The Weekly Muse

The hoar frost ices rooftops white

And starches litter overnight.

A sullen morning slopes away

To Finsbury Park from Harringay

And London's grey, London's grey.

But good news for computers:

The Pope confers his blessing.

A priest puts in for overtime,

A nerd comes out confessing:

"Father I have sinned. My thoughts

Are lustful and profane.

I try to cast them from my mind

But back they come again.

Her cut-glass voice excites me

With undertones so soft.

It's hard for me to say this...

I ache for Lara Croft."

"The devil tempts us all my son,"

The priest says, "Even me.

I'm down to play the bishop.

When we get Tomb Raider III."

The latest buzzword's "sexy".

Well, someone had to choose it,

And this time it was Labour,

So now they're going to use it:

He massaged at her figure

And threw it on the table,

He tore her half-percent off -

"You're sexy when you're stable.

But even though we're gasping

I think that we should both wait.

It's just... I've got this problem

Pertaining to my growth rate."

The cod is not a sexy fish

If languishing upon a dish

But when the thing begins to breed

It's very different indeed.

In fact the mating Gadidae

Do so much grunting in the day

That Norway's naval sonar sound

Is useless on its spawning ground

Where spectrum-analyser screens

Find randy fish, not submarines.

How strange if it should come to be

An act of cod starts World War III.

In spite of looming shortages

It seems I stand alone -

The only man in England left

Without a mobile phone.

The racket on my railway trips

Has gone from bad to worse:

User, we have never met,

But know you have my curse.