Haiku

Beauty appraised
under microscope smears
The snowflake.

Crowdfunded Poem

                                 This crowdfunded poem 

         simply would not have been

possible 

      without 

           each and every one of you,

                   
                              All, 

Perfect buttons 

        of glinting dandelion-light, 

                 Scattered around 

          this troll-freckled globe, 

    Hiding in plain sight. 

But you knew that already, right? 

Wonderful you all are. 

Like,  

         Kernels of Shining 

         in astonishing human uniforms. 

And it doesn't get much better 

                                  than that. 

                Not on this earth. 

With a tambourine shimmy of modest economic growth: 

                 The green shoots of recovery, 

Bigger than the bonsai lumberjack's 

                                 stronger hand.. 

           
              The Bonsai Lumberjack  

       Shaded, he snoozes under the 

ineffable cherry blossoms,

       The alien, pear-drop glittering

Mount Fuji 

      sheds her raindrops of lime, 

                         They bounce off lily pads, 

    splash-splash,   

                           onlooker eyes swivel, 

                       there!...there! 

     to bemusement of 

grasshoppers.. 

                                Between you all, 

      My twenty-one fellow Bloggers, 

And a few dozen other followers, 

                                              (my small but dedicated cadre),

You have raised over eight-hundred-thousand pounds! 

         And particular salutations to: 

Anon, from Finland, who sold her kidneys. 

              Yes - both! Amazing! 

                 And, another Anon - 

A modest plutocrat from Ukraine,

                                              (certainly one of many), 

Who gifted me their condo in Knightsbridge -  

              Plus, a humorous poet stipend, 

          Index-linked, tax-free, all that. 

      A delight as magical as,

My self-sacrificing 

        kidney-less fan. 

You're truly all the penguin's antlers! 

            munificent nightingales swoop

                       moonlit lemon glades....

                  You're truly all! 

You're rarer than a dodo playing golf! 

  Or, 

      a dodo who's never played golf. 

  Or, 

      Dido singing a song about a dodo 

who plays golf. 

•         The dodo plays golf whilst singing a song about Dido. 

You're rarer than the 

pasteurised milk-drinking cow. 

You're rarer than butter melting on 

          the divine lips of a 

                      Daily Mail editor. 

Look! (mist his steamy musk glands.)

how he eats stones with chopsticks, 

And funny oblong bread made of soap.  

It suits him: he knows what's good for 

    Us: Full stop after the colon.  

And, above all, 

      without those,

      extraneous exclamation marks. 

!!! 

You're all immortal now, and not for a limited time. 

Even our Fin with no kidneys remains immortal,  

Though only spiritually, 

Which is better than nothing I guess. 

(Some would give their right leg 

to give up their kidneys for spiritual immortality.) 

                         Rest in peace, her. 

[we should be thankful for a right leg, 

even if the right leg isn't technically ours

to be thankful for.

I'm deeply thankful for all your right legs,

And, don't even get me started on how besotted I am with your left one]. 

  

                        Frack and frankincense

              Unicorns and atomic bombs

       Telephone drones

Edward Snowden

I sincerely hope you enjoyed this poem 

as much as I did receiving all your cash writing it. 

We must do this again sometime - and soon! 

How about next month? 

Why not? 

As many times as you like. 

{I'm sitting here now in my foaming Jacuzzi, 

With the Neptunian nymph,

              Shangri-La.

The magical neon burnish of concrete fresco,
              Stratford municipal casino,
                       rises,
                                 all drifted, unmoored, 

                    A phantom pirates' galleon} 

Now, I promise,  

All my crowdfunded poems - 

Your crowdfunded poems, 

Shall be as immaculate as this one. 

Never shall I stint on Quality Control, 

Nor take for granted the great wads of cash you insist on offering up to me. 

             Tough ask, I know. 

But I owe it to you, my PayPal patrons; 

         You're the real stars here. 

And don't let anyone tell you otherwise: 

            They're all bastards. 

I'm not a bastard. 

                                              

I don't look forward to ever having to let any of you go.