Rhymes of our times - a daily poem - a lighthearted, but sometimes grumpy look at our life and times, featuring: Humour, Politics, Health, Family, Sport, Business, Royalty, Satire, Adventure, Environment, Crime, World, Technology, Idols, Obituaries, Religion, Arts, Children, Parenting, Law, Nature, Education, Fashion, War

written daily by poet Tony Hemmings since 11th October 2001

01 September 2005

A selection of poems since 2001

A selection of poems since 2001

Poet: Tony Hemmings

Oct 11th 2001
NEW YORK ONE MONTH AFTER

There is a city by the sea
Which towers towards the sky,
Its arm outstretched for liberty,
Its soul not meant to die.

Not e’en a mighty storm could break
The multi-ethnic throng
Whose panoply of might will shake
The fiends who did this wrong.

And when the smoke has died away
And years have calmed the brow,
The world will see the space and say
‘Five thousand died for now’.


15th Oct 01
SCHUMACHER INVINCIBLE

Schumacher, Schumacher, fastest of all,
Champ yet again to pin on the wall –
A fiery Ferrari flying the flag -
A German who wins to let Italy brag.

Up with the greatest, Fangio, Moss,
Mansell and Stewart, Senna and Prost -
Right on the edge but survivor supreme -
The top of a wholly fanatical team.

In a sport where a second is split into ten –
A fine separation of Gods from men -
Where a twitch of the toe, the eye or the brain
Determines the winner or loser again.


19th Oct 01
MOBILE PHONE USERS

Are you a peacock, flashy, and proud
Strutting around and terribly loud
Or modest and quiet, cheek by jowl,
Displaying the signs of a solitary owl?

Most of us speak in minimal time,
With coy little whispers in manner sublime
But some are determined without any fear,
Ramming their rubbish into your ear.

Oh that all calls were short and sweet,
In confidence made and simply discreet.
But whenever a windbag uses the phone
Have an attack and utter a groan.


16th Nov 01
HUMAN CLONING

To clone is to make an identical copy
Of genes and physical attributes –
As simple as saving on disc or a floppy
But a question of humanitarian attitudes.

Messing about with fertilization,
Changing the course of human kind,
Challenging roots of Civilization –
A selected heredity custom-designed.

Parts and accessories sold on the Internet –
A femur, a heart, an arm or a leg –
Man’s evolution is perched on a parapet –
Waiting for rules on the use of an egg.


4th Feb 02
MARRIAGE – SUCCESS OR FAILURE

A quarter of marriages end in divorce
In less than a couple of years –
With little incentive for staying the course,
A parting without any tears.

A woman has equal rights with a man
And often is earning the same,
More than a figure with sexual elan -
A double identity game.

In marriage you have to be totally loyal –
No aggression in body or soul –
In work and the home there are parts to oil,
For friction will take its toll.


14th Mar 02
VANDALS DETERRED BY CLASSICAL MUSIC

What do our vandals detest most of all
When looking to make some trouble?
Their presence alone is enough to appal
And their lust to perpetuate rubble.

Anything soothing and calm to the ear
Like Bach, Vivaldi or Handel
Is deeply depressing and dreadful to hear –
A cacophony hell to a vandal.

So play on with the music centuries old
With orchestra, chorus and organ –
A remedy quicker and cheaper than gold –
A dramatic conclusion is foregone.


3rd July 03
KATHERINE HEPBURN 1909-2003

Katherine Hepburn of Hollywood fame,
A socially spiky and freckly dame,
Hardly a classical beauty of screen,
She behaved as she did in The African Queen..

With Spencer Tracey, her lover of old,
A Katherine of Arrogance, haughtily bold,
She frightened directors and writers to bits,
Despatching the journalists to bottomless pits.

Of The Lion in Winter, On Golden Pond,
Guess who’s coming to Dinner, so fond,
Maturing with age, she spoke her mind,
A rebel not fazed by the Hollywood kind.

4th Apr 02
HOUSE PRICES SPIRALLING

The price of a house goes higher and higher
But soon it will come to an end –
Beyond the reach of a first time buyer
When the mortgage leaves nothing to spend.

There are not enough houses constructed each year
And not enough land to build,
With government planners locked in a fear
Of a countryside overspilled.

The country is mortgaged right up to the hilt,
The market is bound to collapse –
The question is when will the pendulum tilt –
Sell now whilst its high perhaps.


9th March 03
CIVIL RIGHTS

When a burglar sues for an injury made
When shot in the leg on a job
Using the service of legal aid,
Who else does he want to rob?

Our poor little burglar wants to complain
That now he is traumatized –
Can’t get a job, is in permanent pain
And is mentally paralyzed.

The man who shot him and killed his mate
Is languishing now in jail.
The process of law is hard to equate
And clearly the case must fail.


4th Dec ‘03
COMPUTING FOR THE AGED

Computers are hard for the sixty plus
Trying to coerce the brain,
The basic technique is tricky to sus,
The elders not easy to train.

They have to co-ordinate fingers and sight,
Both of them often impaired,
Aware of their rapidly worsening plight,
Inadequate, woefully bared.

But many will manfully master the mouse,
Taught by a child of five,
Bringing new gadgetry into the house,
Processing words alive.


16th Sept 05
“ALISON LAPPER PREGNANT” SCULPTURE

“Alison Lapper Pregnant” to view
As a sculpture horrific, a “Genesis” new,
Plonked on a plinth in Trafalgar Square –
Make an aesthetic complaint if you dare.

Enormously pregnant, nude without arms,
Conceived as a statue which shocks and alarms,
To compete with Lord Nelson, a feminist stance -
Our traditional square it doesn’t enhance.

More of a statement by modernist Quinn,
Brazenly outwards, but angry within,
But who are the fogies who made such a choice?
Sounds like the mayor with his combative voice.

17th July 05
SIR EDWARD HEATH 1916-2005

For fifty-one years in Parliament spent,
Sir Edward Heath, a native of Kent.
A PM in the Seventies meant chaos and strife,
When wages were spiraling and strikes were rife.

Lacking charisma, he lived on his own,
Absorbed in himself, it was hard to condone
His introvert style and petulant mood,
Ignoring his guests and basically rude.

His passion for music and sailing was strong,
His growl was his trademark, ho-ho was his song.
Signing up Britain to the EEC,
For better or worse, was his legacy.

18th July 03
DATING ON THE INTERNET

It used to be pen friends – a letter by post,
Written by hand to impress the most –
All very boring at school and at home –
An innocent wanting to dream and to roam.

Sooner or later a photo arrived,
A happy surprise or a dream deprived.
But always a fantasy rarely fulfilled,
A romance by time or by distance killed.

But the era of pen and post has passed,
In favour of having a web to cast,
Chatting away in rapid reply,
But too early, too fast and too easy to fly.

8th March 04
OBESITY OR SMOKE

Deaths from obesity challenge the smoke,
Remember the hamburger, fries and a coke,
The staple diet of kids growing up,
Taking them in like a ravenous pup.

Sixty year olds are dying of fat,
Clogging the arteries, drowned in a vat
Of maturing cholesterol and simmering gunge,
Into a quicksand of sludge to plunge.

Driven to action of moving parts,
No sedentary life, no flatulent farts,
Reducing the daily intake by half,
Cut out the smoke to wake up and laugh.


1st April 04
BRAINWASHED

Like sheep to the slaughter these people are wooed,
Into a blinkered impression pursued,
Driven to follow like innocent flock,
All of a vulnerable, fallible stock.

Who will stand up to the orator’s guile,
And question the right of the man to defile
The place and the culture whereon he exists,
And cut off his head if he dares to persist?

The parents condemn the clerics’ deceit,
The fathers of Islam must plot their defeat,
Extremists, fanatics, a curse to us all,
Rise up to the bombers’ and terrorists’ fall.


31st Dec 04
MUTED NEW YEAR’S EVE
A three minute’s silence before the New Year
Remembering Asia with many a tear –
Then the crash of the fireworks piercing the sky
Drowning the nation’s pitiful cry.

The end of a year is a crucial affair
With memories made and crosses to bear,
The highs and the lows for history made,
The roll of the dice has been finally played.

Everyone hopes for two thousand and five,
Fulfilling achievements and staying alive.
The world will play on in front of us all,
But for many in Asia the final call.


12th July 03
BEST MAN’S SPEECH
To speak in public is an art,
Articulation from the heart –
A history of the shattered groom,
The right to bore one must assume.

Embarrass all the happy guests –
Ignore it when the groom protests
Digging up the sleazy tales
Of rampant youth and randy males.

No, keep it short and keep it clean –
Congratulate and be not mean –
Treat your subject with respect
And clever party jokes reject.

21st Jan 04
FATHERS NOT NECESSARY

Not Adam and Adam, nor Eve and Eve,
But Adam and Eve is the way to conceive,
With the egg of the woman and seed of the man,
Through intercourse made as the family plan.

IVF offers a technical way
For couples where nature has gone astray,
But never in all of the course of mankind
For same sex couples a solution to find.

For a child, a mother and father is clear,
To suckle and follow, to grow to endear –
Two of a kind is but half of the whole,
Neither can copy the other one’s role.
27th Jan 04
GREER V AUSTRALIA

Australia reacts to the ‘sneer of the Greer’,
‘A cultural wasteland” her arrogant sneer,
Invoking the wrath of ‘parochial bores’,
‘Mediocrity’ rife at suburban doors.

Intellectualism is not understood,
The brains of the Aussies are nothing but wood.
With only their sport and ‘Neighbours’ to show,
Her class of elitists decided to go.

But then to attack them and pour on the scorn
For enjoying the sun, the beer and the corn
Is pathetic and sad for the feminist foe,
Not wanted in Britain and nowhere to go.

3rd July
PRINCE WILLIAM’S FIRST PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

New Zealand has welcomed the heir to the throne,
Fulfilling his duties, a young man alone,
With cameras whirling he’s learning the ropes
But easy to slip on the media slopes.

Diana and Charles have created a man
As a prince of compassion, a part of the clan,
Avoiding the pitfalls and playing it cool,
With a natural charisma and fervour to fuel.

William responds to the public and Press,
Smiling attentively, aware of the stress,
But this is a job he is given for life,
Better to share with a dutiful wife.

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