Category Archives: poetry

Honk

Honk

Oh, when the goose is amorous,
Willing to express his tender romantic inclinations
To Mrs Goose
And love is quite the possibility,
Goose poetry forms in his mind,
And words take on extra meaning
To which he gives voice,
To goose sonnets and goose odes
To explain his heartfelt love.
He takes a deep breath 
And strikes her gentle shoulder
And says
HONK

A storm of words cascades through his brain!
He eulogises the sweetness inherent in Mrs Goose
That she should set afire his soul
With burning lust,
That he should softly purr this tender refrain:
HONK

And Mrs Goose is turned on by his words,
Turned on by the subtlety of his eloquence
And replied with great charm
And a keen eye for erotic repartee
HONK

William Shakesgoose with his feathery quill
Penned odes to love which on the page he did spill
Explaining what it mean to be alive and be free
That even today we should proudly quote he
Standing proud on that Elizabethan stage and proclaiming
HONK

Oscar Wildgoose, with a fey wave of his wing
Could reduce a room to laugher with his legendary wit
For language danced at his beck and call,
Such hilarious put downs and Bonne mots 
For he was often heard to quip:
HONK

Flying to Belgium
The pilot just happened to be a goose
Came over the tannoy to give us
The expected arrival time in Brussels
HONK

A crowd of sexed up male gooses
Gathered outside the vehicle hooter testing facility
They’re getting ever so wound up
By the sky sexuality of the
Noises coming from within.
Oh, baby baby,
Talk dirty to me.
HONK

Goose literature 
Translated for a feathery audience
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
HONK
Les Miserables
HONK
The Canterbury Tales
HONK
Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu 
HONK HONK
(It’s in two volumes)
And perhaps
A haiku
HONK

The man of my dreams, so butch and fit 
With a face like Adonis and the body of a god
Oh, I said to him, sing for me, Stefan,
Give voice to your
Rampant masculinity
And he said
.
.
.
.
HONK

Cowboys on a Tugboat / Little House, live in Torquay, March 2025

Had a great night performing at Be Spoken in Torquay last night. Here are two poems from my set, the audience was a bit sizzled so I had to belt out some old and new bangers!

Daniel Cooper, this is your history – An except from The Neon Yak, by Robert Garnham

Hello, here’s another excerpt from my new novel, which you can purchase here https://www.lulu.com/shop/robert-garnham/the-neon-yak/paperback/product-jewwrd5.html?q=The+neon+yak&page=1&pageSize=4

Writing ‘The Neon Yak’

I first started writing The Neon Yak about three years ago. I was going through some old poems that I had written while staying with my Grandmother in Surrey, she lived in an old two up two down cottage in the woods and there were glimpses of London in the distance, and I realised what a magic place it all was. And then I started to think about all of the emotions a teenager has at the time, and the events which occur which, looking back, seem magical in themselves. Add to these the usual teenage longings, and the inner struggle of accepting my own homosexuality, and the story just seemed to seep into my consciousness.

The Neon Yak is heavily autobiographical, but not totally. Some of the things which happen in the novel actually did happen to me. In fact, I would say that about three quarters of the ‘supernatural’ events in the novel happened. I’m not sure whether they took place in that strange realm of half dream, half awake, or in actuality, but they felt real and they still feel real now.

And what of The Neon Yak itself? This entity is something I created for my 2017 Edinburgh show, In the Glare of the Neon Yak, but it is based on the local legends and folklore which were prevalent in the area where I grew up of Herne the Hunter. If you’ve never heard of Herne, then a Google search will prove enlightening, though there are theories that he was invented by William Shakespeare for The Merry Wives of Windsor. Whatever the origins, Herne the Hunter seemed real for us kids growing up, and any visit to the woods always carried the risk of being confronted by The Hunter.

The novel takes place during the summer between middle school and secondary school, which is always a strange time when you are growing up. For me it was especially auspicious, because it meant commuting to a busy town in the suburbs of west London instead of staying in our cosy little Surrey village surrounded by woods. The secondary school felt like another world and of course, along with it came a growing sense of my own sexuality, and my own denial of that. The events which are laid out during that summer, in actuality, probably occurred over the space of a few years. If you ask me nicely one day, I might tell you which are real and which are works of imagination.

I wrote the first draft of the novel over a frenetic month in 2023, and then spent the next year refining it and editing. I am hugely grateful to Stoat Books for publishing it.

You can order a copy here https://www.lulu.com/shop/robert-garnham/the-neon-yak/paperback/product-2m4jj2e.html?q=The+Neon+Yak&page=1&pageSize=4&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR24JqIowDGJ-t10StfCY8FSIrOKB3Pn7k9momkiK_AYBZBVfAwUS8Icivk_aem_aXHTimgkDLXM2AXc8pzPCA

The Neon Yak

My novel The Neon Yak is published today by Stoat Books. A tale of growing up, coming of age, magic, folklore, the dark woods of Surrey, and a drag queen called Tina Afterburner.

“Have you ever felt like a stranger in your own life? The Neon Yak is a beautifully written and deeply introspective novel that explores the challenges of growing up different. Set in the heart of 1980s suburbia, it follows Daniel Cooper, a boy caught between his true self and the expectations imposed upon him. As he navigates school bullies, family tensions, and the constant backdrop of motorways and distant city lights, Daniel finds refuge in books, music, and his vivid imagination. Amidst his struggle with societal norms and self-discovery, a voice from within—embodied by the captivating and enigmatic Tina—urges him to embrace his authentic identity.”

Here’s an excerpt from the novel, a short chapter entitled ‘One Day I Levitated’.

You can order the book at the moment from Stoat Books’ Lulu site right here: https://www.lulu.com/shop/robert-garnham/the-neon-yak/paperback/product-2m4jj2e.html?q=The+Neon+Yak&page=1&pageSize=4&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR24JqIowDGJ-t10StfCY8FSIrOKB3Pn7k9momkiK_AYBZBVfAwUS8Icivk_aem_aXHTimgkDLXM2AXc8pzPCA