function PopUpWin (Location, XLength, YLength) {
window.open(Location, "Pop", "menubar=no,toolbar=no,location=no,scrollbars=yes,directories=no,status=no,resizable=no,width=" + XLength + ",height=" + YLength);
}
function NewWin (here) {
window.open(here, "new", "menubar=no,toolbar=no,location=no,scrollbars=yes,directories=no,status=no,resizable=yes,width=800,height=180");
}
var windowPoem;
str40= "Flood
The rain fell all night, beating on roofs as dark and hunched as hills, cascading uncontained into the street in wind-curved waterfalls.
All night the rain fell, kept falling. This morning, the street's a river: cars founder and sink, while buses crawl laden as ocean liners,
raise bow-waves so swollen they break booming across the pavement where tossed at the tide's rising mark seaweed tangles to litter;
and under the hedges and gates fish shoal in the gleaming shallows, and further out, through the channel marked by wave-slapped traffic-lights,
dolphins leap lampposts, and whales surge and sound in the deep roads. ";
str41= "Flowers
Flowers are soft, they smell of aunties, weeds are better - no one shouts if you pull off all their petals or stamp them flat into the ground.
Grown-ups are funny about their garden, they don't see it like I do - "Such lovely flowers ", they say, when really it's a jungle where toy soldiers hide.
Leaves are alright, you can kick them and make smoke signals when they burn; but what I like best in a garden is trees to climb, fat slugs, and worms. ";
str42= "Friend
It was in his pocket. He admitted it. But when they looked, they could see nothing. Turn it out - they said. He did. The pocket hung from his jacket like a floppy ear. His hands were empty too. There was fluff in his fingernails. Liar - they said, you don't have one, you made it up. They laughed like knives; but he didn't mind. What they couldn't find was safe, they couldn't hurt it. The others were also pleased; they thought they understood, had found out, his lie. When they let him go, he put his hand back in the pocket, and his fingers first made, then stroked the unknown shape of his friend. ";
str43= "A Garden for Dracula
Beyond the gloomy hedge a thin mist lies as fine and sticky as cold sweat on disfigured statues, gaping pits, walls lurking in a tangled mass of cobwebbed ivy.
No wooden stakes in this garden! and the unpinned roses trail in the mud between cracked gravestones where something smells very rotten and the slow drip of dark water is menacing and sudden ...
who knows what their roots are tickling? their curved fangs wait for you to trip - be careful, be careful where you tread! Their flowers are like thin lips that long for blood, the white roses are hungry, the red have fed. ";
str44= "A Garden for the Hulk
Green. It has to be green. Not the dull shade of holly and ivy but bright as new buds, powerful as young shoots, fresh grass. Green everywhere, not a flower, not a blossom, not an inch of brown soil.
And there he is hidden like a gigantic greenfly, can lie on his huge back and pretend to be the spring. His mighty green muscles rippling like the grass his fingers like sturdy shoots his head a small bush fanned by its own breeze.
But only for spring; in summer, in brown autumn and bare winter, he has to stay human, powerless, controlling the green force of his temper. ";
str45= "Getting Heavy
big in his boots he met a weighing machine dressed as a punchball.
I tell your weight, it said and so he hit it with his heaviest punch.
the machine stood still and thought about it. seven stones lighter than me, it said at last
falling on top of him and crushing him flat. ";
str46= "GNASH
All right, I've got bad teeth don't tell me again Ok so they're yellow at the edges and one of them is amazingly squint and there's an interesting collection of metal and the gums are wearing down and yes I did know they're like that thank you but no it wasn't eating too many sweeties did it when I was young we sucked rusty railings instead of lollipops but if you keep trying to empty the penny tray maybe the dentist will be able to make you a set every bit as nice and anyway they've been in my mouth a long long time twenty times longer than yours. They've chewed on life, these teeth, and they're still my own, still strong and sharp and you won't be looking at them when they bite into your neck ";
str47= "Good morning
this is the teacher forecast
Mrs. Brown will be gloomy with occasional outbreaks of rage, storms are expected by mid-afternoon
Miss Green will be mild, although her smiles will probably cloud over when she finds the spider in her chalk box
Mr. White will be rather windy, especially after dinner-time, with poor visibility when his glasses fog over
Some drizzle is expected around Miss Red, she has not quite got over her cold, and Mrs. Blue is already gusting down the corridor and should reach gale force 9 when she hits the playground.
For the rest of you, it will be much as usual, a mixture of sunny moments and sudden heavy showers. Have a good day. ";
str48= "Goodfellow
What a rogue! That day his crime left the police gasping - his light fingers had taken their breath away
and his victims: a queue of respectable businessmen standing at a bus-stop on a wet Monday morning - suddenly
shivering, shocked to see him running away with their trousers: he had stolen their dignity.
I saw it! I tried to shout: stop thief! I couldn't: he had stolen the words from my mouth ";
str49= "The great lizards
The great lizards are gone, their bones are inlaid in land, or stand in the high halls of museums, gaunt and picked clean, pieced together for the cold winds to blow through.
They're quiet, these bones. No rippling scales, no huge eye swivelling, no rank hot stench of heavy flesh. Apart from these bones, we must invent them ourselves, monsters, dragons, creatures of our imagination.
Yet the bones do not show how they lived, but how they died; and these great skeletons, so carefully rebuilt, do not make me think of them striding terribly across sprawling plains or browsing enormous mouthfuls in steamy swamps in a world so long before us that it seems wholly alien
but of them running out of time, fleeing across a desert where earth melts through clouds of driven sand and ash under a sky of smoke and fire, closing in, burning and choking; of them howling as their feet stick and stumble in scorching lava or catch in cracks as the ground quakes and splits and they fall into the history of two-legged soft-skinned small creatures.
And the great gape of empty mouth asks me to imagine what will dig us up after another million years and raise our bones to stare at in bewildered curiousity. ";
str50= "Green grocer
I went into the greengrocer's: the vegetables and the fruit were all piled neatly in their boxes and a large watermelon lay in the corner.
I couldn't see the greengrocer. The shop smelt ripe and drowsy. I put three bananas in a paper bag. It was so still and silent I felt watched. The mushrooms looked like knee bones. The watermelon lay contented in the corner.
What had happened to the greengrocer? I took some carrots. I stuffed plastic bags with spinach, with the long green teeth of okra, with courgettes like tiny truncheons. The watermelon lay big-bellied in the corner.
There was no sign of the greengrocer. I called out, I waited, then I left money by the till and went towards the door. The enormous watermelon in the corner snored. ";
str51= "Hate
I took what I hated to a corner of the playground. I battered it, I bust its nose, I shoved it through the railings.
That didn't help. I took it to the road and pushed it - oops - underneath a bus, a steamroller, a tank. It was no use. I dropped it off a railway bridge, a cliff, an aeroplane. I crunched it with a 200 ton weight. I stuck it with a million pins. I tore it apart. I played football with the bits.
That didn't help. It was no use. It kept looking at me, winking disgustingly. I was shaking all over. I woke up. I was banging my own head on the wall. ";
str52= "haiku/tanka
Hi coo We're pals eh? Above big bloodshot eyes huge horns twitch - how far to the gate?
A tanker
wallows in the high waves and rising winds, like a long stick in a stream: when it cracks thousands of birds and fish will float like dead leaves. ";
str53= "Hey You
Hey you, we're the boys at the back of the class: look at us, we're great cos we say we are; thinking's too soft when you want to scrap when you've got to talk big when you've got to be hard and sitting down's a kind of trap when you need to mess when you need to act:
and we know we're boss cos everything stops, the girls can't work, the smart play dumb, when we're shouting loud and kicking mad: for writing's boring fighting's fun, we're big because we're bad; we think we're great and we're never wrong, we're ace star brill the lot and we can't wait till the bell has rung: we're only here cos we had to come. ";
str54= "High-hat
I put my high hat on your chair and underneath it hid a snare. Now sit on my chair if you dare.
I put my high hat on your room and plunged it in dark felted gloom. I expect you'll all be leaving soon.
I put my high hat on your house - out drop pigeons, fleas, a mouse, a constant leak of grump and grouse.
I put my high hat on your town and pressedbetween the brim and ground a ring of buildings crumble down.
I put my high hat on your world ";
str55= "How to look after your pets
Be kind to your tarantula it seldom gets out very far so take it with you in the car. Your mum will be extremely pleased to find it crawling on her knees.
To exercise a porcupine whose muscles are in sad decline just bounce it on a trampoline. The animal looks most appealing with its spines stuck in the ceiling.
Piranhas will get stressed and fraughter without some time for play and slaughter in a deep tank of warmish water. Your aged auntie's bath will do. Please clean the bones out after use.
Overanxious alligator should be fed soggy prunes and dates or large helpings of mashed potator. Small hands are best to feed this diet, so let your little sister try it.
It is a natural mistake when playing with a rattlesnake to grab the head and give a shake. It's better twisted in a knot and hung above the baby's cot.
If hiccups worry your hyena cover it in semolina. and squeeze it like a concertina. Wear wellies, waterproofs and hood to avoid the splatter of wet pud.
If you are worried, get advice: a change of diet might suffice but it is not considered nice to let your pet eat the vet. ";
str56= "I have a hippopotamus
I have a hippopotamus, I keep it in the bath. It is a happy hippo but every time it laughs water floods across the floor and mum goes on the warpath.
She tells me - Keeping hippos in a house is daft: they should be on the tele or in a photograph; why can't you keep something sensible, like a lion or giraffe? ";
str57= "I'm for ..
I'm for the team that's fast and clean not dirty or mean, I'm for the team that doesn't stop running whose passes are stunning and the ball seems to know just where it should go to fall smooth and neat at the next twitching feet as they sweep down the pitch switching wings as they race to make space or run rings round an outpaced defence. I'm for the team whose strength is skill, that will twist and swerve with control and nerve as they dribble through the middle but don't fiddle, fight or quibble with the ref wasting time and breath. I'm for the team who play so well that my mind and heart are lost in their art so I don't scream or yell but gasp in delight and grin. (I don't care if they win). ";
str58= "I'm into techno
I'm into techno machine mad man finger on the button never need to lift a hand I'm gaga for the gizmos, like to strike the right pose, fully-automated, computer-calculated, future-proofed, updated so it shows ...
I bake ice-cream in my oven-freezer I blow my nose in a solar sneezer I've a robot bed to service my head I pick my spots with a vacuum tweezer I dry my hair in a microwave sink I write my letters in electric ink my video-mirrors as tall as the wall with a screen as wide as a skating-rink
If I see a gadget I've got to get it to pet it or regret it or forget it or set it
I've a greasy micro-chip stuck to my lower lip and a twenty megabyte toothpick I ve got an electronic thing that let's you hear plants sing green songs in ultra-sonic.
I don't need to think 'cos my bathroom sink has a brain that knows more than I do, it can calculate the crumbs in a dozen current buns while flushing them down the loo. I've a burglar alarm with so much charm that robbers give themselves up I've a magnetic mouse that can tidy the house and a highly intellegent tea cup
I've got machines that dream my dreams that think my thoughts that fear my fear that do my deeds that scheme my schemes I've got every machine that there's ever been and I don't know why I'm here ";
str59= "Information for travellers
As you read this poem you are on a spacecraft travelling at sixty six thousand miles an hour. It spins as it flies: since you began to read it has already turned nine miles to the east. Be honest, you didn't feel a thing. You are orbiting a star, not a very big one compared to many of the ten thousand million others that go round on the same galactic wheel, and are flying at a height above its surface of some ninety three million miles. We hope to cruise at this distance for another eight thousand million years. What happens then is anybody's guess. Despite its speed and size this craft is a spacestation, a satellite, not designed for interstellar flight. Its passengers rely on the comfort of a pressurised cabin to enjoy the voyage. We must advise you that, in the event of collision, loss of atmosphere, or any alteration in course which may result in overheating or extreme cold, this craft is not equiped with parachutes or emergency exits. On a brighter note, the spaceship contains an enormous variety of in-flight magazines, meals to suit every taste, and enough games, puzzles and adventures to last a lifetime. We hope you enjoy your voyage. Thank you for flying Planet Earth. ";
str60= "In my bath
In my bath is a rubber duck a bear with one ear a bit of muck wooden lorries a plastic frog a blob of soap a woolly dog my dinner dish someodd red stuff a bobbing boat a ball of fluff a piece of cheese a soggy pea a lot of water a lot of water and me. ";
str61= "Interesting
I have lots of interests - my lego, my train set, my bike, my football. My hobby is watching my dad play with them all. ";
str62= "In the celler
The father is sawing, slicing the wood with strong smooth strokes. The boy prods a curled shaving with a chisel.
The father is concentrating; his eyes, his shoulders, his arms, are fixed in the wood. The boy is also engrossed, with a sharp corner he has stabbed a jagged split.
The father pauses, lays the saw on its side. What will he say? - Now you try, hold it this way - ?, or, - does that look straight to you - ? No. He says - Stop fiddling. You'll spoil the chisel's point.
For what he is teaching is not woodwork, but love of making and patience and care in the work, with the tools. And the boy is learning about his father or perhaps about himself
and he puts the chisel back in its place and he puts his hands in his pockets and he tries not to lean on the wall. ";
str63= "Invasion
When the aliens landed on earth their mighty battle fleet spread out in formation along the shoreline of a sea.
When the aliens landed on earth their commander stood on the shore and claimed the planet. After all, there was no resistance to their force.
When the aliens landed on earth a boy, stepping over a puddle, squashed them all. ";
str64= "Inventor
He tells the class to read silently. He twiddles his thumbs, he invents a machine for marking exercise books, the self-cleaning board-duster, a sleepy gas that can instantly subdue a row of noisy boys. He twists a pencil, he invents a robotic hand that creeps spider-like acoss ceilings and drops to tap on the desk of a dreamer; he gives it a flashing orange light and wailing siren, he considers programming it to sense the difference between a blank stare and deep thought, he decides it's impossible. He rotates his right foot, he invents a mesmeric device that compells total attention, he invents a telescopic arm fitted with video cameras, with radar to detect and jam electronic games and beeping watches, with pincers for confiscating annoying objects and retrieving dropped pens, he invents a tea-making machine that looks like a pencil-sharpener, cheese-flavoured rulers, a book that's really a sandwich, and then the bell rings. For a moment he thinks he's invented that too. ";
str65= "Is there a ghost in this classroom ?
Before anything, don't turn around, ghosts are never where you expect them to be. Let's look for signs. Does your desk lid slam unexpectedly while you're carefully closing it? Do pens and pencils wriggle and squirm, slip from your fingers and dive to the floor? And when you look for them, they've disappeared and no-one can find them for weeks and weeks until they turn up dusty, under a radiator, looking much the same but not feeling quite right? Do the legs of your chair wobble nervously? Do stacks of exercise books mysteriously slther apart or your biro suddenly start to write in invisible ink? And when you're working. do you sometimes sense someone watching you - and it's not the teacher, who's looking out of the window, or your friends, who are watching their hands write - but somewhere you can't see, but can feel like heat or light, you know something's eyes are staring into you? Now tell me, do you feel a sudden small wind licking your ankles, a slow cold shiver sliding up your leg? Is there an icy itch prickling your neck? Do you hear a soft whispering, so close and quiet it sounds like it's inside your head? You do? Then there is a ghost in this classroom and it's here to haunt YOU.
";
str66= "It's hard being a witch
It's hard being a witch all the blasted heaths have become housing estates and nobody sells cauldrons any more
Look, I'm reduced to sitting on broken bricks by a burntout car stirring a dented saucepan on a scrappy fire of mucky dogdamp wood
It's no good all the ponds are gone with their frogs and newts I can't find batswool anywhere; and as for tongue of dog well, would you go near those huge alsatians?
I can only rely on the rats, for the rest I make do with what's around me: greasy chip-papers, plastic bottles, the grey insides of sodden matresses, four- week old curry, slime from concrete walls, mouldy carpets, smokers coughs, bits of squashed cat..
O, nasty enough, but they don't work the same: I tried turning children into mice but they all became space invaders, I made a towerblock vanish but nobody cared or noticed; I turned a teacher into a gibbering idiot but he became a TV personality
I don't see a hapless king or a benighted prince from one year to the next It's not right even the broomsticks have sticky plastic handles, ny on bristles; still, I must fly. It's my signing-on day at the dole ";
str67= "Jobs
I could be shovelling stars into black holes or digging tunnels for government moles or the first nuclear scientist on the dole
I could be learning space history from intelligent slime teaching houseflies to clean up industrial grime or saving accountants from lives of petty crime
I could be inventing the rubberised brain-powered car or sailing a barge down a canal on Mars or writing HELP large enough to be seen from the stars
I could be a dentist for movie-star sharks or a social worker for DSS clerks or stopping our towns from becoming carparks I could be
I could be a survivor under ten tons of lead a hero (but you have to be dead) or perfectly happy just staying in bed I could be
a soldier (but not fire a shot) a banker (who gives what he's got) I could be prime minister and not lie a lot
I could be but I'm not ";
str68= "Jouvert Morning
The sun. The sun jumps up on the Savannah, a copper mask, a blazing pan beating, just jumping, no stopping, its deep bass echoing in the haze that makes the houses seem to vibrate, belly-out, shift their sides; and coming with the heat, the thrum and thrust of, drums rising in the dust churned by heavy trucks whose steel shimmers as they rumble like chariots of thunder in the ruck and swell, the surge of masqueraders: a tumbled mass of sailors, kings, red indians and demons, birds and beasts, gods of cloth and cane and feather who roll and ripple on the riffs, the bursting waves of brass breaking on a hoped-for shore where everybody is somebody and the masks of everyday drop like discarded rotis to be crushed by the feet of the dancers in the street as freed and lost inside the tempo they celebrate themselves. ";
str69= "Just between you and me
He's breaking that voice in for somebody else He's borrowed his ears from the elephants' graveyard His brains are as sharp as a squashed tomato His hair has been washed in a bucket of lard.
His legs are as straight as strangled bananas His breath smells as sweet as a dead skunk's armpit His nose is so long it touches tomorrow If he took off his cap his head would go with it.
His eyes wibble-wobble like gossy fried eggs But he's still my very best friend Even if his brain was found in a drain Don't you dare say a word about him -
If I call him names, it's one of our games, but if you do, it's rude. ";
str70= "Just friends
Me and my friend crawl though bushes to secret dens, climb trees and walls, play football.
My friend can flatten big boys with a shove or stand like a rock and shout them down. When we're together we're stronger than two life's more fun with my friend around.
Me and my friend don't have to pose or pretend: there's nothing between us but trust.
Yet the stupid sniggers are painful, and silly gestures make me sore - why can't a boy and girl be friends, just friends, nothing more? ";
str71= "The key to the castle
This is the key to the castle
This is the box with rusty locks that holds the key to the castle
This is the spider, huge and fat, who wove its web and sat, and sat on top of the box with rusty locks that holds the key to the castle
This is the celler, cold and bare, dark as the grave, with nobody there except the spider, huge and fat, who wove its web and sat, and sat on top of the box with rusty locks that holds the key to the castle
This is the stair that crumbles and creaks where every small step moans and squeaks that leads to the celler, cold and bare, dark as the grave, with nobody there except the spider, huge and fat, who wove its web and sat, and sat on top of the box with rusty locks that holds the key to the castle
This is the rat with yellow teeth, sharp as sorrow, long as grief, who ran up the stair that crumbles and creaks where every small step moans and squeaks, up from the celler, cold and bare, dark as the grave, with nobody there except the spider, huge and fat, who wove its web and sat, and sat on top of the box with rusty locks that holds the key to the castle
This is the damp and dirty hall with peeling paper on its mouldy wall where the black rat runs with yellow teeth, sharp as sorrow, long as grief, who ran up the stair that crumbles and creaks where every small step moans and squeaks, up from the celler, cold and bare, dark as the grave, with nobody there except the spider, huge and fat, who wove its web and sat, and sat on top of the box with rusty locks that holds the key to the castle
This is the ghost with rattling bones, carrying his head, whose horrible groans fill the damp and dirty hall with peeling paper on its mouldy wall where the big black rat with yellow teeth sharp as sorrow, long as grief, who ran up the stair that crumbles and creaks where every small step moans and squeaks, up from the celler, cold and bare, dark as the grave, with nobody there except the spider, huge and fat, who wove its web and sat, and sat on top of the box with rusty locks that holds the key to the castle
This is the child who came into play on a rainy, windy, nasty day
and said BOO! to the ghost who groaned in the hall and SCAT! to the rat by the mouldy wall and went down the creaking crumbling stair into the celler, cold and bare, and laughed at the spider, huge and fat, and brushed off the web where it sat and sat and opened the box with rusty locks and took the key to the castle ";
str72= "Late worker
Dad works on the night shift he goes alone into the dark
He has no supper, Mum says he gets a bite at work
but he tells us a story, tucks us in and slips away like a shadow into shadows
He's always back by daybreak, his long black coat hangs in the hall
but always his sad eyes, his great weariness show how tiring the work must be
and why else would he need to sleep all day in a wooden box in a cold cellar? ";
str73= "Leave it alone
Imagine this. An autumn morning. The leaves scud and settle on the street A boy comes out of a house, bag on shoulder, off to school, shuffles, bounces, jabs a leg out at the railings, leaps back, lollops on going with the leaves, with the breeze behind him and he sees half on the kerb half on the pavement almost at the corner a pile, a gigantic heap of leaves. He starts to run, the target is too marvellous to miss, the greys the browns the faded greens swept to a high mound, and the breeze bringing more each second what a pile. And his legs ready themselves for that good kick that ploughing explosive rush through crackling dryness and he comes to the moment, hold it imagine it, that moment the moment all warriors, drivers, rulers fear and a thought goes down to the pit of his stomach a message drops to the bottem of his boots that he knows something'sterribly wrong but can't spot it and he's going too fast, he can't stop hold it, that moment, that important moment before he hits and slips and skids on the brown steaming curd buried under the leaves as his clothes, his face are plastered in a thick crusty mass and coated with leaves at interesting angles and when he stands up - what to do, to go home, to stand in the shower in his clothes - to strip off there and then before the smell does for him? - and as he hovers in despair he wipes his face with the cleaner side of a sleeve he shuffles to the corner and there, still not far down the street is the elephant ";
str74= "Look out
Here comes a spider with enormous feet in hobnailed boots as hard as the street
Here comes a wasp with a rolled-up comic as big as an atlas and twice as thick
Here comes a mouse with a human-trap that'll break a back with a terrible snap
Here comes a cow with a churning chainsaw Here comes a fly to squash you on the floor
Here comes a cat with a whale in a can Here comes a chicken with a frying pan
Here comes a dodo with an atom bomb (don't ask me where he came from)
and they all look big and angry and rough and they all, all say - We've had enough ";
str75= "Magic
She puts her hands in the sink - with each deft flick another plate comes out clean - I can't understand this: even saucers are awkward to me, take an age to wash. It's the same with flour: what runs and jumps from me obeys her instantly, rolling itself into a neat ball to unfurl like a handkerchief beneath her wand. She says to the fire - go on, you, burn! - and it does. Wool turns to clothes between her clicking fingers. The hands are always moving, you seldom see the trick till later, with surprise, you find the world changed: the dust gone, the dress ironed, the food laid out to eat. Clear up your things - she says - they won't put themselves away; but I think if she told them to, they would. She's so good at that sort of magic. ";
str76= "Mangoes
because the rain has not yet fallen the valley's curled lips sweat towards the sky
& because the sun has buried itself in the valley the sweat is yellow, yellow of soil becoming sand of dry cane, of sulpher, of fire
& because this yellow cannot be denied because it glows in the heart of green green the child of sun and water
the huge trees with their domes of darkest green their thick cool domes of oily leaves are drenched with yellow blossom or dripping mangoes
green mangoes that are flushed with sunlight mangoes turning more yellow than earth than fire whose flesh is becoming sunshine & liquid
that hang like beads of yellow sweat & fall for the ants, the village children, the passerby, that are caught in sticky hands, in reed baskets, in hats,
so that everyone can eat the fruit of the sun the yellow sun cobwebbed by clouds
& because the mangoes are ripe the parrots are coming macaws with bellies the colour of ripe mangoes with backs the colour of brilliant sky
amazon parrots whose heads are splashed with blossom whose backs are washed the light blue of spring water whose bodies are the green of leaves in the rain
the rain that is beginning to fall in the valley ";
str77= "The Megaherz
From behind the smooth sound of the orchestra came the urgent snuffling of some enormous beast. It grew louder, drowned the music, devoured the hall, chewed the transmitter, came clawing heavily along the wavelength, started scratching and whining inside the radio
In the nick of time I leapt to my feet, switched it off, saved the world. ";
str78= "Megaleague 3000
Earth has not anything to show more fair - the referee computer in its sphere floats o'er the pitch with electronic ear and cameras that zoom in everywhere to judge on instant replay; and besides, there are no human players anymore - their massive transfer fees made the sponsors turn to androids whose moulded plastic hides are easily replaced. The act's the same, they're programmed to gesture wildly, to shout, cry and groan - all the rituals held dear by the few billion who still watch the game on real-size viddy-screens (no one goes out) and press their buttons to boo, laugh or cheer. ";
str79= "Me One, Villa Nil (villanelle)
As I sit quiet in my seat with pencil in hand, out of sight I'm scoring a goal with my feet.
Our team is close to defeat when I take this pass from the right as I sit quiet in my seat.
I might look unbothered and neat but inside I'm wild with delight - I'm scoring a goal with my feet.
Though I'm staring at a blank sheet I run upfield with all my might as I sit quiet in my seat.
A great shot! Fast and low, it beat the goalie! So hard to sit tight when scoring a goal with my feet.
I wish I was out on the street not in here, pretending to write. As I sit quiet in my seat I'm scoring a goal with my feet. ";
str80= "Mr. Donne's Secret
What on earth is the matter with Mr. Donne - he used to look so neat and cool but now he staggers into school with a crumpled suit and odd socks on.
His carefree boyish charm has gone, his wornout baggy eyes are bloodshot, he's become a raggedy, mumbling clot who's nodding off all day long.
His aftershave smells more milk than lemon and on the shoulder of his jacket is a sticky off-white smear that has a slightly sickly pong ...
what on earth is wrong with Mr. Donne? ";
str81= "Moment
In a moment I'll do my homework in a moment I'll take the look off my face in a moment in just a moment when this programme finishes in a moment when I've found a pencil in a moment when you stop nagging me in a moment in just a moment when pigs float past the window any moment now what's that? my friends are at the door and want to play out? I'm there already ";
str82= "Mosie
Don't ya mess wi me, pal, my aim is true; stiletto in the shadows looking for you
Nip ya on the finger armpit, neck or knee; Jag ya anywhur ah like, ya cant stop me
See them mobbing midgies, gang a mugging fleas; Na style, na class, jus numbers, there's none as brave as me.
Wasps are dumb an clumsy, one strike an they're dud, they're just easily upset but I'm out for your blood.
Sandflies are sneaky nippers - I'm elegant and proud; Hear me coming, human, I'll be singing clear and loud.
I like to boast and dance around before I get stuck in an when you can't hear me then fear cos I'll be sucking skin
Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee - man, I can do all that an more, you've no chance against me! ";
str83= "The mouse wheel
In a corner of the classroom the mouse was running round and round inside a wheel. I bent to look. it worried me, that wheel, that mouse - there was a wild glint in its sharp red eyes, like those of a mad inventor gripped by a big idea and as the tinny wheel clattered round I could see the dreams of power spiralling the mouse factories mice working ten hour days in treadmills for fat mouse manufacturers mouse motorways blocked by mice in mousemobiles rolling off on mini-mouse-breaks to Wensleydale or the Gorge at Cheddar mouse mafia, the feared Mozzarella di Napoli, making a quick getaway with sackfuls of ecus, European Cheese Units, from a hole in the wall raid on the Swiss Cheese Bank and worst, the unstoppable rise of a mouse military the swift scurrying of the four-footed infantry soon replaced by armoured columns, tanks, and then .. and then I saw the mouse had stopped to look at me and with one gesture of contempt like some imprisoned scientist who both knows his greatness and that his discovery will never reach the world it lifted its tail rudely and rolled into the straw. ";
str84= "My Grandfather Gavin
My Grandfather Gavin kept his Morris Minor in a wooden boathouse miles from the seashore,
but he drove it like you'd steer a boat: it bounced, bobbed and bellied, only just afloat;
and up the rolling waves of hills and down the other side we sailed, as fast and thrilling as a roller-coaster ride.
My Grandfather Gavin was known near and far: I think people stayed indoors when he drove his car.
My Grandfather Gavin had a round bald head - it was rounder and shinier than his Morris Minor and he parked it in his bed. ";
str85= "My kind of villain
My kind of villain is tall and thin with a droopy moustache that he strokes when vexed or when considering what kind of bad business to get into next. My kind of villain in his hooded black cloak plots wicked deeds in a voice that's halfway between cackle and croak, dreams up fantastic schemes and fiendish machines but never succeeds: though ruthless and strong he's a bit of a joke - something always goes wrong. Dashing but dim, doomed never to win - that's my kind of villain
what's yours? ";
function poem(pome,pun,len){
windowPoem = window.open('','poem','toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,scrollbars=yes,resizable=no,copyhistory=no,' + 'height=540' + ',width=' + len);
text = "" + pun + "";
text += "";
text += "
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text += "
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text += "dave calder";
text += " ";
text += pome;
text += "
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text += "";
windowPoem.document.write(text);
windowPoem.focus();
windowPoem.document.close();
var windowPoem="";
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function picker(sp){
if (sp==40){poem(str40,'Flood',440);}
else if (sp==41){poem(str41,'Flowers',440);}
else if (sp==42){poem(str42,'Friend',540);}
else if (sp==43){poem(str43,'A Garden for Dracula',480);}
else if (sp==44){poem(str44,'A Garden for The Hulk',480);}
else if (sp==45){poem(str45,'Getting Heavy',380);}
else if (sp==46){poem(str46,'Gnash',600);}
else if (sp==47){poem(str47,'Good morning',540);}
else if (sp==48){poem(str48,'Goodfellow',500);}
else if (sp==49){poem(str49,'Great Lizards',540);}
else if (sp==51){poem(str51,'hate',480);}
else if (sp==52){poem(str52,'haiku/tanka',360);}
else if (sp==53){poem(str53,'hey you',480);}
else if (sp==54){poem(str54,'high hat',420);}
else if (sp==55){poem(str55,'how to look',440);}
else if (sp==56){poem(str56,'i have hippo',400);}
else if (sp==57){poem(str57,'im for',400);}
else if (sp==58){poem(str58,'into techno',400);}
else if (sp==59){poem(str59,'info for travel',480);}
else if (sp==60){poem(str60,'in my bath',340);}
else if (sp==61){poem(str61,'interest',320);}
else if (sp==62){poem(str62,'in the celler',610);}
else if (sp==63){poem(str63,'invasion',420);}
else if (sp==64){poem(str64,'inventor',610);}
else if (sp==65){poem(str65,'is there a ghost',500);}
else if (sp==66){poem(str66,'its hard being',500);}
else if (sp==67){poem(str67,'jobs',460);}
else if (sp==68){poem(str68,'jouvert',540);}
else if (sp==69){poem(str69,'just between',480);}
else if (sp==70){poem(str70,'just friends',460);}
else if (sp==71){poem(str71,'key to castle',460);}
else if (sp==72){poem(str72,'late worker',440);}
else if (sp==73){poem(str73,'leave it alone',640);}
else if (sp==74){poem(str74,'look out',460);}
else if (sp==75){poem(str75,'magic',580);}
else if (sp==76){poem(str76,'mangoes',520);}
else if (sp==77){poem(str77,'megaherz',360);}
else if (sp==78){poem(str78,'megaleague',460);}
else if (sp==79){poem(str79,'me one, villa nil',460);}
else if (sp==80){poem(str80,'mr donne',460);}
else if (sp==81){poem(str81,'moment',340);}
else if (sp==82){poem(str82,'mosie',380);}
else if (sp==83){poem(str83,'mousewheel',500);}
else if (sp==84){poem(str84,'my grandfather',340);}
else if (sp==85){poem(str85,'my kind of villain',340);}
else return;
}