Poems

Sandie, Are You Sure?

Sandie, are you sure
you won't sing on tv anymore?
I guarantee that if you did
there'd be a power surge on the National Grid.
You're Essex's finest -
better than Colchester's Blur,
you reach further than Southend pier.
You shine brighter than a carboot sale in Romford,
full of riches not even Shenfield could afford.
You're wilder than the A12's central reservation,
more famous than the long platforms at Colchester North Station.
More people love you than have travelled via Harwich,
more than pebbles on Clacton beach.
Your voice is sweeter than Essex's rolling hills
which burn my heart, leaving me homesick and ill.
You have me trapped like Walton's mirror maze,
You're cooler than Essex Uni's students' latest craze.
It's fab that you're from Dagenham -
If she was still alive, Boudicea would be your biggest fan.
The Romans would've danced to your songs,
and the Vikings in Maldon, when they came along.
Though your song on Eurovision wasn't very good,
your cover of "Jeane" puts me in a happy, melancholic mood.
Essex loves you, Sandie - I'm sure.


by Helen, 2006

Hairotica

In dreams, that find me, in my lonely bower,
I restless, lie; in silhouette, a quiff
Looms darkly, soaring upright as a tower.
So male, so monolithic, stern and stiff.
You come to me, my soft sheets thrown aside
My lips you crush. My body is afire
With need. O, I am passion's helpless bride!
Your pompadour, a-tremble with desire,
Casts shadows from the lamp. In want I drown;
My thighs they loosen, wanton thralls of lust.
Your hand plucks at the buttons of my gown,
The first, the second, third.... I wake in just
The nick in time, my heart still beating quicker.
I think that's just as well, though - don't you, Vicar?


by Edna Weasels, 2005.

Posed Majestically With A Cup Of Tea

I've travelled one hundred and twenty three miles
to be in the same room as you.
To suffer in the crowd
as we strain and sweat.
So much love inside one room
and it's all for you,
Viscous round the chandeliers,
it flows round the ceiling plastered in
gaudy cherubs, a Victorian wedding cake -
fading decadence suits your style.
I saw you on the balcony
watching the support, or admiring the decor,
or drinking our frustrated adoration while you tease.
You knew we'd see you there,
posed majestically with a cup of tea.
At last on stage, the crowd loses reason.
Hands in the hot air long to touch you,
and you long to touch us back.


Your name in lights,
is this your teenage dream come true?
You gyrate and contort
and we adore and adore.
But unlike those other singers
whose vertiginous egos induce vertigo,
it is not enough that your voice is a caress or that
your music soundtracks our lives;
that we fall in love to it,
or weep, or nod and say "That is me too" -
the more we adore you,
dear man, the more you love us back.


by Helen, 2004.