Sunday 23 February 2014

A couple of limericks

CATS AND THE BELFRY

St Matthew's church, known as St Matt's,
defies imitation by cats.
Though the man who designed
it had sewers in mind,
it gets pigeons and bats but no rats.



Picture (c) Clare Baker 2012

St Matthew's church is where Clare and I are most Sundays.  I have no business imputing to it a defiance of imitation by cats, an attitude suggested only if one is expecting an English parish church to have a tower, topped by pinnacles, at one end.  Not everyone shares that expectation.  The architect of St Matt's was Richard Reynolds Rowe (1824-1899), designer of Cambridge Corn Exchange.

The poem appeared in the church's magazine Streetwise 45, Christmas 2001, p.5.

Here comes a more recent limerick, which made an appearance spread over a couple of tweets on 22 January 2014 -- my first poem of the year.


THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS

No selfie depicts the librarian
fighting doors, lights and stairways to ferry an
array of files, books
and sack, but it looks
most textbook unhealth-and-safetarian.


I'd like to say I knew better than to take a selfie in such a situation, but in truth the idea did not occur to me until later.