Month: April 2005

In Honour of Doctor Johnson, and the Anniversary of the Publication of his Famous and Much-Admired Dictionary, a Poem Composed Entirely of such Words as Cannot be Found* in that Celebrated Volume

chipotle hamburger shemale Messerschmitt
tartrazine Tanzania underclass
skyscraper reggae bicarb retrofit
ufologist Joycean supergrass

*Probably. No copies of Johnson’s dictionary were consulted in the making of this poem.

___________________________

A day late posting because Freezope was down again. Yesterday was the 250th anniversary of the publication of Johnson’s dictionary.

‘An Essex Pome’

Most poets lie, then claim that their ‘poetic truth’
subsumes the normal kind.

Not me. When I write that I stabbed a frog
so I could watch it die,
or that my father had a special belt
for punishment,
or that I paid my way through university
with blow-jobs,

every word is true. Even the little things,
the jays on the front of the house,
or the dolphin I saw in the Thames,
are true.

So when I tell you that I am the long-lost King
of Essex, you can know it is the truth.

I understand you’re sceptical,
so come and see the brown-stained vellum
with an Anglo-Saxon script
proclaiming Edwin Ruðe fford
the king of the East Saxons.
I have the family tattoo, as well,
the three entwisted eels of Essex.

My aims are modest; I don’t want to run
everything from Theydon Bois to Harwich.
I just want the ancient rights granted by the charter:
my weight in apples on All-Hallows Day,
first dibs on any whale or sturgeon stranded on the coast,
the right to drive a herd of sheep through Chigwell.

‘Jays’

Jays are building their nest on the front of the house.
They are stucco-pink and chatter to each other.
Their wings have a flash of lucid blue.
Each time one swoops to or from the chestnut tree, the kitchen darkens.
Last time they built here, the fledgling fell from the nest.
It hopped around for three days before it was pecked to death by crows.

The Knight with the Sorrowful Face

A forest near Seville.
Enter PEDRO and DOROTHEA.

Cardenio, Act 4, Scene 2

The old man was a nutter,
sure enough, with his talk of Roland and Amadís.
But he was a good man with it.
Before he lost his marbles
he often helped us,
when mildew spoiled the grapes
on the vines, or the rains failed
and the wheat-fields dried to dust.
That was why I joined him, not for fevered promises
of islands and earldoms, but because
he needed me. When, in the night,
he shook and cried out in his sleep,
I was the one to calm him,
use a wet rag to cool his face.
But that dick Cervantes
made me into a credulous oaf,
and now this windbag Shakespeare
has cut me from the story altogether.
It tears my heart to see Señor Quijote
made into a comic turn
for the drunken stinking London crowd.
A pox on writers.

I really need to spend more time on the titles.
—-

‘thoughts’

I light the gas and wonder
how many specks of prehistoric life
died so I could fry
some bacon for my sarnie?

And if I died at sea
and was enfolded in the silt,
would there be enough of me
to boil the water
for a cup of tea?