The Poetry of Gazebos 

Writing endless blogs about metal garden furniture can be trying.  It’s not often that you find something truly original to say, so I hope you’ll all appreciate this rare find!

Yesterday, after a hard day in the office, flogging aluminium garden furniture, I turned my hand to my other life, namely as the parent of a small boy.  Once I’d tracked down the homework (he, of course, had denied all knowledge of it) and discovered that he’d been tasked with finding a suitable poem (not rude or silly!) for a verse speaking competition, it was straight to the bookshelves for some inspiration.  Imagine my surprise, dear reader, when I came across this poem, republished in The Quentin Blake Book of Nonsense Verse. 

Gazebos by Roger McGough

What I find wanting in gazebos

Is their herd instinct.

They either pose woodenly in clearings

Way off the beaten track

Or give us come hither looks

From across a grey smudge of lake.

And always alone.  Aloof.

They can’t even lay claim

To a collective noun.  A posse?

A cluster? A conglomerate?

How they ever manage to reproduce

Is anybody’s guess.

Now all I need is to stumble across an ode to a patio chair or a sonnet for a sun bed.  Any budding poets out there?

Taken from The Quentin Blake Book of Nonsense Verse, published by Viking.