Your Smile for Today ~

The centipede was happy quite
She dreamed of dancing through the night.
With, fleet of feet and fair of hair,
A many-legged Fred Astaire.

Herb Martindale's "literary fun" included people, places, politics ~ nothing or no one escaped his humour.

The minister lost his spare tire ~
Imagine his anguish and ire.
A ruddy great crow
Picked it up, flying low,
And they found it next day on the spire.

And then there is this one: (Anyone frequenting Herb's bookshop showed up in his verse.)

TO LORNA
Her hips and bust are thirty-five
And everything is so ALIVE.
A work of art to ponder on
And all this stuff belongs to John.

(This ancient verse was found recently by an antique dealer in Devonshire, hand-written on a scrap of faded, lined paper, in the centre drawer of an old bureau which once belonged to the Ridd family.)

Herb -- it must be noted -- collected copies of the old R.D.Blackmore classic, Lorna Doone, 1869.

Our Horses Get to Vote at All Our Meetings, Good Clean Literary fun in Verse and Prose, Herb Martindale, 1992. First owner of The Neat Little Bookshop.