Why? - Spike Milligan

American Detectives
Never remove their hats
When investigating murders
In other people's flats.

P.S. Chinese Tecs
Are far more dreaded!
And they always appear
Bare-headed!

Spike Milligan

When I Suspected - Spike Milligan

There will be a time when it will end.
Be it parting
Be it death
So each passing minute with you
Pendulummed with sadness.
So many times
I looked long into your face.
I could hear the clock ticking.

Spike Milligan

Welcome Home - Spike Milligan

Unaware of my crime
they stood me in the dock.

I was sentenced to life....
without her.

Strange trial.
No judge.
No jury.

I wonder who my visitors will be.

Spike Milligan

Values '67 - Spike Milligan

Pass by citizen
don't look left or right
Keep those drip dry eyes straight ahead
A tree? Chop it down- it's a danger
to lightning!
Pansies calling for water,
Let 'em die- queer bastards-
Seek comfort in the scarlet, labour
saving plastic rose
Fresh with the frangrance of Daz!
Sunday! Pray citizen;
Pray no rain will fall
On your newly polished
Four wheeled
God

Envoi

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Get it out with Optrex

Spike Milligan

Unto Us - Spike Milligan

Somewhere at some time
They committed themselves to me
And so, I was!
Small, but I WAS!
Tiny, in shape
Lusting to live
I hung in my pulsing cave.
Soon they knew of me
My mother --my father.
I had no say in my being
I lived on trust
And love
Tho' I couldn't think
Each part of me was saying
A silent 'Wait for me
I will bring you love!'
I was taken
Blind, naked, defenseless
By the hand of one
Whose good name
Was graven on a brass plate
in Wimpole Street,
and dropped on the sterile floor
of a foot operated plastic waste
bucket.
There was no Queens Counsel
To take my brief.
The cot I might have warmed
Stood in Harrod's shop window.
When my passing was told
My father smiled.
No grief filled my empty space.
My death was celebrated
With tickets to see Danny la Rue
Who was pretending to be a woman
Like my mother was.

Spike Milligan

Two Children - Spike Milligan

Two children (small), one Four, one Five,
Once saw a bee go in a hive,
They'd never seen a bee before!
So waited there to see some more.
And sure enough along they came
A dozen bees (and all the same!)
Within the hive they buzzed about;
Then, one by one, they all flew out.
Said Four: 'Those bees are silly things,
But how I wish I had their wings!'

Spike Milligan

There Are Holes In The Sky - Spike Milligan

There are holes in the sky
Where the rain gets in
But there ever so small
That's why the rain is thin.

Spike Milligan

The Soldiers at Lauro - Spike Milligan

Young are our dead
Like babies they lie
The wombs they blest once
Not healed dry
And yet - too soon
Into each space
A cold earth falls
On colder face.
Quite still they lie
These fresh-cut reeds
Clutched in earth
Like winter seeds
But they will not bloom
When called by spring
To burst with leaf
And blossoming
They sleep on
In silent dust
As crosses rot
And helmets rust.

Spike Milligan

The Lion - Spike Milligan

If you're attacked by a Lion
Find fresh underpants to try on
Lay on the ground quite still
Pretend you are very ill
Keep like that day after day
Perhaps the lion will go away

Spike Milligan

The Dog Lovers - Spike Milligan

So they bought you
And kept you in a
Very good home
Cental heating
TV
A deep freeze
A very good home-
No one to take you
For that lovely long run-
But otherwise
'A very good home'
They fed you Pal and Chun
But not that lovely long run,
Until, mad with energy and boredom
You escaped- and ran and ran and ran
Under a car.
Today they will cry for you-
Tomorrow they will but another dog.

Spike Milligan

The ABC - Spike Milligan

'Twas midnight in the schoolroom
And every desk was shut
When suddenly from the alphabet
Was heard a loud "Tut-Tut!"

Said A to B, "I don't like C;
His manners are a lack.
For all I ever see of C
Is a semi-circular back!"

"I disagree," said D to B,
"I've never found C so.
From where I stand he seems to be
An uncompleted O."

C was vexed, "I'm much perplexed,
You criticise my shape.
I'm made like that, to help spell Cat
And Cow and Cool and Cape."

"He's right" said E; said F, "Whoopee!"
Said G, "'Ip, 'Ip, 'ooray!"
"You're dropping me," roared H to G.
"Don't do it please I pray."

"Out of my way," LL said to K.
"I'll make poor I look ILL."
To stop this stunt J stood in front,
And presto! ILL was JILL.

"U know," said V, "that W
Is twice the age of me.
For as a Roman V is five
I'm half as young as he."

X and Y yawned sleepily,
"Look at the time!" they said.
"Let's all get off to beddy byes."
They did, then "Z-z-z."

Spike Milligan

Teeth - Spike Milligan

English Teeth, English Teeth!
Shining in the sun
A part of British heritage
Aye, each and every one.
English Teeth, Happy Teeth!
Always having fun
Clamping down on bits of fish
And sausages half done.
English Teeth! HEROES' Teeth!
Hear them click! and clack!
Let's sing a song of praise to them -
Three Cheers for the Brown Grey and Black.

Spike Milligan

Summer Dawn - Spike Milligan

My sleeping children are still flying dreams
in their goose-down heads.
The lush of the river singing morning songs
Fish watch their ceilings turn sun-white.
The grey-green pike lances upstream
Kale, like mermaid's hair
points the water's drift.
All is morning hush
and bird beautiful.

I only,
I didn't have flu.

Spike Milligan

Standing Room Only - Spike Milligan

This population explosion
Said Peter to St. Paul
Is really getting far too much
Just look at the crowd in the hall.
Even here, in Heaven
There isn't any room
I think the world could do with less
Much less fruit in the womb.
Thus Heaven is overcrowded
The numbers are starting to tell
So when the next lot knock at the gates
Tell 'em to 'Go to Hell'.

Spike Milligan

Soldier Freddy - Spike Milligan

Soldier Freddy
was never ready,
But! Soldier Neddy,
unlike Freddy
Was always ready
and steady,

That's why,
When Soldier Neddy
Is-outside-Buckingham-Palace-on-guard-in-the-pouring-wind-and-rain-being-steady-and-ready,
Freddy
is home in beddy.

Spike Milligan

So Fair is She - Spike Milligan

So fair is she!
So fair her face
So fair her pulsing figure

Not so fair
The maniacal stare
Of a husband who's much bigger.

Spike Milligan

Scorflufus - Spike Milligan

There are many diseases,
That strike people's kneeses,
Scorflufus! is one by name
It comes from the East
Packed in bladders of yeast
So the Chinese must take half the blame.

There's a case in the files
Of Sir Barrington-Pyles
While hunting a fox one day
Shot up in the air
And remained hanging there!
While the hairs on his socks turned grey!

Aye!Scorflufus had struck!
At man, beast, and duck.
And the knees of the world went Bong!
Some knees went Ping!
Other knees turned to string
From Balham to old Hong Kong.

Should you hold your life dear,
Then the remedy's clear,
If you're offered some yeast - don't eat it!
Turn the offer down flat-
Don your travelling hat-
Put an egg in your boot - and beat it!

Spike Milligan

Porridge - Spike Milligan

Why is there no monument
To Porridge in our land?
It it's good enough to eat,
It's good enough to stand!

On a plinth in London
A statue we should see
Of Porridge made in Scotland
Signed, "Oatmeal, O.B.E."
(By a young dog of three)

Spike Milligan

Philip Le Barr - Spike Milligan

Philip Le Barr,
Was knock down by a car,
On the road to Mandalay.
He was knocked down again
By a dust cart in Spain
And again in Zanzibar.
So,
He travled at night
In the pale moon light
Away from the traffic growl
But terrible luck
He was hit by a duck
Driven by an owl.

Spike Milligan

Orstralia - Spike Milligan

Orstralia – Orstralia
We think of you each day
Orstralia – Orstralia
At work or at play.
We think of yew in the morning
And in the evening too
We even wake up at mid-night
So that we can think of you.
Orstralia – Orstralia
We love you from the heart
The kidney, the Liver and the giblets,
And every other part.

Spike Milligan

Oojah-ka-Piv - Spike Milligan

The people who live
On the Oojah-ka-Piv
Stand around in bundles of nine

When asked how it feels
They reply 'Curried Eels'!
Otherwise - everything's going fine!

Spike Milligan

On the Ning Nang Nong - Spike Milligan

On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!

Spike Milligan

Omen Of Emptiness - Spike Milligan

The clock has turned enough
to reach a planet
Life is endless night
I hear wings beating in
the dark of my room
A giant Raven is waiting –


for me to fall asleep.

Spike Milligan

My Sister Laura - Spike Milligan

My sister Laura's bigger than me
And lifts me up quite easily.
I can't lift her, I've tried and tried;
She must have something heavy inside.

Spike Milligan

Mirror, Mirror - Spike Milligan

A young spring-tender girl
combed her joyous hair
'You are very ugly' said the mirror.
But,
on her lips hung
a smile of dove-secret loveliness,
for only that morning had not
the blind boy said,
'You are beautiful'?

Spike Milligan

Me - Spike Milligan

Born screaming small into this world-
Living I am.
Occupational therapy twixt birth and death-
What was I before?
What will I be next?
What am I now?
Cruel answer carried in the jesting mind
of a careless God
I will not bend and grovel
When I die. If He says my sins are myriad
I will ask why He made me so imperfect
And he will say 'My chisels were blunt'
I will say 'Then why did you make so
many of me'.

Spike Milligan