In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat of thy bread For here all the days of thy life, And this is thy price when thou hearken instead Now unto the voice of thy wife. And the wheat thou shalt grow and shalt harvest and mill, Where’erso the oak-tree may thrive, Is fruit of the labours of farmers who till To better the grains they shall scythe. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat of thy bread, But sweet grow the grains in their ears – For whilst thou lay pampered, they fattened each head Since thousands and thousands of years.
Language is languid, it’s lazy at heart – Refusing to change and keeping its calm. Sometimes it’s hazy and falling apart, But let’s view its ticks as a charm. Cos under the surface, its footings keep shifting, Its grammar gets shonky, it’s meanings keep drifting, It’s making it up as it any-old wishes – Till some fish are fish, but some fish are fishes.
Beyond the tabs, there lurks this guy Who hangs about in wing and fly, Behind the flat and scaff and track In creeping soles and black-on-black. He waits in darkness for an age To make his entrance on the stage To set the prop and push the truck, But only when the lights have struck. So should you see him here tonight Upon the thrust when all is bright – If left exposed, a frightened stray, Please pity him, and look away.
This looks like it came from a Jeckyll & Hyde graphic novel, but alas I cannot track down which one.
Human Nature of the Beast
We know that it isn’t correct these days To dwell upon appearance. We know we’re supposed to all scorn the gaze Of probing and interference. It’s what’s on the inside that’s worth all the praise, If mutual respect’s to be more than a phase – The package should never set eyeballs ablaze. But have we the perseverance ?
We know this, we know this, we know it’s correct That judgement should always be saved. But on that first sighting, the verdict’s direct – So tell our subconscious it’s badly behaved. But in our defence, well, we must interject That lust is a body that flexes unchecked – So call it perverted, or lewd, or erect, But still it comes grunting when craved.
We know that it isn’t correct at all To dwell upon their beauties, We know we’re supposed to quell the call And concentrate on duties. We know it’s absurd, but the order is tall, And even the gentle and noble‘est fall, And find themselves sweated and slavered of maul At the hint of a glimpse of such cuties.
We know this, we know this, we know to our soul: We’ve all of us bile and phlegm. But don’t be ashamed, they’re a part of the whole, A hangover from our primordial stem. The things that’s important, to keep in our mind Is that any such thoughts must be kept in our mind, And to never be let out to leer or grind – There’s more to our beings than them.
Charlemagne, Charlemagne, where did you go ? Where is your kingdom and afterglow ? Where is the Bede now, or Alfred the Great ? Wherefore the burgeoning Byzantine state ? What of iconoclasts spoiling the feast ? What of the Slavs who are ruling the East ? What of the Vikings’ unstoppable force ? Just when will Lindisfarne fall to the Norse ?
Three hundred years, and none of it happened. Three hundred years, and all lived in one day. All of that history, artwork and trappings Are nothing but forgeries, fooling away. Nothing but myths and mistakes in the dating, With stories conflating, And years gone astray.
Charlemagne, Charlemagne, where is your reign ? Where are the Arabs all storming through Spain ? Where are the monks and the plainchants they sing ? When will they bury the Sutton Hoo king ? Where are the famines and smallpox and worse ? Where is your Beowulf writing his verse ? Where are they building their towers of bells ? Where are they gilding the Vellum of Kells ?
Three hundred years, and none are correct – Just three hundred years in the stroke of a pen. All of that history – tattered and wrecked – It’s either invented or happened elsewhen. Nothing but legends and lack of hard data, To make us all later, millennial men.
But three hundred years… How many lives in those three hundred years ? How many folks with their hopes and their fears ? How many lovers, and soldiers, and seers ? We shouldn’t ignore them, we shouldn’t mistreat them, Or else we’ll be doomed to forever repeat them.
The Phantom Time Hypothesis is a conspiracy theory that purports that the period of history in Europe between HE 10614–10911 did not actually exist.
Complete bollocks, of course. Take away those years and the positions of the planets and the dates of eclipses as recorded in antiquity, and calculated backwards from today, wouldn’t line up. Oh, and the ancient Chinese would have to be in on it as well.
There’s no shame in prose, In stories and sayings, In thoughts and bon-mots, And pledges and prayings. But let’s not pretend They are what they are not: It’s prose that we’ve penned, It ain’t poems one jot ! Be proud of our prose For the prose that it is, Cos ev’ryone knows That good prose can still fizz ! And sure, we know sometimes That prose is poetic, But without the rhymes Then our poems won’t click – And ev’ryone knows When there’s prose at the roots, For poetic prose Is still prose to its boots. A verse without rhyme Is a song without music – But keeps its own time, Which will helps, if we choose it – For a song without music Can still be quite stellar: The beat lets us use it To sing a capella – The song is still driven On metrical feet. But a verse without rhythm’s A song with no beat. Yet a verse without rhythm Can still be good prose, And still can be striven for When we compose. So stop all this posing Of poetic throes – There’s no shame in prosing, So let prose be prose !
Is your backyard unkempt and scarred ? Then call us to the scene ! Is your bare patch not up to scratch ? We’ll turn your brown dirt green. We’ve got the roots and seeds and shoots And foliage to go. We’ve got the blooms and shrubs and ’shrooms To make your garden grow. No need to dig to get ’em big, No need to rake or delve. With zero care, they’re ev’rywhere: These plants just grow themselves ! We’ve dodder vines and thistle spines And stickybuds galore – To justify the docks nearby, We’ve nettles by the score ! What’s cuddlier than buddleia, And dandelion heads, Or hairy sheathes of borage leaves To feather-nest your beds ? Our ivy cloaks, our bindweed chokes, Our narcissus is black. Forget-me-nots won’t be forgot, They’ll keep on coming back. So if your lawn is neat and shorn, Too manicured and styled, Then call the chums with seasick thumbs – We’ll get it running wild ! If all that toil in clay-packed soil Has left you lacking zest, Then let us sow our vibrant show Of nature at her best !
photo by jacey666. Yes, I know it’s actually a jackdaw…
Ravencross
I saw a raven at a crossroads, perched Atop a rustic fingerpost. Now there, I thought, as she crowed and lurched, Is a raven being raven-most. With pretty hamlets beneath her claws And shepherd’s skies behind her jet, She guarded the lanes with portent caws Where the paths of chance and folklore met.
A siren may serenade – softly she sings, A banshee may let-out a climactic wail, An angel may hug with her feathery wings, A mermaid may wrap with her muscular tail, A harpy may shriek with her passionate lungs, A centaur may whinny her amorous cry, A gorgon may kiss with her two-dozen tongues, A faun-maid may stroke with her flocculent thigh.
But humans, ah, humans, the uppermost rungs, The strangest of lovers of all you could try.
Rhyming Couplets 