There Was A Maypole, But No Sign Of Sir Robert Walpole

Along the high embankment of a disused railway line

Which, thanks to Dr Beeching’s cruel cuts of nineteen sixty-three,

Is now a pleasant country walk, a procession of nine-

Teen Morris-Men danced out of the mist. They seemed to                      me

To be coming from a better, friendlier place

Than the rather unpleasant one we inhabited;

Each man had an open, smiling face.

Oh yes, I know for these chaps it’s just a hobby, said

By some to create a wholly bogus illusion of bucolic peace,

But when we heard the bells, and the pipes and tabors,

And then these men came dancing through the trees,

Oh, I knew they were really just our friends and neighbours,

Yet as they capered with their silly hats and sticks

And their gaily beribboned cuisses,

They were, as they performed their antic tricks,

A happy codicil to summer’s lease.

The Unheard Thunder Of A Great Cheese Eaten In Decent Footwear

I light my pipe, but I can’t touch the smoke.

Don’t speak of love, I just don’t have the nose.

You make me laugh? I just won’t see the joke.

Don’t touch me there – however hard you poke,

My eyes no longer smell. The summer rose

Is silent as the grave I cannot hear,

And winter’s cold is mute as my dead hand.

I can no longer feel the noise of beer

Because I find time’s finger in my ear,

And winter’s nose sees snow upon my land.

I’ve lost my touch for wine and other booze.

I can no longer see the summer’s breeze.

When I was a young man, I could smell the blues,

But now I have forgot the taste of shoes.

So take them from my mouth; I’ve lost my ear for cheese.

It’s A Shame To Waste Good Food

Frances Beasley and her husband, Jim,

Were extremely poor and needy.  She was needier than him,

Having only one arm and no ears,

Which had been cut off by a ventriloquist with a pair of shears.

Like many others in similar situations, they lived bleak

And unpleasant lives, and were vulnerable and weak.

David Hardcastle set up a charity, supposedly to provide                       succour

For these people, amassing large amounts of tucker

And – this is what the made the splash

In The Observer – considerable quantities of cash.

“Look what I’ve got for you, Mrs Beasley,” he’d tease,

Showing her fifty-pound notes and the most succulent pease

Pudding with faggots ever to be seen on show.

“Ooh, can I eat it now?” she begged.  He laughed and said, “No.”

“And you can’t have the money neither, you old bag,” he grinned,

“It’s going towards a holiday for me in that Spanish resort which         is twinned

“With Walton-on-the-Naze, you know the place.”

And there was such a terrible look of disappointment on Mrs               Beasley’s face.

“Could I just have a glass of water, please?” begged Mrs Beasley’s        aunt.

Hardcastle looked down at her, kneed her in the groin and said,          “No, you can’t!”

Mr Beasley’s grandfather was starving and sorely craved a                   crumb

Saying, “Not so fast, you blighter, I’ll have that, thank you very             much!”

And grabbed a stale loaf from the dustbin and held it between             forefinger and thumb

But Hardcastle snatched it from him and kicked away his crutch,
Saying, “Not so fast, you blighter, I’ll have that, thank you very             much!” 

And so in the due course of time, Hardcastle grew rich and fat,

The Beasleys groaned and spluttered, cramped inside a pauper’s      flat

Which – Hardcastle announced in The Washington Post – he was      bent on

Steadily over the coming months increasing the exorbitant rent           on.

Other men have been just as dastardly as Dave

But few have killed a whole family and danced upon their grave.

To A Loved One Abused On Facebook

The tedium is our shared and constant solace

(Your page is not a fine or private place), 

My memories are a failure to forget;

I never tire of looking at your face.

 

McLuhan didn't have this shit in mind

(The finest disinfectant is the sun)

When he said the medium was the message.

(Visitors to my website: 41).

 

The interface is a distorting lens

(As when you mean confound, you say confess);

My fury is imperfectly conveyed.   

We’re all alone - the medium is a mess.

We’re All A Bit Of A Marshmallow Up Here, I’m Afraid

Angry?  Sex and politics got your tongue?  Given cramp by the                  key

Proposals of the major parties?  Want to mutilate someone intimately? 

Slice-with-rage.com is the site for you.  Here we have links

To all forms of malicious bloodletting perpetrated by, on behalf of and,

Most pleasurably,

Against

Politicians of all races, genders and faiths. 

I particularly recommend “Insert that skewer, Gabriel” – both the original

Album track and the 45 rpm re-mix; each, in its distinctive way,

Celebrating fury against private parts with a view to public

Ownership.  Which particular politicians?  Which particular

Weltanschung, Walter?  Socialism: national

Or the left-cheek kind?  Conservatism with a small sea? 

Or might you be contemplating a voyage to Liberalism, Cap’n?

There are so many diseases, nurse, I fear my time is not long; so:

In keeping with the urgency, and bearing in mind this crunch,

Might I buy you lunch – with the expectation of a late afternoon

Not wasted in that hotel with a picture of a horse

Where the receptionist should be?  Yes, Mrs Malteaser,

I am talking about sex.  Do I need to spell it out any plainer?

Me: chappy.  You: bint.

Mine’s a chop with a sprig of mint.

I speak of men who have not left a print

Beside themselves, a twittering in the trees, a bird in the breeze,

A flood between the knees – men

Who, when roughness comes to coarseness,

Err on the side of steel wool.

In Finland, they embalm their politicians with vodka. In the Philippines,

They strangle them with shoe laces if they offend.

In the Seychelles, they are not sure what to do because there are so many

Other things to do – surfing, deep-sea diving, fellatio

And cooking.

In Germany, they make their politicians pay

By neglecting them.

But in the United States, they punish them

By electing them.

Breaking Wind

In days of yore they told it straight

And politics was not asked to wait

On courtesy.

Robust, direct and to the nerve

Were those whom we elected to serve

Our nation in imperial times

When sailors died for lack of limes

And life.

Indeed, what marked the fights

Of yesteryear, from knights

Chivalrous to men

Who fell in Ardennes,

Was malice, loathing, spite:

Politics was such a delight!

Now it’s “the honourable member”

Or “my honourable friend”.

Where has all the hatred gone?

Why did it have to end?

Once we had politics full of hate:

Oh, why – tell me why – was I born too late?

On The Abandoned Jetty

Why does this lighthouse guard the open marshes?

Who are those gulls? And tell me, what is that smell?

Where are the ships? What are those unheard shanties?

The fishermen have drowned and gone to hell.

The stink of fish lingers, long after the event.

The market hard has softened to a fen,

The harbour wall has fallen in the sea,

And all the stones have been picked up by men

For schools and churches and other essential buildings.

I daresay some went for barns and cowsheds,

Many of which have long since fallen down,

And a few may possibly be found in municipal flowerbeds.

The Confiscation

When love is stolen, pilgrims call it theft,

Their voyage interrupted by a crime, 

But when the Lord takes, he that is bereft

Finds consolation if he finds the time.

All pleasure is but let by worldly lease,

All things must pass, even the present tense,

The future perfect holds no lasting peace

And pain is purely Satan’s recompense.

The heart is unreliable; the mind

Is merely madness ordered; but the soul

Gives sacramental eyesight to the blind

Whose fragments faith and charity make whole.

     Thus happiness is borne by those who dream

     Of misery enjoyed, and love supreme.

Yes, They Do

In the sinkhole hard beyond the spinney, 

Leeches slide up and gaze upon the ghosts
Of you and me.

 

The mud is still warm. Come and lie down

in the warm mud, my love.

You will see

 

How these annelids
Prey on small invertebrates

Which they eat whole.

Christmas Is Coming, The Puppy’s Getting Old

She endears herself to idle passers-by

By busying herself with personal things

– But everything is personal to her:

Her bite a kiss, her gormless bark a purr

And when she growls, it almost seems she sings

- If you judge not by the ear but by the eye. 

I unlock the door and see she’s gotten older.

Who wants an old puppy? Beyond the glass

The world’s as quiet as fish. Inside the store

The din’s insufferable. Hungry animals bore

Me to fury. I warn her: she’s out on her ass

If by New Year’s Day I haven’t sold her.

The people at the window cannot hear

The obscenities she mutters in her cage.

Great tumours grow from satisfying itches

And pretty pups turn into snarling bitches.

I follow her and lie about her age,

Bring down her price, ignore her yellow sneer. 

Things That Can’t Be Done

Shoes cannot manage the writing of a regular newspaper                        column; deadlines

Deter them and literacy is not their strong point.  Equally, W. F.           Deedes would not have been

Mao’s choice of footwear, either for a short walk or the long                  march.  You can’t make an omelette

Simply by breaking cheese (nor eggs for that matter).  Curd

Cheese At Midnight? Time To Put My Shoes On

But where is Troy? And where is Thrace, and Thebes?
You speak to me of cheese?

Ah no, my dear, I speak of ancient Greece.

And what of Trebizond, and Samarkand?

A yes, a slice of Irish Desmond.

And who exactly crossed the Rubicund?

A pound of Västerbottensost, you say?

How strange you are tonight. I pray

You, sleep now. But what of Mandelay?

What caravans are on the road to old Bukhara?

Tóin Mór from Connemara?

How strange you are, my love. But tell me, who are

Those Assyrians who come down like wolves on the fold?

Please, my dear, no more Lymeswold.

Those hooded hordes swarming in purple and gold…

I must put on my shoes and say goodnight.

’Tis wondrous cold, but ah! the moon is bright.

Troilus will freeze – shut, shut the door, good John!

Don’t fret, my love, I’ll put my Snøfrisk on.

At The Pictures

I always regret

That I can’t smoke a cigarette

When the bad guy is dead

Or the good guy has just taken a beautiful woman to bed.

It strikes me as a bit wet.

I’m not the sort of bloke

Who carts a bucket of coke

With him to his seat.

Neither do I like to watch films and eat.

But I used to enjoy a smoke.

Sir Robert Walpole: Comfortable Harness Or Straitjacket?

When you consider Corneille, with his alternate masculine and           feminine rhymes,

All in their terrifying alexandrines finely tuned, my guess is

That the poets in those times

Wore the impression of keen stresses

As rubies, ere they’d yield their poetry up to shame.

In this, one may tentatively suggest that poetry is a game,

But one in which the rules

Cannot followèd be by fools.

Only the lonely, those with distemper and the lame,

Would run the risk of rhythm-rage or, worse,

The apology of prosody for verse.

Whereas those for whom poetry is a flame

Quickly learn that fires go out.

Do you feel thus?  Well – there’s no need to pout!

The discipline of titles reminds us all

That meanings sometimes lie too deep for words

And infinity is deceptively small

As the sky must sometimes seem to birds.

Preparations For An Inland Burial

The maid at the funeral parlour offered me tea.