Day: September 10, 2024

The sky’s a shark

The black cat’s run, the birds unfold all day

I sit down here and with my totty pray

Ye cast o’ foolish thoughts, you raped my will

. We’ve each enraged the bureaucratic mill.

Oh frigid purse, I never meant to pay!

The sky ‘s a-spark, the air is warm and shrill

The saturnine demoted knelled their way

With this feathered pounce, my sample quill,

I cite the cheque and date it for next May.

Oh, tit for cat, the tiger’s bed ‘s astray.

Yer life is settled by a harlot’s will

The sky ‘s a shark, the air is sharper still

Schoenberg’s music trembled on the air

Artists sensed  the coming ot the war.

If they can’t do this what are they here for?

When defences fail we see with shock

The true state of affairs,no longer blocked

Who will look or listen to bad news?

No one counts the likes nor notes the views.

Long sight is a gift except for whores.

Yet those with short sight see right to the core.

When the bombing starts, words run amok

The speed’s too quick  to measure by a clock.

Politics old crosswords give no clue

The head is missing what’s the foot to do?

Fragmented borders, bodies serve in lieu

There must be separation, old from new

Those who were once holy now are damned

Take the brain out now,thought must be banned

Bodies run like automatic drones.

One by one they fall beneath the stones

Through the eye within my mind

In autumn when the leaves burn bright

We used to see the geese in flight

But now the sky is dull and still

The heavy sun sinks without will.

The geese fly out where I can’t see

And so their lives are closed to me

So the city is more bare

Even sparrows disappear

Watching geese gave me much joy

I often stopped to see them fly

I envied them their  spread out wings

The beauty of this made me sing.

But now my mouth is shut and cold

My heart and body grow more old.

The city with its belt of

of green

Is choked by houses small and mean.

Yet in the pavement small weeds grow

To the cracks a life bestow

Sometimes daisies,sometimes grass

There is never total loss

And tbrough the eye within my mind

The image of the geese I find.

Boot Sale

Archimedes’ pocket calculator in working order but without the pocket.
Cleopatra’s nightdress fm [washed and ironed]
Aristotle’s chair with footstool and TV remote
Abraham’s hat [unworn]
Isaac’s laughter [ CD]
Euclid’s ruler [plastic]
Zeno’s hair [combed]
Ten live Greek tortoises with name tags.
Book of Numbers [ In Hebrew]
Fifty limericks and Wordsworth’s hair [1 only

Job’s watch (automatic)

Isaac’s belt

Eve’s best apron

Eve’s halogen hob (new,other)

Job’s hanky.

Adam’s apple

Recipes from the Bible.

Jezebel’s handbag (goatskin) . Nearly new in good condition apart from scratches from her nails.

King David’s piano plus keys. Sorry no music as scroll unrolled

Nero’s violin in working order (scorched)

Humour and poetry

img_20190510_163949https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/04/humor-and-poetry

Extract:

In 1993, I took a left turn one day out of my MFA program and found myself at the National Poetry Slam in San Francisco. There I discovered several poets who were funny for the sake of being funny. Particularly Hal Sirowitz from New York (“don’t stick your arm out the window, mother said” and Matt Cook from Milwaukee (“it was easy to write the Great American Novel, back when there were only five American novels”) Both poets initially delighted me and confounded me: There are no similes, a voice in my head said. What would Tom Lux (my first teacher) say? the voice continued. Despite my resistance, I believe those poets gave me a kind of permission to explore humor a little more vigorously in my second book, The Forgiveness Parade (1998), for “I thought the word loin and the word lion were the same thing. I thought celibate was a kind of fish”. Perhaps in that book there were places where I was too vigorous in my pursuit: looking back there are a few poems that are just a little too jokey somehow, a little one-dimensional.

I am becoming aware of how some humor can set a roadblock for the poetic speaker, making it impossible for the speaker to get back to a serious place. And how some other (less frequent) uses of humor can leave that door open. I want to leave that door open

Odd shoes

  • photo-2 122
  • After Mary went off to the Oxfam shop on her bike with a bag of surplus shoes Stan decided to clean his laptop computer.He was trying to open the plastic box of Screen Cleaning Tissues and wondering if he could have used a damp microfibre cloth instead.
  • He was feeling excited because he was going to take Mary away for the weekend to a Pie Museum on the Lincolnshire coast.
    There was a knock on the back door.He saw Lisa and Tom,two students from Knittingham University.Tom’s grandmother was a friend of Stan’s.
  • “Hello,”said Tom,”this is Lisa Stoat my girlfriend.”
  • “Hello,Lisa.How are you?And where do you come from?”
    “Hello,I’m fine, thanks.I believe my mum found me under a gooseberry bush near the A19 to Teesside.She’d been out rambling with the gypsies.Anyway she met my dad when I was 2.He’s doctor in Middlesborough,he adopted me and several other children my mother found from time to time out in the country.There are six of us now.There are lots of gooseberry bushes on Teesside.”
    “Thank you for that,Lisa.”Stan said
    “Please don’t mention it; you are more than welcome!” the lovely girl told him gently.
    “Would you like some gooseberry pie.”Stan asked her modestly
    “Yes,I’m ravenous.” the girl replied shyly,her cheeks turning bright red
    “Well,you know you are a growing girl.” Stan chuntered .”I’m afraid I can’t find the cake forks”
    “That’s a pity,” replied Tom.”I’ve never seen a cake fork in my entire life.”
  • “Oh,goodness,”Stan called.”What did you do?”
    “Well,we used an axe to cut the pies up and then lay on the floor and grabbed bits with our teeth.!”
    “Where you raised by cats?” Stan cried querulously.
    “To a certain extent,”the boy honestly admitted.”But I can use a knife and fork now for meat and veg and also I can now use a lavatory rather than digging a hole in the soil or using a plant pot.”
    “Have you thought of writing your autobiography?”Stan demanded curiously
    “I feel I’m a bit young for that and the cats, Lucy and Mario, might be offended.”
    “Can they read?”Stan muttered loudly.

“Not yet but I’m doing phonics with them. the government recommends that according to the News of the Failed.”
“But not for cats,surely?” Stan replied jovially.
“Well,you win some you lose some!” Tom answered with the unique and original turn of phrase typical of one raised by cats
Lisa got over. excited.”You could call it “A tale of two Kitties”” she cried hysterically.
“Oh,my God.Is she bipolar?” Stan thought nervously
“But what would Professor Fittsgenstein think?”
“I rarely think,” said a man who had crept into the kitchen through the cat flap.”And I have to confess that I too was partially raised by cats.”
“Welcome.Professor”, they all shouted
“What a coincidence!”
“Well,”said Annie, who had been listening through the keyhole,”It’s very common in Knittinghamshire you know.The mortgages are so big,both parents have to work so they have no alternative but to leave the children at home with the cats.They all learn to mioaw which can be useful.” She then gave a loud”mioaw” and disappeared.”I’d better ring 999 ” Stan whispered.”I think she is going crazy.
“Oh,no” Tom stated knowingly,”If you could enter into the narrative of her life and reach the place where she is you would see it all makes perfect sense.”
“What even the thick layers of makeup and the T K Maxx perfume.”Stan enquired philosophically”Yes,indeed.” the lad told him ardently
“Didn’t Schopenhauer advise against about pretending to be someone other than your true self?” Stan said thoughtlessly

“I’m sorry but we have only reached pi and the Ancient Greeks.Is Philosophy actually meant to help you with real life problems?”
“What sort of pie did they eat?”Stan wondered anxiously.
“I guess maybe apricot or peach,”said Lisa womanly
“Well,I have the Fanni Far Mer cookery book here.I’ll look it up.”
“But she’s American? poor Lisa said peevishly
“I thought she was a Turk!” Stan informed her humorously
“What about Gud How Ski Ping?” She debated
“Yes,I do like Chinese. food” he informed her.”It is very popular all over the world.
I’d better brew the tea,Stan decided…the kettle was now boiling noisily on the hot red coal fire… frightening Emile who was sleeping on the rag rug in front of it…

So it’s goodbye from Knittingham and Nottingham too

Geese and God

I remember funny things we did
Peering into windows lit by lamps
Climbing cliffs then chased by geese and dog

Walking down from Redcar, sea so still
After Saltburn Pier, the cliffs high jump
I remember all the funny things we did

Wandering Whitby in a sea grey smog
Eating a pork pie cut into lumps
Climbing cliffs then chased by geese and dog

Old Hunstanton , white sands where we’d sit
The wild spikes of the gorse spread out unclamped
I remember all the colours,scents, and that

I feel the joy inside my heart is lit
Woe is leavened by old nature’s stamp
Climbing high then chased through mud by dogs

We see in shadows shades are not so stark
In Studland Bay astonished by skylarks
I remember all the humour and the love
Climbing cliffs then caught by geese and God

We were chased by geese in Devon after climbing a cliff.No doubt chased by a man after we peered into his garden