Lunatics & Space Age Watches

Perhaps these should never see the light of day.....

But sod it.

Sometime between then and now, I started writing poems. I didn't tell many people. Seemed safer that way.

They've been sitting in a drawer ever since — or a digital equivalent, a folder you never open because you're not entirely sure what's in it and you're not entirely sure you want to know.

Well. I've opened the folder.

What I found was a watch thief called Harold, a child splitting atoms in a bog, a homeless man with an infinite IQ, an imaginary friend called Bill, a Russian soldier who may or may not have existed, and a two-line poem that asks whether a lunatic and a space-age watch might actually be the same thing. I also found a puzzle about snooker balls, a juggernaut made of nothing, and a very important question about the number eleven that I strongly suggest you go and ask your mum.

The collection is titled Lunatics & Space Age Watches. My father used both phrases to describe the same sort of person. He was wrong to, in the language of a different time. But the wordplay was accidental genius — a luna-tic measures the moon, a space-age watch measures time. They're both instruments. They're just calibrated differently. They're both, in my view, entirely misunderstood.

Over the coming 'when I feel inclined' I'll be sharing a poem here and there. Some short. Some longer. Some that'll make you laugh, some that might not.

None of them asking for your approval or condemnation, exactly. Just turning up, the way Harold does, and seeing what you make of them.

We'll start small. Here's one that arrived fully formed and took about forty-five seconds to write. I've been trying to work out if that makes it better or worse ever since.

Number 11?

Hi kids —

Here's a quick question

Go and ask your mum

Why is number eleven

Not called onety-one?

Go on then. Off you go.

I'm thinking the word 'onety-one' is just so much nicer. And 'onety-four' is simply sublime.

I might even start a campaign....

— Steve...