!itanic and o"er ques#onabl$

%oems.

&ladimir O'Lear(

2008 arcadianjazz@googlemail.co)

Absolutely

The absolutely generation

drives me absolutely mental.

In every single conversation.

absolutely is essential.

They don’t say ‘Yes’ or ‘I agree’

and when did you last hear ‘indubitably’?

Together, we must make a stand

and get this absolutely banned.

What say you? Don’t you agree?

‘Oh absolutely!’

2

Why must I be a senior citizen in love?(To the tune of Why must I be a teenager in love?)

Each time we have a quarrel, it almost breaks my heart,

Cause I am so afraid that we will have to part,

Each night I ask the stars up above,

Why must I be a senior citizen* in love?

One day I feel so happy, the next I feel so sad.

Its normal for my age - according to my dad.

Each night I take the stairlift above.

To prove that I’m a senior citizen in love.

I slipped a disk doing things with you

things that aren’t quite normal for a guy of eighty two.

Well, if you want to make me cry, that won't be so hard to do.

Go hide my free bus pass and my viagra too

Each night I ask the stars up above,

Why must I be a senior citizen in love?

I’ve cried till tears run down my face

and damaged parts that the doctors can’t replace.

But if you want to make me happy, that wont be so hard for you

Just grab my zimmer frame and show me something new

Each night I ask the stars up above

Why must I be a senior citizen in love. (Repeat three times)

*or 'an old age pensioner’ (UK) '

25

The Engineer’s Lament

There’s a gang of people mooning at my train.

It’s a mystery that no one can explain.

But each time that I drive in

They just drop their pants and grin

And embarrass all the good folk on my train

Its a sight that makes some passengers complain

When I told my supervisor, he said ‘Just go drive that train’

In the old days when I drove along this track

They would wave at me and I would wave right back

I’d be feeling kinda proud

And I’d hoot my horn real loud

Giving anxious folks nearby a heart attack.

But I’ve still got that old catapult of mine

and this air gun filled with pellets will do absolutely fine.

For a gang of people mooning at my train.

It’s a mystery that that no one can explain.

So the next time we go past

And they drop their pants half-mast

I’ll make damn sure one of them goes home in pain.

So the moral of this story is quite plain

Don’t be tempted to go mooning at my train!

26

Push away from the table(To the tune of John Brown’s Body - well almost)

The guy has got a belly

that looks like a big bass drum.

and from the back, his head and neck

remind you of a thumb.

He waddles round the buffet

piling food upon his plate.

And wearing shorts that would look silly

on a kid of eight.

Push away from the table

Push away from the table

Push away from the table

and leave some crumbs for the other hungry bums.

His partner’s even larger

but knows how to hold her booze.

She looks just like a stranded whale

that's covered in tattoos.

She follows close behind him

loading up with food galore.

Enough to feed a hungry nation

for a week or more.

Before they leave the dining hall

they fill a secret sack

With doughnuts, buns and pastries

just for their morning snack.

Then lie there sizzling on the beach

and only need to rise.

To grab a few greaseburgers

and a bucketful of fries.

There’s not enough to go around

or so the experts say.

The have’s are getting larger

while the have-nots fade away.

Let’s pray there’ll come a day

when certain people will be able

To say ‘We’ve had enough’

and push away from the table.

27

Skinny Dipping

Now, there’s a place that I recall, where we would go to swim

It wasn’t at a swimming pool down at the local gym.

And though the water was too deep, too muddy and too cold.

We all loved skinny dipping at the old swimming hole

Chorus:

Oh, for just another of those sunny days of old

When we went skinny dipping at the old swimming hole

We didn’t have a lifeguard watching from a little boat

Just a rubber tyre that would keep us all afloat.

We learnt to do the backstroke, the breast stroke and the crawl

The butterfly was silly, never did that one at all.

Like monkeys in the jungle, we would swing from tree to tree

Hanging from a piece of rope and every ride was free

Leaping from the tallest rock, I did a cannon ball

And landed on Fat Louie, who was cushioning my fall

One day a stranger took our clothes, and then away did run

At first we didn’t notice it, ‘cos we were having fun.

We had to wait till sundown and all the folks were in,

Then sneak back home in darkness, dressed in nothing but our skin

For no particular reason that we could understand,

A law enforcement officer told us that it was banned

We grabbed his arms and legs, and everybody took a hold

And he went skinny dipping at the old swimming hole.

The other day, I came this way while on a business trip

The weather was so hot I thought I’d have a skinny dip

A restaurant and a parking lot was all that I could see

My dear old swimming hole was just a part of history.

28

!itanicand o"er ques#onable poem$

%is co&ec#on of short poems is dedica'd ( "e )A*ica Merc+,

-lease read about "e work of "is hospital ship o. /ww.mercyships.or0

arcadianjazz@googlemail.co1