How far into the Autumn dare we edge Without a proper coat ? Using jackets and jumpers as a bridge To keep our hopes afloat – Pretending the Summer is lurking still Whenever the morning’s bright, But getting caught by an unexpected chill That serves us right. And yet, if we just keep moving about On the sunny side of the street, It’s almost warm enough for going out In the dying heat. So please, just one more week before we don Our bulky Winter coats, When the pre-frost tingle says that the Summer’s gone, And the tardy North Wind gloats.
I would build a monument within Saint Peter’s, Rome – A monument to martyrs who preached heresy. Who stood by their convictions when tortured and alone On principals of science and philosophy. I would build a monument to passions unafraid When Quisitors would dowse the light they shined. Their sacrifice was equal to that which Jesus made – They gave their lives to save all humankind.
Bringing Juvelilia Week Part 2 to a close (there will be no Part 3, thankfully) is a poem inspired by Giordano Bruno, a fore-runner to Galileo and proponent of Copernican theory – who was tried, tortured and burned by the Flat-Earthers in the Catholic Church.
Apologists claim that his crime was heresy, not sol-centrism, and as late as 2000 (According to Wikipedia) Cardinal Angelo Sodano said of his inquisitors that they “had the desire to serve freedom and promote the common good and did everything possible to save his life” – well, everything short of not actually burning him at the stake, anyway. And Pope John-Paul the Second lamented “the use of violence that some have committed in the service of truth”, so that’s all right then, no harm no foul.
Incidentally, the statue above (on the very spot of his pyre) by Ettore Ferrari is from 1889and paid for by the local Freemasons as a deliberate middle finger to the then-Pope, who I won’t bother to name. (Wow, who’d’a’thunk I’d ever have anything positive to say about Freemasons ?) Its plaque contains the words Il Secolo Da Lui Divinato (From The Age That He Predicted), which is a line that any poet would be proud of, though I don’t know why it also labels our Giordano as ‘A Bruno’ – surely he was The Bruno…
Poor little child, for now comes the naming, The blanding and saming, The cautious conforming, The def’nitely not standing out from the norming. But, loving parents, just look to your child, For whatever’s chosen is hereafter filed – For eighteen years onwards they cannot correct, So only with courage and passion select.
For do we so need yet another Amanda ? Or Johnny or Sandra ? Or Alan or Gary ? And are we deficient in Tom, Dick or Harry ? So please do not foist them with Julie or Sam, Nor Timmy, nor Mary, nor Philip, nor Pam. For Cathy and Bill are as common as Claire While Helens and Davids are found everywhere.
Now these names aren’t bad, they are just overused, Their power diffused. While others, no fairer, Must serve in a purpose beyond their poor barer – To label a kid with your own precious name Is vanity foremost, to make them the same, To moniker sprogs just to honour the dead Is dubious burden to thrust in their head.
Yet some names stand out from the Susan and Ron – Like Homer or Marlon, Like Kingsley or Rudyard, Like Heathcliff, or Linford, or else Isambard. So Brooke and Keanu and Kelsey and Storm Can ease off some pressure from Amy and Norm. Give each of us fewer with whom we need share – A little less common, a little more rare.
One of my first attempts to document my fascination with names, and also an early foray into my habit of versifyig a checklist. I note that all of the examples in the final stanza call to mind a particular individual, which I’m sure I intended, but which I now think would be just as unfortunate on the poor kids as calling them Alfie or Sophie.
Bronze effigy of Edward the 3rd in Westminster Abbey
To the Future
My world was taught in your history class, In half a chapter your teacher rushed through. Somewhen between a turning point And some other event which we never knew. My world just probably made you bored, Learning the dates of a notable few – But not of my name – I never was found In the textbooks on which you scribbled and drew.
Maybe then I was nobody special, Somebody whom you can safely ignore. Never improved a million lives – Never brought hatred, hunger and war. Maybe then I was nobody special, Maybe achieved next to nothing at all. But still I meant to a couple of dozen, And for those the closest, an awful lot more.
You may then think that I was unknown, Unrecorded in sadness and mirth. Save for the parish’s register-book Where my name’s still getting its three-entries’ worth. Maybe you gotten my census or tax, My causes of death and my weighting at birth. But never be thinking that this is my lot, All that I left from my time on this earth.
Never you think then that I didn’t count Just cos you think I could never succeed. Just cos you laugh at my primitive ways, Never forget that we nobodies breed. And if then I played in no big starring part, But still my existence you so many need – For there are yet hundreds, or thousand by now In whose chain-genetics I mean much indeed.
It is claimed that anyone living in Britain today and whose family have been living here for several generations will lmost certainly be a direct descendent of King Edward the Third, who died in 1377. Of course, if I’m, say, 24 generations down the line, that means I have over 830,000 great*21 grandparents, though quite a few of those will be dupliates. Not that the poems about him, of course.
Ah, those aristos, who never worked a day, Just sit back and wait for Papa to pass away. While armies of servants and hard-working-clarsses Would feed their fat faces and wipe their fat arses, And loans would be brokered to fund wars of nations, While riches would pour in from ex-slave plantations.
Ah, those aristos, who feasted on our sweat, Those patrons of the arts, that lavish social set – With artists and craftsmen and tailors and tours, And houses and horses and operas and balls. They almost were worth it, their style could defend it – They didn’t deserve it, but knew how to spend it.
Usually I resist any attempt to rhyme ‘class’ with ‘arse’, but this poem was written in with a definite accent in ear. ‘Papa’ of course should be pronounced with its stress on the second syllable. This is an early poem, but I’ve started to preach a little less and let a little satire slip in. The title incidentally comes from a line in Alan Bennett’s The Madness of George the Third.
I could lie here for hours, Lie in tranquillity, Keep all your showers and saunas from me. There’s only one way for seeping out grime, I just need a tub and a loofah – and time. Secluded, alone, with my own private lake, I soak in the warmth as I soak out the ache, I massage my fingers through lathering cream, And I breathe in the salts with the tickle’ing steam. And eyes closed, transposed, I lie, And nothing will matter until I’m dry. I let wash away all the pressure and bile. So go on without me, at least for a while.
I always imagine a bath is the perfect place to mine inspiration, but I think the brevity of this poem shows how little I find. I’m more likely to turn up forty winks – and nothing wrong with that.
They are the graves and the stats and the mothers And citizens living where forces are tasked – Who, we are told, so willingly suffer, And cheer on our conflict (though never get asked). Yet those who are calling for vengeance and blood – Beseeching the need for the selflessly lying Of lives-on-the-line so to hold back the flood – They’re never the ones who always end dying.
They are the facts and the doubts and worries, The objective news and the cooler-held heads – It feels like they’re all swept away in the hurry, To rumour and jingo and front-page spreads. Yet those who are calling for boots on the ground – They’re des’prate for war, just to send the bombs flying – But we can ignore them, and talk ourselves down, And all be the ones who never end dying.
I think it was written at the time of the Iraq war, and has aged as badly as the decision to fight. This now sounds very preachy – it’s still a trap I fall into when I’m angry and it rarely works. At least yhe second verse attempts to give it a bit of optomism.
Enjambment – it’s a nasty little habit That’s likely to derail the locomotion of your meter – For lines that run-away are sure to rabbit, So prose may ride expresses, but the slow train sounds the sweeter.
Yet another poem about poetry, but at least it’s short. I’ve always been puzzled by where modern poets choose to break their lines, particularly as when they read it out, there’s often no pause whatsoever between the lines. The verb ‘to rabbit’ is used here in its cockney sense meaning to chatter – nothing to do with running, except the mouth.
Reverend, Reverend, writer of the tales: Murder, guilt and passionlust, herringful and slick. Popular and idolised, blessèd are your sales, Though the critics pan you off as “slight” and “formulaic”.
Reverend, Reverend, writes another tale: Murder, guilt and passionlust, once more with a twist – The victim here is Jesus Christ, crucified, impaled. Yet we know the killer has to be the one who kissed.
That’s okay, the Reverend is not asking whodunnit, He tells it straight and poignant – for kudos, not for wealth. Yet at the Ascension, so a final twist is sprung: It turns out in Heaven waits old Lucifer himself.
“Just how can a Christian priest write of such a blasphemy ?” Ask his readers and his bishop, still not comprehending. “All because I do believe the Lord will yet forgive me, (And I’d surely sell my soul for fiendish-good twist ending.)”
I feel the joke in this one is rather laboured, as are some of the rhymes. Incidentally, the Bible contains one of the first locked-room mysteries in literature in the Book of Daniel (or at least in the versions that allow house-room for the apocryphal additions such as Bel & The Dragon). And if you’re interested, the most common fish in the Sea of Galilee was the tilapia.
Following on from the recently underwhelming week of early tat, and because I want to reach my third birthday next May before the barrel is dry and the cupboard is scraped, I’m once again fishing around in the week-old bag of lettuce leaves for the ones that not quite too-far gone – believe me, there are others in there which are nothing but liquid sludge.
These ones are just about presentable, especially after a few nips and tucks with the blue pencil.
Rhyming Couplets 