Wordwear
Poems are delicate shoes,
And prose is sturdy boots –
The footwear that we choose
Is governed by its use:
So when we need to tread with care
Or dance between ideals,
We may choose verse, and lace a pair
Of taps or kitten heels.
For poems are stilettoes,
Sharp and with a click –
While prose is from the ghettos,
Stout and with a kick.
So when we need more tongue and strength,
Where mud and thorns compete,
We’ll don our boots to march at length,
In plain and simple feet.
Faffage in Five Acts
Poetry is the enemy of plays,
And has no place upon the stage –
Its narratives are not well told,
Pentameters do not engage.
They think their verse is true and bold,
Yet tends towards the bloated beige.
Dialogue is the standard of gold,
Not monologues spouted for page-on-page –
We need nuts-and-bolts for the tale to unfold,
While wisecrack-a-tat is the wit of our age.
Poetry is the enemy of plays,
It sound so trite, verbose, and old.
Poetry Briefing
I should have written a shorter verse,
Where a couplet’s too verbose –
As slim as is a haiku terse,
Or a limerick at most.
A sestet tops, or a triolet,
Or a nonet’s fading ghost –
As tightly as a minuet
When sent by pigeon post.
I never should have waffled-on
Beyond the break, you see –
All trace of pithiness was gone,
As the twelve-bar blues run free.
If sonnet-length should not be crossed,
I should curtail this spree –
But no – I fear all hope is lost
As the ballads call to me…
Throw your Hands in the Air till it Cuts like a Knife
Musicians’ lyrics are words for music,
An afterthought to fill the tune.
And that’s what makes them words of int’rest,
Knocked-up quick, and none too soon !
Musicians’ lyrics, they’re corny or woozy,
But always organic in self-expression –
Their very essence is always the quintest –
When forged in the deadline of ending the session.
Musicians are never librettists,
They never write words to stand alone –
They’re woven into the very chords,
Their voices are played like a saxophone.
Musicians’ lyrics are hard to resist,
They’re what turns a tune to a song.
They master what poets are groping towards,
When the audience all sing along.
Note that this poem is about bands who write their own songs, not about professional songwriters who often have individuals working exclusively on the words. It’s intended as a celebration of those musicians for whom the words are simply less important than the tune.
(untitled)
Ev’ry poet, given long enough,
Will name a poem this –
Some to relish the Schrödinger’s title,
Or one as subtle as a hiss,
Others who simply forget to attach one,
Or choose to leave it still undone,
But ev’ry poet will try this bluff
In the final analysis.
Perhaps it’s there, but printed in white ?
Perhaps they couldn’t think what to write ?
Perhaps the only copy to spare
Has suffered a tear, or a bookworm’s blight ?
Or scratched into a wall, in rough,
In some forsaken abyss.
But now they sit unheralded upon the bustling page,
With nothing to grab our eyeballs and engage –
We’re on our own.
They’re standing naked on the stage,
Relying on their lines alone –
Straight to business, no quick kiss
To say hello and set the tone.
Yet ev’ry poet, given long enough,
Will give a name a miss.
Hot Air & Cold Fronts
A play in the open air, it was,
A drowsy Summer’s day –
I wished I were not there, because,
The sky was looking grey.
The monologues were droning on,
Soliloquies so slow –
And where the sun no longer shone,
The rain was sure to show.
Some pigeons pecked the grass between
The actors, undisturbed –
The breeze was starting to get keen,
To match the verbiage heard.
With not a cut within the script,
They read out ev’ry line –
But the mercury was not so gripped,
As it sped into decline.
Hold on there, what had I missed ?
Oh, nowt, the same damn speech !
Even the clouds had got the gist,
And looked about to breach.
The fools all capered round the set,
Right back where they began,
When the Heavens wept for Juliet –
Thank god !, I thought, and ran…
“Poems don’t have to Rhyme”
They told us that at school,
And we read some Hiawatha,
Then some Milton and some Armitage –
You know the stuff.
I shrugged, and ploughed along
To some Ezra Pound or other,
Feeling overwhelmed by culture
Till I just switched-off.
I guess it works for those for whom it works,
But all I found was faff –
It might as well be scat or freeform jazz
For all I cared.
I needed rocking rhythms in verse,
And lines that didn’t break in half,
I needed souls that used a regular rhyme
When they were bared.
They told us that at school,
And they dared us to disagree –
And they’re telling us still, with tuts and sneers
And humourless debate.
But we know what we like, and some of us like
For our verse to be less free –
So poems don’t have to rhyme, I guess,
But when they do, they’re great !
Languid Curlicues
“Poetry editors are in revolt against the overuse of certain florid words.”
– Poetry How
Cliches seep into my verse,
Those myriad shards of shrouded thought –
Reflections on the torrid motes I nurse,
So pent and overwrought.
I strive to excise each as it freights
Through my ever-cloistered, fevered mind,
Yet their crimson soul still percolates
To leave a palimpsest behind.
Writing by Heart
I can remember learning at school
The poems I had to learn by heart –
And yet I cannot recall them now,
We’ve slowly drifted apart.
It’s a shame,
Because some songs demand our remembering,
Work all the better when read heads-high,
With eyes in contact, and tongues in confidence,
Proudly aloud and never to be shy.
Sometimes, when I’m writing a line,
I think of someone decades hence –
Someone having to learn it at school,
Trying to make it make sense.
I’m to blame,
Because good luck committing me to memory,
With all of my showing-off to distract.
I’ll try to keep it short to make things easier,
Hope you can make it to the end intact.
But pray, allow me one more verse,
To make my case, one hit-or-miss.
And if you stumble, I shall not mind,
I’ve mangled far better than this.
All the same,
In those moments when it all comes together,
When the words are at the ready to be read –
I wish I could remember like I hope you can remember,
For no poet wishes to remain unsaid.
Across the Multi-Verse
Plenty of poets who only learned English later
Have plenty of English to tell,
Which makes all their poems so very much greater –
When using their step-mother tongue so well.
But usu’lly, they’re only in free verse, it must be said,
Not often in rhyme –
(Unless they are writing in pop instead,
Cos that happens all the time !)
Rhyming Couplets 