The Gods of Melodrama
I swore I’d never once again be fool
For the lies of actors.
To open up like that, it’s all too cruel,
To be only actors.
But when they looked at me with such a look,
Like we’re likeminded –
And yet the stalls were dark, and I mistook,
We both were blinded.
And yes, I know, I know, I’ve always known,
Yet fooled I always am –
They make me feel and feel in ways
Alone in life I never can.
Parable of Architecture
Imagine that you’re sat at home,
Lis’ning to some Bach, let’s say –
When thudding through the party wall
Comes Iron Maiden, ev’ry day.
Now perhaps you rather like
To mosh from time to time –
But not at home – for home is Bach:
Subtle, delicate, sublime.
You’re not a snob, there’s room for both,
Though Eddie’s really out of place
At festivals of lilting strings –
They ain’t the stage to show his face.
And Glastonbury’s Pyramid
Is likewise not the perfect gig
For chamber-orchestra-quartets
To strut their stuff and make it big.
But ah, you say,
There’s shuffle-play:
A random stream shall come our way.
But if you try another’s Pod,
I bet you find their choices odd.
But now imagine, ev’ry day,
Their music blares until it bleeds –
They always crank it to eleven,
Cos that’s what our music needs.
And all your pastiche must be crushed,
For that is old and we are New –
We are the only tune allowed,
Cos all your heathen hymns are through.
But long before they moved next door
There used to live the sweetest song –
It’s gone forever, now, that air –
Alas, the future came along.
They took the song and stripped it bare,
Then slowed it down into the grave –
They tore its notes out, cleared its score,
To build their tune upon its stave.
But ah, you say,
That’s what we pay
To progress through to come-what may.
But I say we can play them both
If we just learn some civil growth.
Your False True-Colours
America, no ! You’re doing it wrong !
It’s red on the left, and blue on the right.
The rest of the planet can all get along,
But you Yanks as usual are picking a fight.
For red are the hands that must labour and toil,
And blue is the blood that possesses the soil.
It hardly takes NYPD or the Feds
To spy just how blurred is the choice of your hues –
With red-meat Republicans labelled as Reds,
And New England Democrats down with the Blues.
But red is for passion, and rage, and hard knocks,
And blue is for loyalty, culture and stocks.
America, no ! What you practice today,
We follow tomorrow – and follow you blind –
Our system for centuries soon shall decay
As crimson and cobalt get quite misaligned –
Then blue are the collars that lefties much cite,
And red are the necks of the folks on the right.
I debated whether I should leave out the superfluous ‘u’ in colour in the title, but I just couldn’t let logic overcome my desperate need for identity.
Mortal Remains
These tombstones are listed, these crypts are protected,
Preserving the love and the pride that erected
These grand mausoleums and gravesides historic,
Their statements and passions to questions rhetoric.
Yet time shall erode with its rain and its frost,
Till their dates are obscured and their epitaphs lost.
It weathers their angels and softens their urns,
As lichens enshroud and subsidence upturns,
And insects will burrow in mortar and crack,
And ivy will clamber and marble turn black.
Yet do not repair them, their tarnish amassing –
Such monuments solemn are records of passing.
Anatamour
I love the way your halves combine.
I love the way you place each lung
With careless grace and good design
On either side your centre line,
And equidistant from your spine.
I love the way your ribs are strung.
I love the way your shoulders fit,
I love the way your arms construe.
I love the way your kidneys sit,
So each, the other mirrors it
To keep the couple quite legit.
I love the way your hips are two.
I love the way you wear your legs,
So nicely paired, and just enough –
For with a third, the question begs
Of where upon your frame it pegs.
I love the way you keep to regs.
I love the way you’re up to snuff.
I love your face with eye and eye,
I love the way they both are blue.
I love the way they flit and fly
In unison, to watch me pry
Upon thy tygrish symmet-try.
I love the way you’re balanced-through.
The penultimate line is inspired by how I always read the fourth line of a certain poem of William Blake’s.
Roofus
How do churches stop the rain ?
And send the downpours down the drain ?
That’s pretty simple to explain –
See, the footings hold the buttress,
And the buttress holds the flyer,
And the flyer holds the corbel,
And the corbel takes the strain.
For the corbel hold the springbrace,
And the stringbrace holds the hammerbeam,
And hammerbeams hold hammerposts,
And up, and up again.
These hammerposts hold collar-ties,
And the collar holds the kingpost high,
And the kingpost holds the ridge-beam,
And in turn, the weathervane.
So the kingpost holds the struts up,
And struts support the rafters –
Or at least, they hold the principals –
(The big ones, in the main.)
Then the rafters holds the purlins,
And the purlins holds the sheathing,
And the sheathing holds the shingles,
And the shingles stop the rain.
Hammerbeam roofs were developed in England in the 1300s, but not named such until the 1820s. So just why are the short horizontal ties called hammerbeams ? I mean, what’s so hammer-y about them ? I suspect it was just to show that architects could be manly when talking about their erect members.
The High Cost of Knowledge
Life is full of spoilers – there’s no way to avoid them,
However much we try to shut our ears and plug our eyes.
Upon the ether, through each chink –
These rumours reach us out-of-sync.
Life is full of spoilers – we just have to abide them
They leap out of the bushes and they creep up in disguise.
It’s rarely cruel, it’s never fate,
But sometimes warnings come too late.
We’re creatures with a mouth and with a will,
And if the price for censorship is never letting banter slip,
I’d rather keep the quips, for good and ill.
Life is full of spoilers, from those who steep the boilers,
And don’t cut back their stoking to preserve some heat for later –
And from these spendthrifts, gossip comes:
Sometimes whispers, sometimes drums.
So life is full of spoilers, and unintended foilers –
Annoying, yes, but don’t assume each blabber is a traitor –
With so much on the telegraph,
It’s no surprise we blow the gaff.
We are a talky species, let’s recall,
And if the price for ignorance is sharing no more than a glance,
I’d rather take my chance and hear it all.
Just Another Face in the Choir
She rises to the golden glow
From ev’ry cloud beneath her feet,
And curls her hair in ringlets so,
In waves of strawb’ry, loose yet neat.
She pins each blossom into place
To form a halo round her tress,
And adds a paleness to her face,
And dons her fine and pleated dress.
She plucks her harp and tunes its strings,
And warms her voice to sweetermost.
And so, with flexed and polished wings,
She clocks-on to rejoins the host.
This poem was written in response to the painting shown above (sorry she’s so blurry).
Dusty Jackets
If we can’t judge a book by its cover,
Then doesn’t that just tell us that their marketing is junk ?
Amateur and changing with their ev’ry new edition –
How can they hope to build a brand when faced with corp’rate bunk ?
So why are all these authors acquiescing to the bland,
And hiding all their bindings ?, shied away behind such flimsy card
That creases up and tatters through the simple act of reading.
You wouldn’t catch a band conceding for such vagaries unkind,
That leave their babies ripped and scarred
Cos publishers won’t go the extra yard.
After all, who thinks that Sgt Pepper should be redesigned ?
Or Dark Side of the Moon, perhaps, or Bad, or Nevermind ?
On the closing theme of album covers getting their image right, can I just bring up an album that I’ve always thought actually failed to do so – Wish You Were Here. Not only did their attempt at a photo of a man on fire fail because there is so little fire to see (ya should have added it in post, Storm…), but it is such a disappointment, for me at least, following the perfect cover by George Hardie that you just inadvertently destroyed to get at the goods in the first place:
Sunnis & Cartoonies
Tell your children, tell your spouse,
Use a biro, use a mouse,
Ev’rybody in the house –
Doodle-up Mohammed !
Take a minute, take a day,
When at your lunch or at your play,
Ev’rybody, sketch away !
Scribble-down Mohammed !
Draw his eyes and draw his nose
Draw his fingers, draw his toes
What’s he look like ? No-one knows !
Draw, you all, Mohammed !
Draw him as an diplomat,
Draw him as a Knicks fan,
Draw him as an acrobat,
Draw him as a stick-man,
Draw him seemly, draw him sleazy,
Draw him dreamy, draw him cheesy,
Draw him any way you pleasy
Draw your pen but not your blade.
Draw to show our common sense
Or draw to show we take offence
Or draw to show they try to censor.
Draw to show we’re not afraid.
Tell the Arabs, tell the Brits,
Use your pencils, use your wits,
Ev’rybody, Bics not blitz !
Don’t let’s awe him, let’s all draw him !
Ev’ry colleague, guest and mate,
Join the party, bring debate.
Ev’rybody – love not hate !
Come, let’s draw Mohammed !
Rhyming Couplets 