The Words Become Flesh
Ev’ry book in the Bible
Is the Book of Numbers really,
With its chapters and its verses,
All ennumerated clearly.
And its drop-caps and its sub-heads,
And its footnotes full of freight –
Now there’s so much ink on its onion-skins,
It doubles up the weight !
Lost Couplets from The Auguries of Innocence
A louse plucked from a child’s hair
Shall cause this world to grow less fair.
A guinea worm dug from an eye
Shall leave behind a greater stye.
A flea disturbed before she dines
Is desecration of the shrines.
For veins of blood washed free of flukes
Shall topple kings and pillage dukes.
Each tapeworm flushed from out the gut
Shall see our stenchful filth in glut.
And tortures wait in Hell for he
Who cures amoebic dysent’ry.
If Ten were Twenty
Is there any reason why
A zero should be naught,
Except that that is what we’re taught ?
But just to wonder, by-the-by,
If we could write an oh for ten,
And only turn the corner when
We reach eleven once agen,
And double-digits start.
And when we get to twenty, so
We’d write it as a one-and-oh.
(Perhaps we’ll call it ‘tenteen’, though,
To fit the part.)
It all works fine till ninety-nine,
Then ninety-ten for a hundred dead –
With still just two within the bed.
But the twins then run to oh-and-one,
Till oh-and-oh for a hundred-and-ten,
But dammit, we should be triple by then…!
Work in Recess
This one’s for the redraft pile –
It isn’t good, but it is a start,
And I know there’s something worth-the-while
At its heart.
Somewhere in there, something good
(Not yet, but will be) sleeps.
I dare not wake it, even if I could,
In case it leaps.
No – let it lie – let it breathe
A month – or two – or six –
Let’s let it simmer, let it seethe,
And let its image fix.
Then pull it from the memory drawer
And shake it out beneath the light,
And get to work – a lot of work, I’m sure –
But not tonight…
Lurkers
I can’t be bothered to rhyme,
Though I probably will…
They sneak upon me, hidden from ear,
Slotting-in at the end of lines,
My tell-tale style,
As it were…
If I try to keep them out
The lines sound bare,
Or false and strained, somehow…
I know there’s some about,
But I can’t tell where…
Oh…yeah…I see them now…
Keydom
Keyring keys of ev’ry shape,
With some for deadbolts, some for latches –
Split-ring lodgers, each one waiting
For the only hole that matches.
Take them off the circlet, though,
And whether iron, brass or chrome,
They’re all alone and naked
With no hint to tell us where is home.
Somewhere, a patient lock is waiting,
But some keys hate to be tied down –
And keys that leave the ring of safety
Rarely ever will be found.
A life of orphan-hood they chose,
Who never will be collared through their bows.
Backwards Flags
When carrying a standard into battle,
It goes, by definition, hoist-first, fly-rear.
So carrying a flag upon the shoulder,
Just guess which way about it must appear ?
Well, on the left, it’s fine – but as we know,
The left is wicked-evil and despised.
And so we must accept the right’s subversion,
Which sees the nation’s banner compromised.
Just ask Brazil, who cannot even show
The sky that’s the right way around.
A God’s-eye approach, and never let us mind
The view of the plebs upon the ground.
And here is the Brazilian flag as it should be:
Giving Cynicism a Bad Name
Gods dammit !, I’ve let myself grow optimistic !
I can’t believe I’ve let myself get hopeful-careless now !
“Cynical and real”, a jaded zeal and nihilistic tantra,
That was long my mantra, was my self-improving vow –
Forever “Cynical and real”, from Shangri-La to Slough.
Expect the worst – the worst exists – be never solipsistic –
I’m not alone, alas ! – there’s people ev’ry-bloody-where,
Who seem to think their mission is to try and make me care.
But hey, I seem to say, chuck that away for anyhow,
For maybe and perhaps and if-I-dare, and worth-a-prayer,
And gleaning gosh and go-for-it from what-about and wow.
Oh, this is gonna hurt, I know,
Oh, this is gonna crush me in the vice of lessons-learned.
But truly I deserve this blow,
Because the flame of Hope must feed on hope,
Must burn-up hope, till hope is burned.
I should, I do, know better than to think that this old rope
At which I grope, is yet a lifeline, not a noose.
Ah, what’s the use…
However much I tell myself
That hopefulness is bad for health
My under-mind is getting drunk on jubilation juice.
Defeat is gonna flood this town
Because I let my shields down,
And all because I let the bastard Hope get on the loose.
So come and claim me, He-Who-Wins,
Come poke my eyes and kick my shins,
My inner-voice needs dowsing and my spirit’s due a sluice.
But still…but still I hear its whisper, even now –
I hear it over ev’ry chanting of my vow –
“Cynical and real, must keep it cynical and real.
There’s no repeal.”
And if that’s bleak and bitchy, good !
It’s time I understood that harsh reality’s a cow,
It ain’t some sweet and sad-eyed pup.
So please, Defeat, please shoo the mutt
And shut the damn thing up !
Please be the poison in the buttercup,
The fungus in the bough.
Please, Defeat, for once, for all,
Please stop me dreaming quite so tall –
I cannot take another fall,
Another draining of my tao.
A swift one-two into the gut
Should hobble me my cocky strut
And fill my saccharine with gall.
Quick ! I feel another wave of optimism building –
But lilies aren’t for gilding,
They’re for bearers of the pall.
Quick ! Construct a wall to keep my pessimism filled in –
I pray for mental doors of bronze
To shut out Hope and all his cons,
And fire arrows at his swans, until the dread is drilled-in.
Please drag a plough across my brow,
I must allow more worries and more fears.
So please, to anyone who hears me
Hear me now !
Pray dim my eyes and salt my tears,
And help me chant my vow:
“Cynical and real, keep me cynical and real.”
And all you optimists, forgive me,
For I never meant to sign your deal.
“Mumble, moan, and squeal – always cynical and real.”
Let my dread of life outlive me,
For I never meant to let me feel.
Chant it with me,
Chant it with me,
Never let my let-downs heal.
Cynical and real, beneath the ever-groping thumb –
Keep me coping, keep me numb,
Before all Hope is come.
That Old Old Song
I must have heard ‘I love you’ sang,
In ev’ry song they always sang,
A hundred thousand times
Or more –
And wanted to believe it…
I must have heard them sing about
The love they had to sing about
A hundred thousand times,
I’m sure –
And who could disbelieve it ?
And yet, no matter how they sing it,
Still their songs can never swing it –
Love is not, and they can’t bring it in,
No matter how they rhyme.
Have they got nothing else to sing,
In all the world and ev’rything ?
Because their endless songs are wearing thin
The hundred thousandth time.
I must have heard ‘I love you’ sang,
I must have hoped and also sang,
A hundred thousand times
Or more –
And never did achieve it.
Pissing on the Pedants
Do you remember, back in school,
When teachers, parents, busybodies,
Told us, told us, told us how
Our grammar shamed our tongues ?
They called us slovenly and coarse,
No better than the brats of squaddies –
Smacked our hands and clipped our ears
And bellowed out their lungs.
They were wrong. So wrong.
On ev’ry single point they taught.
Wrong that we couldn’t,
And wrong that we wouldn’t
And wrong that we cared what they thought.
Sometimes we mixed up laying and lying,
Or fewer and less,
But I guess that we just didn’t care.
The meaning was clear from the context,
As clearly as there is from their is from they’re.
We thunk and we brung and we beated –
The more they cared, the less we core.
And even today, they get heated,
But they can’t clip our ears no more.
Rhyming Couplets 