil — head start two
touch stone one — mob rule three
see through two — half pint five
rock drill one — no more four
ex ray nil — brain scan one
foot note three — print out two
ab sence one — pres ence nil
blind ness one — in sight two
Stockport two — Portsmouth two
Andrews four — Bernstein four
guest ale one — pump clip one
call me one — good bye two
half time nil — full time ill

*

Arguments when settled out of court are
usually placed under guarantee.
Treating a headache with impunity is similar
to opening a brown envelope at source.
To line up fading memories with a call for
overheads sets tongues wagging.
It’s good to talk, said the heron; just be
yourself, replied the stork.
Never has always found it easier to stake its
claim for time than for money that belongs
to the state.
When the telephone lines up with sound it
no longer wants to listen.
Grammar says that whoever is caught on
camera becomes a chameleon forthwith.
If the sense of a poem can be summed up in
the formula sxp+t then the reader may as
well sign on in reverse.
Tuned in to sound a discussion about poetry
takes time out.
Scoring an own goal is a sheer delight for
any chief of staff joined at the hips, like
masterminds and other delicate features of
the pack.
Commercially it would be a disaster if
language had a breakdown and no-one sued f
or compensation.