They’re funny things, are names, As they rise and fall with fashion, And so fluky in their claims For what newborns they can ration From the finite pool of name-less youths To whom they shall be handed – To turn them into Bens and Ruths, And leave them tagged and branded. And sometimes from colloquial obscurity Comes suddenly a surge into maturity, As sweeping ’cross the country comes The choice of sev’ral-thousand mums. And maybe just as quickly as they flourished, So we find them lost and undernourished: Out-of-date and now a joke, Just withered names on withered folk. They’re funny things, are names: They’re just sounds and signs and smoke.
As a child, I loved to pore Upon an atlas like a book. The early chapters laid out Europe, Where I knew it’s ev’ry nook. Later on came Africa or Asia, I forget which first. The other next, then North, then South America Would be traversed. Oceania bringing up the rear, And scattered islands next, With local names italicised beside The faithful English text. That was the story’s climax, now the coda – Now the final pair of plates – The Arctic, then the Ant, in round tableaux, The Baring and Magellan Straits.
Antarctica, to my surprise, Had place-name labels scattered round – The Ross Ice Shelf and Ellsworth Mountains, Kemp Land, and McMurdo Sound. Such British names ! The Arctic, though, was foreign – Though I’d love to think How Queen Victoria might send The Royal Navy out to turn it pink. Take Greenland, with its Anglo-Saxon name – From Cape Farewell down in the South, On through Discov’ry Bay to Upper Tooley, And out East there’s Scoresby Mouth. The Viceroy has his Residence in Goodhope, With the inevitable railway lines – Heading South to Hope St Julian, Through Greenvale and the Squarehill mines.
And the Great Green Mainline steaming North, With a branch and boat-train out to Sugar Top, And via Lower Streamouth aerodrome, To Foxborough – which once was the final stop, Until the junction to Jacob’s Harbour, (Ferries to God’s Haven from the pleasure pier), Then the final push to Springfield Isle, On viaducts of steel that we’d engineer. Of course, in time the Esquimaux would learn The ways of cricket and the bowler hat, And in later years, there’s some would settle down In Blighty, in a council flat In Ashford, Accrington and Aberdeen, To drive the buses and newspaper stands, Opening churches, opening restaurants, Marrying the local girls and forming bands.
I know, I know, so many problems Unthought-out in the fantasy of a kid. Just as well it never happened – And yet…on a parallel Earth, it probably did.
detail from Portrait of the Prophet Muhammad riding the Buraq, 1820-30 Indian
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 !
Poetry is ev’rywhere, Ev’ry day has rhymes to share, Ev’ry one has verses lurking, Ev’ry chance, the words are working, Headstones whisper epitaphs, Letters to the Telegraph, Dylan lyrics, hip-hop crew, Aides-memoire and billets-doux, Nurs’ry rhymes and wishing wells, Playground chants and magic spells, Proverbs old and riddles vexed Advertising copy text, Couplets quoted from the Bards, Purple prose and greetings cards, Epigrams and tetrastichs, Cockney slang and limericks, Lear, Milne and Tennyson, Lennon, Carroll, Chesterton, Milligan and De La Mare, Poetry is ev’rywhere.
Zigger-buzzing, flitter-flying, To and fro and fro and to – A dragonfly is zagging-by, His body shiny-new. Ready for the slaughter, With his goggles on and paint-job dry – For three years, underwater, He has somehow learned to fly.
A fighter jet, a microlight, With wings of cellophane – Drunk yet nimble in his flight, He circles round, and round again. A regal blur, a day-glow streak, Who never rests from his deploy – But when he does, he’s plastic-sleek: This summer’s latest toy.
I meet him, though, in hot July, Some distance from the river bank. So jealous in his patch of sky, He watches for a rival’s flank – But they won’t come, and neither will The ladies that he’s longing for. So here he is, patrolling still: A soldier who’s misplaced his war.
There ! There in the middle of my cheeks, I swear – I bear the mark of freaks ! These cavities my face must wear Just undermine my steely stare – These hollow hickeys suck the chic From out my compromised physique. Oh, why must I be cursed to share The pinched-in dimples of the meek ?
I’d sooner acne, moles, or freckles Than these intermittent craters – Hardly think my lips need echoes Just to show my cheeks are traitors. But now, such is their two-faced work, They turn a smile into a smirk. Alas, they’re written in my cells – The cheesiest of tells.
Why on me and not my brother, Nor my cousins, aunts, or nieces ? But the worst is how my mother Loves to chub my surplus creases. Hardly wonder all that froth Would drive my teenage self to goth. I felt far safer with a frown When their depressions couldn’t bring me down.
Damn ! I always promised that I wouldn’t let the beggars show, Or that I’d let my whiskers grow. But if you like to see such flam on me, Feel free – but never tell me so ! I guess we’re wrinkled when we’re born, Or else that’s how my face has worn. I guess I should maintain a scowl, Or slather on the botox with a trowel.
Dented, vented, wrecked, and rent Is really not my style – I guess this must be what is meant When faces crack a smile. Did I once gurn on a change of breeze To trap my grin within parentheses ? I wish my apple cheeks were fruitless From this taint of enforced cuteness.
The rain, it rains like rainy rain, The time, it ticks so slow. It soaks the garden, soaks the lane, It soaks the overflow Won’t it ever shine again ? Won’t it ever go ?
We curse these clouds we undergo, We curse this ever-rain – But still the gullies rush and flow And wash the boggy lane. Oh, must the day creep by so slow, And with so little gain ?
We check the window once again, We watch the drops that flow. Perhaps the clouds are bored of rain, Have somewhere else to go ? Check the garden, check the lane – Not too quick. Be slow.
It hasn’t yet begun to slow, It’s coming hard again. It should’ve stopped an age ago, Instead it has free rein. So down to earth the clouds all flow Upon the roof and lane.
We long to be upon the lane Where blooms the indigo, We long the garden to regain Between the may and sloe. Instead, the clouds forever reign, Like icebergs in a floe.
So round and round our thought must flow – The clouds. The time. The lane. And like the day, they crawl so slow, As round they crawl again. They’re stuck with us, nowhere to go – And still comes down the rain.
This is a sestina, whereby the six endwords are repeated each verse in a different order. Tradition also requires a seventh mini-verse, or envoy, to round things off, but I’ve never seen the point.
Abbey – a building with arches and towers – And also a girl who fidgets and glowers. Abbey – a building with gargoyles and gables – And also a girl who hides under tables. Abbey – a building with vaulting and chapels – And also a girl who giggles and grapples. Abbey – a building with windows and doorways – And also a girl who’s curious, all ways.
I once knew a girl Who wasn’t so old, Who went by the name of Pandora – Her hair was a-twirl, And her jawline was bold, And her countenance jarred all who saw her. For she was a child with orders to follow – She practised today to be ready tomorrow.
So stern was her stare As she marched round about, And no-one had better ignore her. She never would share What protruded her pout Or what epical labours now chore her. For she was a child with burdens to carry – She hefted them high, for she’d no time to tarry.
She cradled a box With she firmly kept shut, And she stroked it to sometimes assure her. Her all-weather socks Were so often a-strut With that cask always ported before her. For she was a child with secrets to ferry – She warded them all, be they downcast or merry.
When asked who had asked, Who requested her quest, She might answer Mary or Flora – And endlessly tasked With this hallowed behest, Her mission e’er onwardly bore her. For she was a child with futures to wonder – She gathered them up with the stars and the thunder.
For all our tappy-typey lives, For all the keyboards we must pound, Still ev’ry Summer there survives A world of scritchy-scratchy sound: Ev’ry Summer, ev’ry school, The wriggly-ragged spiders rule !
It seems we do not think exams Are punishment enough – Who cares if they know volts from grams, Or pantaloons from ruffs ? Their future jobs lie in the grip Of under-pressure penmanship !
You know, I reckon if we’re honest, Few of us could truly claim Our efforts wouldn’t look the same. For all they pressed upon us Their italic script or copperplate, Calligraphy was not our fate.
To all the pupils suffering From writer’s cramp and knuckles rapped, Your talents ever under-tapped – At least you’re not alone. To all ex-pupils struggle‘ing With inky hands that biros give, Our meanings lost in hieroglyphs – It’s time that we atone:
It’s keymanship that should be taught, So crisp upon the pristine page, With fingers fast as any thought – It’s time to write the modern age ! For all that pens have served us well, Let’s end their scribbly-scrawly hell.
