Mischief Night, and the Devil is abroad – He could be here. For on this night, be you tenant or lord, There’s something near. Be it a ghost, or the ghost of a thought, The underworld or the over-wrought, It may be all, or it may be naught – It’s getting dark, my dear.
Mischief Night, and the Devil is amock – He could be nigh. For on this night, as our worries flock, His jinks run high. A will-o’-the-wisp, or a whisp’ring breeze, A chill in the air, or a banshee’s sneeze ? A frost tonight or a deathly freeze ? It’s getting cold – oh my…
Mischief Night, and the Devil is alive – He could be me. For on this night, the shenanigans thrive, And fools run free. Is that a ghoul, or a turnip’s head ? A friendly fright, or the living dead ? And the Devil just smiles and goes to bed – It’s getting late, you see.
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 weighing at birth. But never be thinking that this is my lot, All that I left from my time on this Earth.
Never get thinking that I didn’t count, Or thinking I’m someone you never need. For all that you laugh at my primitive ways, Just never forget that we nobodies breed. Even the famous had parents of unknowns, As did all the riff-raff who helped them succeed. So there must be hundreds, or thousands by your time, 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.
We rack them out between bridges and nuts, And crank till they must reply. And those low, low throbs that we feel in our guts – Well, the sheep feel them too, by-and-by. But it’s never their bleats or their baas that are scored, It’s never their voices that sing from each chord, And it’s never their own requiem we applaud. In life and in death, so their tension will always be high.
How many hundreds of thousands of sheep Have our symphonies dispatched ? Every cello has reason to weep, And scream as its sinews are scratched. How many flocks must we cull to the muse ? How many sacrificed lambkins and ewes ? On the altar of Bach shall their entrails ooze. They live for this music, but always do strings come attached.
Playing Marbles and Rag & Bone Man by Steven Scholes
Mongers
We used to be just simple merchants – Iron, fish, and cheese, And jack-of-produce costermen – The traders in the bare necessities. But now we’re only spoken off As rumour, scare, and war – We’re jack-the-lads of shadowmen, Now hawking abstract concepts door-to-door.
Gems of The Crystal Palace, Sydenham by George Baxter, showing off the designs of Joseph Paxton
The Engineers’ Plot
Crystal Palace – it’s a suburb, Station, park, and football team, And a memory to a time When this nation still could dream. Once a product of Empire, A palace to capture its roar – Now just a flat-topped hill In the Republic of Elsinore. Straddling boroughs, pumping fountains, Soaring towers, glass for miles. Till flames across eight counties Shattered her dreamy crystal aisles.
She no more beguiles – but that sounds Victorian – Half vers libre, half Tudor sonnet. Flirting with jazz and television, Yet still bedecked in her bustle and bonnet. She was no Bauhaus, no mere function – Cast iron crockets encrusted her shell – For all her prefab industry, She always wore her baubles well. Ah, she’s gone now – like her dinosaurs, She’s of her time and place. Though her place of course is the one she named – You cannot say she leaves no trace.
Flatland always had all three, All three dimensions on it – Anyone with sense can see The Flatoids are upon it ! It’s true, they barely used the zed, But still the zed was there – But as for other strings that thread, These cannot cube the square.
There is no metal in the metalled roads, But still they’re made of steel – They take the feet and hooves and loads, And the ever-turning wheel. The dust and ruts and highwaymen Were swept away in dale and fen By smooth and fast and tarmacked threads With footed feet and watersheds.
But these have all been laid with stone A century or more – The job is done, the back is bone, The soles are growing sore… We surely now have roads enough To leave the wilds unpaved and rough, And only build our future trails As metalled roads of shining rails.
I write you once again, my love, By paper and by boat. The old-fashioned way’s The only way you’ll ever get my note.
But have you heard, A telegraph now spans between we two ? Is this the modern world, my love, The endless chase for something new ?
Though sometimes, when I think how long We take to send our hearts’ desires, I fancy, on the breeze, that angels sing Along those wires –
Pensmiths, calling pensmiths, What you write today, You’ll get to say tomorrow – Calling pensmiths from across the globe, Your words shall span and probe, This time tomorrow. We shall gladly carry all your distant precious words, The small, the silly and absurd, From off your lips to willing ears – Allying fears that letters reach too slow – Come tomorrow.
It’s hardly for the likes of us, my love, Who must still write – No spark or semaphore will speed These words as fast as light.
I cannot see how just one simple cable Can unite us all. Messages are paper still and boats, For those whose means are small.
And yet, so many weeks until Your next reply can stoke my fires, If only, on the breeze the angels sang Along the wires –
Scribers, calling scribers, What you write today, Shall fly away tomorrow – Calling scribers from across the sea, Your words are bounding free This time tomorrow. We shall gladly carry ev’ry distant precious thought, The playful and the overwrought, That bring their homes to foreign parts, Assuring hearts that letters reach too slow – Come tomorrow.
Musical AI version generated by Suno.com – find more of them over here.
Ten full transmissions each hour, each way – That’s four-hundred-eighty transmissions each day – Four-hundred-eighty, and what will they say ?
Good news and bad news and news that can’t wait, Tidings and greetings and offers and meetings, And orders and pledges and threats and debate, Departures, arrivals, and lovers and rivals.
Ten full transmissions each hour, each way, Of profits and prices and projects and pay, With no words misspoken or scattered astray.
Old news and new news and news of the world, Battles, elections and plagues and infections, As fast as the lightning, each message is hurled, And back comes each answer – an undersea dancer.
Ten full transmissions each hour, each way, Through storm and through snow and through come-all-what-may, With no need to worry and no need to pray.
Peace and good will, they bade – what hath God wrought ? Nation to nation in communication. So is this the peace the philosophers sought ? No need to be shy, just send your reply.
Rhyming Couplets 