detail from the Hell panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch
Bless You, Dammit !
Save a place for me in Hell Should you get there first. Get the drinks in, anyhow, And coin a joke or two to tell, Dress up in your fine attire, (There’s not much point in skimping now.) Cos soon I’ll hit that lake of fire With a raging thirst.
Save a place for me in Hell Cos I don’t believe – Just like many cohorts swell, Who lived it good and lived it well. I reckon it can’t be so bad, When friends like these are those who dwell. It sure ain’t Heaven, so be glad – And raise a toast to Eve.
Oh, why did you have to choose that one ? Of all I submitted, my only enthral. But that one is nothing, ’tis makeweight and fluff A ditty so petty, so bluffing and rough I sent my perfected, my searing-most stuff And all were rejected, excepting this one Which you rank above all, Which you published and all, Which you say betters all, ev’ry poem I’ve done.
Oh, why did you have to choose that one ? Of all I submitted, they only appal, Bar this merest jotting of thoughts best forgotten With metaphors fraught and with sentiments rotten. Yet all were rejected, excepting this guff Which you rank above all, Which you published and all, Which you say betters all; this one poem’s enough.
Oh, why did you have to choose that one ? Of all I submitted, you favoured the small. No really, no really, if only you’d hear me, I hate that one dearly, if only you knew. I’ve others a-plenty, oh let me send twenty, For that one torments me, it’s not what I do. Yet still they’re rejected as less than this trite, Which you rank above all, Which you published and all, Which you say betters all, ev’ry poem I’ll write
Oh, why did you have to choose that one ? Oh, why did I ever submit it at all ?
Paul is dead, man. Miss him, miss him, miss him ! So I call out to the devil, and offer him my bed – I tell him “Sleep with me, I’m not too young; But bring my lover back, put his words into my head.” Satan he hears me, he has me believe: “Just play all your albums, and listen where they’re slurred.” He says “It’s fun to smoke marijuana, It changes all music and the way you hear the words.” So here’s to my sweet Satan – I hear, against the flow, hidden in the track The voice of Paul. Turn me on, dead man. He speaks to me once more when I play the records back.
The odd-numbered lines are examples of backtracks, or backwards-masking, that people with more time and less care for scratches have found hidden in their favourite albums.
Two wings for casing, And two wings for flying, Mouthparts for feeding, And feelers for prying, Six legs for crawling, And two eyes for peeping – Scuttling and swimming And buzzing and creeping. Hundreds of thousands Of species most fine, And all of them based on One winning design.
Hear the dozen tongues that trip Around the top of ev’ry bus – They’re London’s latest membership, As once the immigrants were us. Not whence we came, but chose to dwell Is what defines our each success – And though we are our past as well, It comes to matter less and less. We’re changing daily, ev’ryhow, As our subconscious makes its choice – So we belong to London now, It’s in our eyes and in our voice.
Un·in·ter·es·ted – so dictionaries claim Has meaning specific, restricted by rules; Dis·in·ter·es·ted – it now means the same To ev’ryday users of linguistic tools. So Dis has migrated to Un’s patch of speak; Is language more poverished ? Meaning dis-hanced ? Nat’ral selection defavours the weak, But look how im·par·tial is grabbing its chance.
Little Miss Schneiders has always loved spiders: From miniscule monies to long-leggèd striders, From purse-webs to orb-webs, to nursery sheet-webs, From cobbled-up cobwebs to fussily-neat webs. With eight legs and eight eyes (unless they have six eyes) And just the right size to pose no sort of threat. She loves all the spiders, does Little Miss Schneiders, And thinks that tarantulas make a fine pet – Who needs a red setter when eight legs are better ? (Her parent won’t let her, but she’s hopeful yet.)
Little Miss Schneiders is smitten with spiders, From burrowing wolves to ballooners and gliders. But best of all, surely, is knowing how Britain’s Are pussies – as cute and as gentle as kittens. Imagine Australia ! What lurks inside her ? There’s trapdoor and funnelweb, huntsman and redback ! But not for Miss Schneiders, who’s safe to love spiders – For all of her widows are false, and not black.
Ev’ry September sees Little Miss Schneiders Go searching the skirting and combing the coving – For this is the season when spiders go roving, The scent-spinning ladies and amorous lads, All looking to hook-up as mammas and dads. From bath-tub and cellar to guinea-pig hutch, And under the pelmets there’s eggs by the clutch. They dance on the walls and they sprint ’cross the rugs For eight gorgeous eyes and for eight-leggèd hugs.
Little Miss Schneiders has always loved spiders – They’re bigger than beetles and faster than slugs !
Bid goodbye to ‘whom’ – her days are numbered. She falls out of our usage, and she goes the way of ‘thee’ and ‘thou’. And slowly shall our speech be disencumbered. (It’s down to our subconscious, really, what we do and don’t say now.) It’s not a case of messier or purer, It’s more a case of slowly just forgetting her and losing her. I don’t believe our language ends up poorer, For if we had a use for her then surely we’d be using her.
So let us bid goodbye to ‘whom’, She softly slips away to make some room for ‘who’ instead. He makes his meaning just as well – So sorry, pedants, but it’s time to tell you ‘whom’ is dead. He comes to fill her role, as he Has done for many years informally, and kept his thread. He’s coming – look ! Our future syntax bursting free – So do you see whom I see ?, (as is never ever said).
The rain returns Like we know it will, Like we know it must. It’s only rain – The sky shall spill To wash the dust. So rain returns, And gutters rill, And railings rust – But thanks to rain The wheat-heads fill, The green shoots thrust. The rain returns – It cycles still, On this we trust.
One hour per week, that’s all they give us – One hour for Shadows & Beatles & Stones. Just take what we’re given and don’t make a fuss Of the hours and hours of classics and drones. But lo ! Here come the free-marketeers, With long hair and old spice and fresh new ideas ! And the great ship of state is under attack, She’s running aground and unable to tack – Her deck-chair arranging Is only estranging – The times are a-changing and cannot change back.
And into this fray comes the Gentleman Comrade – What can he tell us to settle the storm ? Sharp as a cutlass and slick as pomade, And surely he favours free speech and reform ? But lo ! It turns out that the new guard are blackguards Their postmen are flatfoots, their viscount are braggarts. The great ship of state is a quivering wreck, With us in the galleys and them up on deck. But the Spring tide is swelling, The crew is rebelling – The white heat you’re selling can’t keep us in check.
So who is the cutthroat and who is the tar ? We’re hated by Churchill and hated by Marx. We’re strung from the yardarm and lashed to the spar, The system is rigged and we’re thrown to the sharks. But lo ! The victory’s ours in the end, And even these turncoats will learn how to bend. The great ship of state has now squandered her rum, So lay off the fiddle and bang a new drum. A hard rain is falling The future is calling You’re only forestalling the booty to come.
I wrote this shortly after Tony Benn’s passing, and was reminded how BBC Radio 1 only came in existence due to his inability to shut down the (legal) pirate stations. Such mixed legacies we leave behind.
Rhyming Couplets 