Pants Outside Trousers, Big Letter H On T-Shirt, Here To Save The World
Disaster struck at the poetry festival
when the platform gave way
under the weight of heavy metaphors
and all-too-dense imagery.
Stranded in the wreckage were three poets:
a limericist,
a free versifier,
and a composer of sestinas.
The limericist gave a big shout:
“Tell me, what is this all about?
I was baring my soul
When I fell down this hole
And I fear I may never get out.”
Said the free versifier,
“I
wish I were
somewhere
else.”
The composer of sestinas said
nothing
(she had been knocked unconscious).
The audience (a traditional crowd)
muttered “What on earth can be done?
this really can’t be allowed,
when we are having such fun.”
Then a voice came from the back of the hall:
“Have no fear my friends
all will be well very soon
I will sort things out.”
“Haiku Man!” they cried with one rhyme,
“He has come to save the world,
seventeen syllables at a time,
with an appropriate season word.”
Haiku Man just smiled
(he didn’t want to compose another one
quite yet)
but after some thought,
he leant over the hole in the platform and said:
“Autumn damp prevails
woodworm weakens the timbers –
grab hold of this rope.”
In the darkness below, someone coughed.
The composer of sestinas
had recovered consciousness.
(published in Leaf Books’ anthology Dancing with Delsie and other poems)
Jonathan Pinnock has had over a hundred stories and poems published in places both illustrious and downright insalubrious. He has also won a few prizes and has had work broadcast on the BBC. His debut novel Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens was published by Proxima Books in September 2011, and his Scott Prize-winning debut collection of short stories, Dot Dash, was published by Salt in November 2012. Jonathan tweets as @jonpinnock.
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