Author: Toastingfork

Not afraid to rhyme.

Oh, this again…

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block
Writer’s Block by B. St Marie Nelson

Oh, this again…

So,
Once again
Do I find I have nothing,
Not one-thing worth saying,
Just faffing and milling.
And so,
Once again
I must stretch out my nothing,
My say-nothing saying,
In space that needs filling…
I’ve been here before,
And I’ll be here again,
And again,
And again,
And again evermore.
And each time is longer,
And each time is worse –
So churn out a poem on lacking the verse.
The song is the same,
And, well,
So is the tune –
And my thoughts are a hiss
And my spirit is flat.
Hey ho,
Looks like it’s a long afternoon
Like the time before this,
And the time before that.
I’ve said all I said,
And I’ve said it before,
And my muse is still dead
And my think-nothing head is a victim of war.
Ho hum,
It happens,
We blow through our haul,
Then find we’ve got nothing
Where once we were tall.
Ah well,
It happens,
Our thoughts hit a wall:
From red meat to salad,
From flying to fall.
So,
What can I say,
Okay,
What can I say
When you come round to call ?
Shall I read you the ballad of sweet Fanny Adams,
Or sing you the song of sod all ?

Armchair Philosophy

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chair
An Old Man in an Armchair by Rembrandt

Armchair Philosophy

My thoughts on love and politics
Have authored pamphlets by the score –
I’ve told them twice and thrice and six,
Since days of teenage yore.
I’ve made my case and made it strong,
I’ve preached and pleaded with the throng,
From Tory-shires to Bolsheviks
I’ve met them all and all before.

I’ve set the world to rights so long,
And still the world continues wrong –
There’s no point labouring a fix
We both know you’ll ignore.
It’s time to sing a diff’rent song,
It’s time to bang a diff’rent gong –
Or else I’m dreaming just for kicks,
And dreaming should be something more…

Sun-&-Planet Gears

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telescope

Sun-&-Planet Gears

Take a reflecting telescope
And point it anywhere up in the sky
And what do you see with your all-seeing eye ?
Cogs and drums and springs and rope,
And the ticking of ellipsoid gears,
By distance squared, by lighted years.

But can you find between the lights
The constant-heavens’ clockwork soul
That’s somewhere in the blackest hole ?
We all are squinting through the sights –
From omega to omicron,
We seek the great automaton.

Alas, as mirrors have got clearer,
So the wheels we saw have blurred
As though the constant tick has slurred.
And just as we were getting nearer,
We misplaced our guiding stars
Amongst the lost canals of Mars.

Welcome Proxima Bee

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proxima b
Proxima Centauri b by Ricardo Ramirez & James Jenkins

Welcome Proxima Bee

I heard you’d moved into the neighbourhood –
So welcome to the Spiral Arm !
The stars are getting occupied – that’s good.
It stops the gas clouds doing harm.
We’re pretty much a quiet street
Without a noisy supernova –
Just a place for middle-stars to shine.
And if your life-forms get beneath your feet,
Then send them over –
I’m sure they’d simply love to meet with mine !

Have you any moons about the place,
To give a sense of scale ?
I’ve just the one, but that’s alright.
The darkside lacks a little grace,
The seas are rather pale –
But hey, it still looks heavenly at night.
So call me on the long-wave radio,
I’m always in.
I hope that ours is not too loud,
We tend to make a din.
And you are such a quiet thing,
I’d barely know you’re there at all,
So close and yet so small…

So welcome to the Local Zone,
The garden of the Milky Way –
Welcome home, and long to stay !
So glad to find a fellow stone
With whom to play, a friendly face –
It’s good to know I’m not alone
In all this empty space.

Proxima Bee is very-likely tidally locked, which I’ve explored some more elsewhere.  It’s also usually written with a lower case b, to show it’s a planet and not a companion star.  I have considered this convention and rejected it.

Fractured Metre

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Evgeny Chirikov by Ivan Kulikov

Fractured Metre

There comes a time in ev’ry poet’s jotter-book,
A time when odes and ballads must be set aside,
Where clever wordplay fails to catch the sombre mood,
And pleasing couplets suffer from a glut of rhyme.
And so the chastened poet takes a modern look,
Discarding all the baggage that had been their guide –
All that regularity – predictable and crude –
And even rhythms jangle with their tyranny of time.
That stuff works for jokey stuff
For dum-de-dum and call-my-bluff
But how can Terror, how can Truth
Be captured in the games of youth ?

And so there comes a time when ev’ry poet
Makes the same mistake they always make –
They try to turn their free-verse loose, because
They think that’s how such verse must be –
Instead, they force unforcèd-ness, and blow it !
Instead, their archful art is bland and fake.
And finally, they see what skilful rhyming does:
It emphasises by its very unreality.
The Light Brigade, Decorum est,
They fuck you up, Before I rest –
A decent couplet tells us what
A thousand noble words cannot.

Two Minutes Silence

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business businessmen classroom communication
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Two Minutes Silence

Ordered by social convention into inaction,
I sit at my desk and abstain –
I keep my head down and stare at my pen till I hear
The murmur of morning again.
Like most, I start on my shutdown at ten-fifty-eight,
And end at eleven-oh-four,
To cover the randomly-synchronised watches of colleagues –
And never mind minding the store.

Across the room, someone is typing.  (Is that still allowed ?)
Their rat-a-tat keystokes clatter.
A phone rings out the alarm, which nobody answers,
Till voicemail settles the matter.
I ought to be thinking, I know, of tommies and trenches,
Of birdsong, bombardements and screams –
Instead, I just notice this shuffle’ing silence-by-rote –
My thoughts are deserters, it seems.

Sunflower Saviour

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person holding van gogh book beside sunflowers
Photo by wendel moretti on Pexels.com

Sunflower Saviour

(in reply to Don McLean’s Vincent)

Dear Don,

You often speak of they and them,
So, so shall I.
You see, I’m firmly one of them
Whom you decry as sheep or swine
Who are too careless with their gaze.
But Don, I also use that phrase,
I also have my thems and theys –
And you are one of mine.

For you, like they, have ordered me
To venerate your saints:
Picasso, Rothko, and Matisse –
Apostles in their paints.
Never must my adulation cease
Upon your feted clutch –
But who’s the Zeus of all these gods ?
Of course, your martyred Dutch !

I know, I know, it’s treason,
But I still think that depression,
Though it’s pretty good a-reason
Is a really bad excuse
For his whingey self-obsession,
And his self-harming abuse,
And for his total lack of wit,
And being such an all-round shit.

But what’s the use ?  You won’t agree.
And truth to tell, that was obtuse of me –
Both me and him are far more complicated
Than we either you or I have stated.
And anyway, let’s judge the work and not the man –
Who cares if he’s a relic or a brash young Turk ?
Except you’re doing all you can
To make the man the work.

So here I stand – a heretic –
A unbowed Philistine and hick.
For Don, though I can listen fine,
I’ll never like the tune he played.
Ironic’ly, I quite like yours –
A modern hymn to hector and persuade.
I guess that Vincent makes you happy,
And for that, I’m happy too.
Just never try to set me free.

With love, from one of them, to you.

The Barons of the Jungle

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black cat walking on road
Photo by David Bartus on Pexels.com

The Barons of the Jungle

When humans send themselves extinct, then who will take their place ?
The chimpanzees ?  Or have they missed their chance at master-race ?
Parrots, crows, or even pigeons ?  But they lack the hands to build –
Dolphins hunter-gather while the oyster-beds remain untilled,
Yet octopuses have the arms, and boy, are those arms skilled !
But life for them is short and done – they’ll never make it number one.

But cats have cunning, cunning paws,
And curiosity to dare –
And even if the reaper calls,
Then cats have lives to spare.
So some are fat and some are cool,
And all, at night, are grey –
They walk this world, yet never rule,
And leave the mice to play.

Now mice and rats are shrewd, for sure, but hygiene lets them down:
Too many fleas, too many plagues, to ever wear the crown.
An elephant remembers, but they sometimes are mistaken,
While bears will sleep their lives away and never reawaken,
And pigs are pretty clever, though they still end up as bacon,
And bees will sting to save their hives, yet never learn it costs their lives.

But cats can look upon a king –
So could they wear the boots and chain ?
Alas, though ev’ry bell should ring,
They’ll never turn again.
It takes a team to build a throne,
Yet cats won’t pull together –
The cat who always walks alone
Must walk alone forever.

Unamused

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muses
Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo by Richard Samuel

Unamused

I used to walk with Grecians ev’ry day:
Callíope would whisper in my eager ear
Of battles fought for kingdoms won for heroes slain,
While Clío often passed my way
With tales of nations ancient, far and near,
And Thália could make me laugh a hurricane.

Melpómene just loved a fallen king,
While Érato was swooning over some romance,
As pious Pólyhýmnia was lilting psalms.
Eutérpe, now: that girl just loved to sing !,
Which always caused Terpsíchore to up-and-dance
While even swot Uránia had starry charms.

I used to dream with Grecians ev’ry night.
And thanks to them, I wrote as fast as ink would run
My songs and tales and poems, all my brain could hold.
And all of it was doggerel and trite !
For all of my ideas, there was not a-one
That captured even half an ounce of what they sold.

I’m better now – a lifetime lived and well,
Of sights and thoughts and loves and wisdoms heard,
Has brought me to the seasoned man I am today
But I am now, alas, beyond their spell –
For all of my ability to turn a word,
I cannot think of anything I need to say…

The names are given in their Greek form, which is slightly different from the Latin alternative we may be more familiar with, hence the accents to spring the correct syllables.

Unsung

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king cole
King of Spades by Tony Meeuwissen

Unsung

To those of us who cannot sing,
The songs will always taunt.
To those of us without the swing,
Who haven’t got a note to bring –
The muted melodies still haunt
Each dried-up vocal spring.
To those of us who cannot sing,
The songs will always taunt.

Making music – that’s the thing !
A flourish and a flaunt.
But we who cannot even wring
A reedy rasp or piping ping
Are ever banished from their jaunt,
With not a hook to sling.
To those of us who cannot sing,
The songs will always taunt.

Fiddlers three may please the king,
Or even John of Gaunt –
For who can let the doldrums cling
When songs are rousing on the wing ?
They chirp away so nonchalant,
Unknowing how they sting.
To those of us who cannot sing,
The songs will always taunt.