I heard him say the universe Is held within a glass of wine – And yes, it’s true there’s science, Even at the table when we dine – The way the light reflects, refracts – The way the liquid lets it shine – The glass that’s made from sand-made-clear, By how its molecules align – And evolution never sleeps, To accident’ly sculpt the vine. So let me raise a toast to Richard With this universe of mine.
The friendly weeds are rambling over The concrete desert flats. Dandelions, rich as clover, Are cracking through the slats. And people too, with dogs and cats, And lawns and privet hedges, Have made a world for noisy brats To soften brutal edges.
But certain sniffy poets would Look down on all this life, And cannot see the neighbourhood Within the urban strife. And yes, the ugliness is rife Compared to York or Kent, But here a working man and wife Can still afford the rent.
My mind I leave to science, to probe and to dissect, To extract and to magnify each secret and regret. To show up my ideas that I never got to note, Or poems I was writing but I somehow never wrote, Or stories for the telling that I never passed along, Or maybe sweetest music for my never sung-out song. Work swift with my ditherings, these children may yet make An epitaph of dreams to be awoken at my wake.
I saw an organ grinder and his capuchin the other day – He made an awful racket, and the monkey didn’t want to play, And no surprise !, the poor bedraggled creature looked a broken thing, Half-starved and half-exhausted, on a short and fraying string. The organist was little better – no musician with a skill – He simply turned the handle to produce the loud and flat and shrill.
I ought to add, this wasn’t in a smart and swanky part of town, Because the rich have constables to move them on and shut them down. Instead, they haunt the humble in the poorest, foulest thoroughfare, In begging half a penny from the folks who haven’t one to spare. But still I stopped, and watched that doleful monkey, as his master hawked, And wondered what he might have dreamt of, if he only could have talked…
“I’d rather be a monkey than an organ grinder, any day – We monkeys gets to leap and dance, and gen’rally to have our way, And sport a hand-made uniform, and all the grapes that we can eat, And always play to cheering crowds from Berkeley Square to Gower Street. And yet the world is quick to view me as a lackey or buffoon – But grinders only get to grind, and grind, and grind all afternoon.”
I saw an organ grinder and his capuchin the other day – And shared a knowing look, we three, of how they’d soon be swept away.
I love to hear the raindrops from the dry-side of the window, As they pitter-patter on the misty glass, kept well at bay – The panes become my armour from the showers and the wind, So I can watch the running rivulets, a quarter-inch away.
I’m far too much busy just watching these wonderful creatures To care for your grammar. They’re so like the ferrets and martens in habit and features – They drown out your clamour. They aren’t, though, that closely related (they’re closer to panthers), They just look the same – For evolution converges on similar answers, And so does their name.
Once there was a time when a man was his surname – The only name they ever used at school, or in the Guards. A gentleman at club would be hailed as little better Than the sappers in the trenches or the inmates in the yards. Forenames were for sissies and for ladies – or your relatives, And only then because they else would all be called the same. Soon as breeched and blazered, they were down to the initial – All that mattered was the fam’ly silver and the fam’ly name, But one or two more wily gents had first-names not to be ignored – Jerome K Jerome and Ford Madox Ford…
This poem is dedicated to William Carlos Williams.
Rhyming Couplets 