Odes & Ends

A somewhat ragbag collection of short funny poems covering a diverse range of subjects and executed in a variety of styles, which include shape poems, nursery rhyme parodies and anaphorisms. If you progress through Patrick Winstanley's funny poems in a logical manner, the Odes and Ends are quite simply the left-overs.

Blockage

Sometimes poets can write poem after poem, at other times the poetic wellspring runs dry. Writer's block is the polite term to describe this all too frequent literary malady.

Hear Here

A short poem which is both contemplative and comic.

Am I?

A poem which is not a poem. Or is it?

Ampersand

A shape poem which is what is says, and says what it is.

Unwanted Gift

Isn't it funny that those who are least dear (or near) to you delight in giving you the most inappropriate gifts.

Humpty

A parody of Humpty Dumpty for the anglophile sadomasochist.

Travel Sickness

Celebrity is not all it seems for an author travelling to a literary conference.

Anaphorism I ~ Needs Must

Aphorisms are pithy sayings which hold a self-evident truth; anaphorisms are distant relatives rendered in poetic form.

Chips With Everything

A short rhyming poem about possible pitfalls encountered when shopping.

Logical Progressions: From Tutu to Tintin

Logical progressions are poems which connect two unrelated subjects using logically coherent intervening verses. In this poem, five leaps of faith take one seamlessly from the tutu to Tintin.

Old Saws Resharpened ~ Weather prognostications…

This year saw apple trees bearing fruit and blossom simultaneously, a sure sign that old sayings relating to weather lore require updating.

Library Rules

A poem inspired both by the arcane rules displayed in swimming pools, which always begin with a rather poetic 'no running, no jumping, no ducking, no diving', and by the state of decrepitude of public libraries in the UK.

Poeteer

A 'shape poem', which uses the arrangement of words on the page to create an image or design to illustrate the subject matter. This is not a funny poem, but it is a suitable valediction.