Author name: Philip Barton

He seemed to be a normal child,

But standing all alone.

His eyes were dark and wild

In a body not full grown.

He’d never been inside a zoo

But tigers were in books.

He stared, as boys so often do.

And a tiger exchanged looks.

Through the bars, the boy was in,

With snarling and commotion,

Call the next of kin,

People wailed with emotion.

The very worst was feared,

A boy so young, a life gone south,

But when the dust had cleared,

A tiger’s tail hung from his mouth.

 

© Copyright, Philip Barton, October 1st, 2019. All rights reserved.

Anony Mouse was not well known.

Of him, but few had heard.

His squeak and squeal

Had scant appeal,

To anyone not furred.

 

Through life he moved most timidly.

Ate cheese in tiny pieces.

Most polite,

He was clean (in spite

Of many scattered faeces).

 

But there’s one day in all lives,

Of mice, both near and far.

To take a stand for a cause that’s grand.

To shine and be a star.

 

And on that special day,

That’s now famous in the house.

Anony became a legend,

Renamed Magnani Mouse

 

© Copyright, Philip Barton 15th November, 2023. All rights reserved

Just one big toe,

Then it went pear-shaped.

Before too long

They’d all escaped.

Where they went,

No one knows.

Follow the scent

Of William’s toes.

 

© Copyright Philip Barton June 11th, 2024. All rights reserved

A question often pondered

When odd socks depart the scene,

Is where they flew or wandered,

And whether they were clean.

 

While some the sage’s path do roam.

Others flap in flocks.

Some end up in the Catholic home

For lost and holey socks.

 

Common to such footwear,

From those soggy laundry batches.

All seek their life to share,

With perfect colour matches.

 

© Copyright Philip Barton May 8^th, 2025. All rights reserved.

A surgeon of vision

Was quick to decision,

The nurses were not quite so sure.

The resulting incision

Was lacking precision

And the patient was cut to the core.

 

© Copyright Philip Barton, 2010. All rights reserved

If your hope is for social advancement,

Then you’ll need to fit in with the herd.

You must laugh at things that aren’t funny,

And be serious with matters absurd.

 

© Copyright Philip Barton, 2010. All rights reserved

My right arm was a chimney sweep,

His hand was black with soot.

He dallied with a trembling leg

And swept her off her foot.

 

© Copyright Philip Barton, 2010. All rights reserved

God pondered as he darned a sock

Then finally answered Moses,

I put one ear on either side

To keep the hats off noses.

 

© Copyright Philip Barton, 2010. All rights reserved

 

A petticoat sprawls listlessly,

She longs to have a ring.

Revealing, full of feeling,

A Freudian slip of a thing.

 

© Copyright Philip Barton, 2010. All rights reserved