In the Nash’nal Int’rest
Ev’ry, dammit, ev’ry time
My ev’ry sports a ’postrophe,
You howl and howl my spelling crime
As tho’ you were the boss o’ me.
But still they pop extr’ordin’ry,
Dishon’rab’ly, inord’nat’ly,
By lis’ning out for how it’s said
When diff’rently from how it’s read.
So speech shall speak, and lit’rature obey –
Just deal with it, you soph’mores – cos the commas stay !
Poetic Truth
1.
You are so wrong, so very very wrong,
To think that rhymes wreck the verse.
Sure, they get used where they don’t belong,
And when ill-used are a curse.
And yes, they take their time to mature
In the life of the poet’s pen –
They cannot be nervous, must always be sure,
And practiced agen and agen.
2.
They write their verses blank and free,
And barely bait the hook –
But Keats and Frost and Tennyson
Can still be grasped by anyone.
They write their verses free and blank,
And barely sell a book –
While Blake and Burns and Betjamin
Can still sell-out and fetch ’em in.
3.
I tell myself, its cos they rhyme –
They hate me that, they hate me that.
I know my verse is in its prime –
They must see that, they must see that.
But still I always get rejected,
While some prosy tripe’s selected.
Must be just how I suspected –
Must be that, it must be that.
The Click
Ev’rywhere in poetry,
Ev’ryone must show it free –
Jarring, scaring, woe-is-me –
Fashion of the times.
Me, I think their mumbling knows,
Ev’rybody’s writing prose –
But not I, I’m fighting those –
Gotta have my rhymes.
Gotta have my flowitry,
My meenie minie moetry,
My Edgar Allen Poetry –
Rhythm is no crime !
Even when it strains my lung,
Even when it stains my tongue,
Even when my brain is wrung –
I sing it till it chimes.
Circle Lines
I see the poems popping up again
Upon the Underground –
Prosy, earnest, and ignored
By all except the very bored.
They’re forced to slum it on the crowded train –
At least they get around,
But free from glottal-stops and grime,
And far too erudite to rhyme.
And yet, it does them good to mix where
Plain-spoke folk abound –
And tailor their delivery
To suit the Drain and Jubilee:
“Mind the gap please, mind the metaphors,
Next stop is Leicester Square,
Oh tyger tyger burning bright,
She walks in beauty like the night,
All-change for Euston, mind the doors,
Use Oyster for the cheapest fare,
Remember me when I am gone away,
The darling buds of May,
South Kensington for dinosaurs,
Beyond the spiral stair –
Early electric, to beat the queues –
Where is Skimble ? Men long for news.”
Transient Verses
Year after year, our language is changing
And drifting yet further from Shakespeare’s day,
Making it harder to known of his meaning,
Making obscure as we’re slipping away.
Writings updated retain all their meaning,
But lose all their diction and word-play and flow –
So when only scholars can read still this poem,
Then do not translate it, but just let me go.
Vanity by Numbers
I sent in some poems, a varied selection,
And each was admitted with not one rejection,
Included within this exclusive collection,
And mine for just twenty-nine pounds ninety-nine.
I thought of the public enjoying my writing,
In thousands of copies, on my words alighting –
Yet only those featured received the inviting
To purchase this volume, exclusive and fine.
It came and I read my first masterworks printed,
And turned not to one of the other fresh-minted
New authors, who each in their turn would have squinted,
At only their own words, and never at mine.
Amongst my first forays into promoting my poetry was poetry.com (since sold – so party on, current owners). They invited submissions for competitions that I now suspect were never actually won by anyone – instead, I received congratulations and offers to be included in an anthology, which as a participant could be mine for a reduced price, how many copies did I wish to order ? I allowed my work to be entered, but never bought the volumes. After two or three times, I stopped even allowing the use of, and cursed myself for once again wasting my stamps.
Another vanity outfit with which I had a dalliance were the Forward Press of Peterborough (who I later discovered were definitely not connected to the Forward Poetry Prize). Again, I avoided sending them any actual money, though I did allow them to use a couple of my poems in their magazine. I even won a £10 cheque for the best poem, which caused me to order the issue in question. Alas, they went bust before it arrived, but I did get to download the electronic version (though that has been lost on an abandoned hard-drive long ago). I distinctly remember which poem won, because it was the weakest of the ones I sent them, which in itself inspired another poem along with this one.
Uncoupled
There is no rhyme for orange,
Excepting for Blorenge,
But who on Earth’s ever
Heard owt about Blorenge ?
There is no rhyme for love,
Except glove and above,
But then those come up never
When talking ’bout love.
There is no rhyme for life
Which is not knife or wife,
And they sound so cliché,
So there’s no rhyme for life.
And the one rhyme for self
Should be left on the shelf !
So it’s better, we say,
Just to rhyme with itself.
Poesy Posers
When did poetry become so small ?
When did we all become about the ‘me’ ?
Self-centred pseudies up our own arses,
Full of minutia we’re bursting to free.
I blame Romantics for swooning and moping
While other folk got on with stuff.
We’re just not that int’resting – nobody cares !
So spare them our whiny old guff.
When did poetry become so small ?
Obsessed with the truth, when it used to tell tall…
No Biography
When I die, don’t worry who I was,
Don’t carve my name at Poets’ Corner –
I hope my rhymes still cause a fuss,
But let no stranger be a mourner.
When I die, let me die and be done,
Don’t raise blue plaques or rename streets –
I’d love to think my words still run,
But they weren’t written for receipts.
Unvolted
(Dedicated to Petra, Ozymandias & The New Colossus)
The Rose-Red City’s Lone and Level Sands
Beside the Teeming Shore are fourteen strong –
But that is not enough, when eager hands
Have written their twelve-liners just too long.
For status-conflict-outcome, that’s the key
To stop our sonnets going to the dogs –
But where is there a volta in these three ?
They’re nothing more than pretty travelogues !
Well, Shelley never cared for rules or class,
And who the hell is Burgon, anyway ?
But as for Emma Lazarus – alas,
Her tempest-tost are never led astray !
…But then…why must they pivot, ev’ry one…?
Let’s have some change…! You see, that’s how it’s done !
Rhyming Couplets 