THE BOARDING-UP COMPANY FOR HEARTS

You are through to the boarding-up company for hearts.
Welcome to our Instant Response & Protection Unit.
Your call has been placed in a queue.

All of our experts are engaged in pro-active measures
Designed for the protection of a victim such as yourself.
Please hold, until an operative becomes available.

Sustained by our carefully orchestrated mood music,
Take a little time to choose from the list of options
Currently being intoned by an ‘A' list heart-throb.

For minor acts of vandalism, such as the teenage crush,
Infatuation with soap stars or minor members of royalty
More than 25th in line to the throne, we recommend:

Our budget service, which includes papering over the cracks,
Cheap-and-cheerful fence mending, and affixing of yellow ribbons
To more or less any and every old oak tree.

For Mills & Boon readers whose bodices have been ripped
By impeccably suited individuals in improbable locations, such as
Castle parapets or croc-infested swamps, we offer:

A choice of reinforced nether garments, proven to have resisted
The advances of Attila the Hun, Bluebeard and Rasputin,
Plus a four hour CD of Claire Rayner saying, " There, there, dear! "

For the genuine article, a heart which entered a relationship
With its eyes wide open and its chin up, only to end face down
In an empty house, on a lonely bed, in abject misery,

Brought about by a poisoned cornucopia of mental and physical brutality,
We undertake to batten down the hatches by every available means
At our disposal, but are unable to offer cast-iron guarantees.

You are through to the boarding-up company for hearts.
Welcome to our Instant Response & Protection Unit.
Your call has been placed in a queue.


BATTERING RAM

A sudden narrowing of eyes, the fist
Which always takes me, somehow, unawares.
Surely life doesn't have to be like this.
Can we not better order our affairs?

I failed at first to see you were annoyed
When now and then you lunged at me and missed.
These days I make no effort to avoid
A sudden narrowing of eyes, the fist.

I really can't be more obedient
In public, whilst I'm well aware men's stares
Trigger your usual expedient
Which always takes me, somehow, unawares.

If you could possibly contrive to hit
The bits that do not show, perhaps I'd miss
Less days at work, so then at least...oh, shit!
Surely life doesn't have to be like this.

You go with every scrubber you can lay.
I have a sympathetic friend downstairs.
Mind you, he's almost seventy, and gay.
Can we not better order our affairs?

You're very strong. You have the sort of lust
Which laughs at love, which sex does not distract.
I watch you closely, conscious that I must
Possess, wear, do, say nothing to attract
A sudden narrowing of eyes.



THE LADIES OF THE CHARITY SHOP

The ladies of the charity shop
Were given a brand new till.
They never got the hang of it
And now they never will.
They only approached it in groups of three,
With expressions of loathing and pain,
One to push buttons,
One to have kittens
And one to try it again.

The ladies of the charity shop
Were a most harmonious clique.
They all popped in on a rota system
At least three mornings a week,
To drink gallons and gallons and gallons of tea
And have a good chinwag about
Cardigans, ornaments, wrestling tournaments,
Gall-bladders, goitres and gout.

The ladies of the charity shop
Maintained, with no hint of apology,
That they never expected to find themselves
At the forefront of till technology.
The old model suited them down to the ground.
When they wanted to put in some cash
And the drawer got jammed
They said " Bother" and " Damn"
And gave it a good old bash.

The ladies of the charity shop
Have been in darkest mourning
Since a quarter to ten last Wednesday
When, without the slightest warning,
They opened the new till to put in a pound,
The contraption showed its teeth,
Gave a frightful roar like a carnivore
And swallowed Jemima Moncrieff.

The ladies of the charity shop
Phoned divisional headquarters.
No repair man came, but a TV crew
And a posse of press reporters.
One asked the ladies a question
With a tabloid glint in his eye.
"Was the victim nude?"
They said, "Don't be rude.
This isn't the W.I."

The ladies of the charity shop
Have sold off all their stock
To a nice young man with a Transit van
And a stall on Camden Lock.
At their manager's suggestion
They all went on the spree,
Got merry on sherry
On the Brittany ferry
And buried the till at sea.

© Peter Wyton

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