Incurably Unromantic: Poems

By John Gillies

While always informed by a lifetime's professional study of human psychology, this collection is unusual, the author thinks, in its final variety - humorous, sardonic but also at times dark and disquieting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Feb 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781789019810

Book preview

Contents

Advice to Heretics

Not Hard

Interring the Ashes

The Rough with the Smooth

Clearing Up

For the Defence

Writers’ Panel

Betjemania

Mr. Larkin is on Facebook

Body-snatching

Incurably Unromantic

Self-Evaluations or Carpy Diem

Oresteia

Guilt or Alice in Pizzaland

In the Stockyards of the Stars

The Men in Dark Blue Suits

Where the Desert Begins

Taking No Chances

Cat

A Revised Estimate

Out On The Lawn

Two Major Faults

Graffiti

Permanent Revolution

Punta Arenas

The Palestine Campaign

A Moscow Cabbie Speaks

The Sticking Place

A True Tale

The Ecological Question – and the Answer

The Darker Part

You

Cabo Girâo

Stop and Search

Country Music

Beside the Point

Not again

Come-uppance

Groot Begijnhof, Leuven

26 . 02

"Specific Exclusions: (i) High Risk Sports ….

Playing the Maze Game

Bread and Butter Pudding

A Slate Tombstone

Love Song

A Shock Result in the National Ploughing Championships

Did Jesus Snore?

Advice to Heretics

When the Grand Inquisitor

Is your next visitor

And he asks if you’ve something to say –

If you can’t Torquemada

The whole enchilada

It’s best to keep auto-da-fé.

Not Hard

"Once coffins were substantial – hand-carved oak,

With full brass fittings. This thing’s just a joke,"

I told the undertaker. "Plywood, cheap

Veneer – and plastic handles! I won’t sleep

At night if my Dad’s laid to his last rest

In joinerwork that would disgrace a chest

Of drawers a blind man wouldn’t buy."

The undertaker sighed a patient sigh.

"The casket, sir, has been designed to burn.

Most folk prefer to spend more on the urn –

(to spend more than they earn?)

That’s what contains

What, after all, remains of the – remains.

Light-weight construction. swift initiation

Of more efficient, full incineration.

Low density