John Whitworth: Two Poems

On the House

Clean out those awkward places with a feather.
Stun rampant ferrets with a cricket bat.
Hang up banana skins to tell the weather.
Shine up your parquet floors with bacon fat.

Stag beetles make a tasty breakfast snack.
Use sellotape to make a sticking plaster.
Cold porridge fills up most unwanted cracks.
Dynamite in the house invites disaster.

Old newspapers will make a pair of pants.
Too hot a curry interrupts your slumber.
Syrup of figs discourages red ants.
Roll back the carpet when you do the rhumba.

Should you expect a hippogriff for luncheon
A rolling pin will make a handy truncheon.

John Whitworth

The House in the Clearing

Nobody came to the house in the clearing.

I waited and waited but nobody came.

Somewhere out there, out of sight, out of hearing,

The print of a slipper, the flash of an earring,

The blink of an eye and a shade disappearing,

The rustle of silk and the breath of your name,

But nobody came.

Where is the pride of the roof and the rafter?

Vanished for ever and never again.

What has become of the skill of the crafter?

Where are they now, all the love and the laughter?

Where is the joy and the hope of hereafter?

Gone with the the weft of the wind and the rain

And never again.

Only the sigh and the creak of the wicket,

Only the buzz of the bee in the rose,

Only the fox as he pads through the thicket,

Only the spoor of the fawn and the pricket,

Only the sussurant song of the cricket,

Only the rancorous cry of the crows,

And the scent of a rose.

   John Whitworth