I used to love you

Here's a little love poem for Valentine's Day.

I used to love you madly

I used to want you by my side

My world revolved around you

But my time I had to bide

And now that we’re together

The fire that you lit

Is burning ever brighter

Because nothing’s changed a bit.

The birthday warning

Here's a silly poem written for a pal's birthday card many, many, many years ago...

Today's your 18th birthday

A very special day!

I wish you all the very best,

But first I have to say

That here's a birthday warning

A caution you must heed!

This lecture may sound boring,

But I really feel the need

To tell you, first and foremost,

About the demon drink

It sugars-up the brain machine

It muddles how you think

Your mind feels light and happy

But your thoughts are in a mess

You might attempt to do a back-flip

With no chance of success

Sober the next morning,

You stagger out of bed

It feels like someone took a brick

And dropped it on your head

You lurch towards the mirror

And stare in utter shock

Your hair's a mess, your eyes are red

Your nose has run amok

Your stomach feels so queasy

And there's a cut upon your chin

Your room's a mess and, worst of all,

You've thrown up in your bin

And so, for all these reasons

I beg you to beware

Have lots of fun, and party hard

But for goodness sake, take care!

Missing you

Time for another soppy poem:

I'm missing you so badly!

There's something gone amiss!

'Cos it's only been an hour,

Since I last received a kiss.

I hate it when you leave me.

I don’t want you to go.

I know I act too soppy,

But it’s you who makes me so.

Your lovely face, your gorgeous eyes;

My love, my life, my friend,

Stay with me forever,

I don’t want this to end.

Warm Salad

This is a daft email I sent to my future wife in the style of Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

This is how you cook, right?

Mr M. J. Makifali, the renowned novelist and international hamburger salesman, was a man who did not enjoy cold salad. Modern ways of eating salad immediately after it had been removed from the fridge were not his ways. Lettuces and tomatoes, he believed, should be eaten at the temperature of the room in which the eating was to be done. That was all there was to it. Many men – and even some women – said that cold salad was good salad but Mr M. J. Makifali preferred to eat warm salad. It was a very healthy way to eat salad. If the salad was cold then he would not want to eat it and then would he eat salad at all? Probably not. And, as everyone in Swindana often said, salad was a very healthy thing to eat.

Mr M. J. Makifali allowed his thoughts to wander away from salad. There were many good things in his life; for instance he was pleased that Miss N. J. Bigiwigi, the talented founder of the Notebeni Interpreting Agency, was to be his wife. It was a good thing to marry an interpreter. Mr M. J. Makifali was not a man to whom conversation came easily and so it made him happy that he was to marry a lady who was able to talk. He looked down at his shoes. They were not shiny shoes but they were good, sturdy shoes with white laces.

“Eat all the salad you want,” they seemed to say to him. “It can be warm or cold. We do not care; we are shoes, we do not eat.”

Mr M. J. Makifali ignored his shoes. Talking wives were a good thing but talking shoes were another thing altogether. “The tongues of shoes should never wag,” he said to himself. It seemed a wise thing to say when confronted with talking shoes. Besides, there were more immediate things to be worried about, like salad. Mr M. J. Makifali tapped his elbows together in the traditional Swindana fashion and settled down to eat. The shoes could take care of themselves.