I used to be a ‘performance poet’, delivering my puerile verse,
at events going under the title ‘Spoken word’,
blissfully unaware of embarrassed looks and muted applause.

So childish was I, that at any hint of criticism I’d throw my proverbial toys out of the bath.
 

As a kid, I was spoilt – my dad even bought me a horse, calling her Skedaddle,
for every time I came near, spouting daft rhymes, she’d run off, leaving me holding an empty saddle.

(By the way, that’s a reference to the sport of kings, the meaning of which I’ll soon divulge).

This obsession with parading my poetical outpourings persisted into adulthood,
which is why I joined a literary group, in a back room at a trendy bar called The Leaking Bucket.

It was run by ‘Whaler’ Wilson, who wrote about sailing a whaling ship out from Nantucket.

He was obsessed with the story of that rampaging whale Moby Dick,
who proved the downfall of a ship from that same Massachusetts port.

In fact, his only connection to the sea was his old fishing smack,
which famously appeared in an advert for a type of chocolate aimed at vegetarians,
made from herring, called Fisherman’s Fudge.

Then one night, after deciding I couldn’t take any more,
I watched a television comedy show, and thought, ‘This is money for old rope.’

So I went to a show billed as ‘A cornucopia of comedy,’ to get a first-hand taste of what it was all about,
where a female duo, The Funny Girls, recalled their sexual awakening,
teenage fumbling, zips and buttons a-tangled,
in a desperate attempt to ward off the first-date grope.

They were the first course in a menu of entertainment, un-digestible in its banality.
 

Being the only one who didn’t laugh, and a man to boot, they called me a misogynist.

Next up was Liverpudlian Joe the Dribble, whose routine revolved around football.

‘I’ve often wondered,’ I asked him, ‘why don’t teams use a 3, 2, 7, 8 formation,
instead of a 4, 4, 2, 2, 1, one?’

‘That doesn’t add up to 11,’ he looked puzzled, ‘have you ever thought of undergoing therapy?’

‘Yes,’ chimed in the ‘funny’ females, ‘we can recommend a good therapist.’

I headed for the exit, thinking, ‘Surely I can do better than that lot!’

Full of hope, I set out on the comedy circuit, calling myself Dithering Dick,
blissfully unaware of any sexual innuendo.

I died at a variety of venues, from Bradford’s The Bouncing Billycock, it’s Lancashire neighbour Bouncing Benjis,
founded by a professor of English who loved alliteration,
and across the Irish Sea to Hanrahan’s Houli in Dublin, finishing at The Fighting Fowl in Walthamstow.

But fate saved me, in the form of a strong wind, blowing a copy of The Racing Post into my face.
It featured an article about Galloping Gable, a top racehorse suffering from depression.

So sensing a kindred spirit, I put £50 on her, and to my delight she shook off her lethargy.
I celebrated with a good steak, where I was espied by the beautiful Maisy Mingle, an artistic masseur.

‘I often visit restaurants on my own,’ she admitted, ‘but I’m not a modern woman, just choosy.

‘My last partner was a so-called comic, calling himself ‘Joe the Dribble, A Mersey Mirth Maker’.

‘Like most men he’s obsessed with football, and, if you’ll pardon the pun, he talked a lot of ‘balls’,

He was also unfaithful, with not one, but two women, a comedy act called The Funny Girls.

'Come and visit, I have a lovely cottage, where you can read me your poetry.’

Which I did, and even got a laugh, reciting a poem about a policeman losing his truncheon at an orgy.

I would watch her sketch leaping salmon, and one day stopped a runaway horse,
who nearly ended up in the river, earning the thanks of trainer, Tommy the Turf, from county Kildare.

It turned out this was the very animal I’d bet on, who’d won every race from Goodwood to Ascot, but had now emitted a final ‘neigh!’, refusing every attempt to bear a jockey’s bottom.

So maybe it was the horsey equivalent of sporting stress,
which caused the snorting animal to deposit a parting smelly gift,
forcing us to flee, with angry villagers crying, ‘Don’t leave your mess!’ 

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Tommy said, ‘old ‘Rose’ Filling-Flams will pick it up,
indeed, since Gable started running off, his flowers have really started to blossom.

‘He says local dung has really improved thanks to Galloping Gable.’

Following advice from Tommy the Turf, we left for Ireland, where he dressed me as a jockey.

Soon, a horse looking like our troubled equine won the Irish Grand National.
Afterwards, who should I see in the VIP bar, booked as a cabaret act, but Joe the Dribble.

‘I’m nervous,’ he admitted, ‘this lot aren’t my usual audience; they’re a rugby team from Australia.’

But believing everyone loved football, he was booed,
and his manager cancelled a tour of the Southern Hemisphere.

‘Maybe you should undergo therapy,’ I suggested, ‘I know just the woman.’

‘Oh no, not Maisy!’

Fully recovered, he invited his pals, those unfunny girls to the cottage,
who, on seeing me, cried, ‘It's the misogynist.’

To escape, I wandered into the village in time for a poetry evening at The Leaking Bucket,
where I was grabbed by Whaler Will Wilson, who said,
‘You disappeared with that incontinent horse, Galloping Gable.

‘Is she back? Old ‘Rose’ Filling-Flams says he picked up her distinctive dung in the forest – says it was near a hidden stable?

‘It proved remarkably good at growing flowers, and he’s already won a big prize.
 

'Can we have a steady supply, for £20 a spadeful?’

‘Yes, it’s a dung deal, but only if you let me rekindle my career as a poetical performer.’

He laughed, ‘That was funny; by the way, I watched with pleasure your comical demise.

'But I’ll book you for my river trip, on the old fishing smack dressed as a 19th century whaler, sailing up the River Ribble.

‘I can sell my book, Poetic Tales of Chasing Whales, while that Liverpool comic can do a demonstration dribble.

‘Gable can give rides to the children, but at a steady trot, no galloping.’

‘What about the Funny Girls?’

‘Oh, they can pick up the dung, for they don’t half talk crap.

'On second thoughts, bring them along; at my age I could with a bit of sexual awakening.’

So that’s how I resurrected my career as a performing poet, but alas,
Joe the Dribble and his pals the girly duo, offered to join me, and spout their banal drivel.

But Maisy, now my wife, cried ‘No way!’

Our pet horse agreed, crying ‘Neigh!’

So I declined, and now live happily by the River Ribble, writing and performing poetry,
with an artistic wife, and the troubled horse that changed my life, Galloping Gable