The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

So there am I, a blameless guy, when this tiny fly flies in my eye! ****! sez I, you effing fly. It’s drowning in my runny eye so with a mirror nearby  I wipe and swipe and poke and pry. It proves elusive, dead or shy. Listen, effing fly, growls I, – I’m like that Liam Neeson guy, you’re gutsy, that...

Brandy works too

Though Rhyme should be for everyone it sometimes gets looked down upon. ‘Oh fol-de-rol and tosh’ they say ‘those rhyming schemes are so passé.’ It’s saddening when people choose to air their slightly rhymist views. (and if this issue worries you go to hashtag #Rhymers Too.) In fact, a school of thou...

You asked me one day whether we’d always be together. You talked of this a lot and so I thought - Why not? So I had this awesome notion to show my true devotion - I’d get myself some glue and glue myself to you to be always by your side - my perma-fastened bride. As one through thick and thin, stuck...

When we meet tomorrow afternoon under the station clock, you will recognise me by my distinctive Come-to-bed eyes, my Get-a-load-of-this-baby nose, my Right-you–Knickers-off-now mouth, my Hey-pretty-lady-you-wan’-jig-a-jig? moustache, and my Why-Contessa–you-appear-to-be-wearing-nothing-but-my-fine...

Though made of solid teak, a disconcerting creak and a recent greenish tinge plus a budding squeaky hinge had earned it disapproval and a call for its removal. I wouldn’t call it hideous but women are fastidious. But the nuts were old and rusted well and truly busted. Nothing would unscrew it so a h...

They were two northern middle aged ladies - their business was widely admired, they catered to paint-splattered workmen and professionals smartly attired. Their living was made in the sandwich trade with a hearty traditional fayre and often I’d drop in their takeaway shop to be served by the welcomi...

Thanks Mark, glad to have lifted the gloom.
I think we must go in very different pubs though.

I’d like to give thanks to Armitage Shanks standing there a-gleaming in serried white ranks. What would we do in a world without you? Do it out the window with a warning Halloo? 'Ahoy there below! I thought you'd like to know There's no internal plumbing and I’ve really got to go. ' ‘Sorry Mrs Ware,...

These days I find that my artistic mind can’t be bothered with trivial rhyme so increasingly I find my plans go awry and my mind wanders off all the time. I tire of metaphor and slink off to bed afore a verse is completed and scans and half-done refrains sit like vandalised trains - abandoned by Ars...