Collected Poems Page 23
work for many yars. My only quibbl is that Frnch
pots ar xcludd for rasons known only to th ditor.
French novelist, the late Georges Perec, published a 50,000-word novel, La Disparition (1969), entirely omitting the letter ‘e’.
I Don’t Like the Poems
I don’t like the poems they’re making me write
I really don’t like them at all
Hierograffiti I don’t understand
Scrawled on a hologrammed wall.
They wake me up in the middle of the night
I really don’t like them one bit
Dictating mysterious messages
That I am forced to transmit.
Messages with strange metaphors, ass-
onance, similes and the like.
Internal rhymes that chime, and alas
External ones that sometimes don’t quite make it.
I don’t like the poems they filter through me
Using words I never would use
Like ‘filter’, ‘hierograffiti’, ‘alien’
I’m enslaved by an alien muse.
***
And I notice, just lately, at readings
That friends whose work I have known
Unknowingly have started to write
In a similarly haunted tone.
Stumbling over poems we have to recite
In handwriting that isn’t our own.
Porno Poem
I felt dirty having to write this poem
But an obscene amount of cash was on offer
And had I refused you can be sure
That another poet would have rushed in.
As the reader of course, you are under
No obligation to get involved. Feel free to go.
(Cue music)
A woman with no clothes on is lying on a bed.
A man with no clothes on enters the bedroom.
They do sex. (Cue FX sighs, groans, etc.)
There. That’s the porno done and dusted
And to be honest, I’m glad that it’s over.
However, as you chose to read on
Perhaps you now regret having taken part
In the whole sordid affair. Especially
As you were the only one not getting paid.
This is One of Those
Poems in which the title is, in fact, the opening line.
And what appears to be the first line is really the second.
Failing to spot this device may result in the reader,
Unnerved and confused, giving up halfway through,
And either turning to another poem with a decent title
That invites him in, or (and this is more likely),
Throwing the book across the room and storming out
Into the voluptuous night* vowing never to return.
The Battle of Bedford Square
At a publishing party in Bedford Square
The critic is at ease
With lots of lady novelists
To flatter and to tease
He’s witty, irresistible,
Completely on the ball
A few more wines, who knows,
He might make love to them all
But one by one they disappear
With a smile, and a promise to phone
And suddenly it’s midnight
And suddenly he’s alone
He surveys the litter, arty,
In search of a back to stab
Anger jangling inside him
Like an undigested kebab
Across the ashen carpet
He staggers, glass in hand
And corners a northern poet
Whose verses he can’t stand
As if a bell had sounded
A space had quickly cleared
They were in a clinch and fighting
And the waiters, how they cheered
There was a flurry of books and mss
Bruises on the waxen fruit
A right to a left-over agent
Blood on the publisher’s suit
A hook to a Booker Prize runner-up
A left to a right-wing hack
A straight to the heart of the matter
And the critic’s on his back
An uppercut to an uppercrust diarist
From an anthropologist, pissed,
An Art Editor’s head in collision
With a Marketing Manager’s fist
Two novelists gay, were soon in the fray
Exchanging blow for blow
As the battle seeped into the Square
Like a bloodstain into snow
And though, at last, the police arrived
They didn’t intervene
‘What a way to launch a book.
Bloody typical Bloomsbury scene!’
All that now of course is history
And people come from far and wide
To see the spot where literary
Giants fought and died
Holding cross-shaped paper bookmarks
They mouth a silent prayer
In memory of those who fell
At the Battle of Bedford Square.
For the Sake of Argument
The cover of this book is yellow
But, for the sake of argument
Let us call it red.
It goes without saying that you are alive
But, for the sake of argument
Let us say you are dead.
And not only dead but buried
The headstone smeared with dirt.
(Don’t take offence, it’s merely polemic
You pretentious little squirt.
You self-regarding upstart
You couldn’t write if you tried.)
So, for the sake of argument
Let’s settle this outside.
***
Between the writer and the reader
Somewhere the meaning floats
And, waiting on the sidelines,
The poem holds the coats.
The Newly Pressed Suit
Here is a poem for the two of us to play.
Choose any part from the following:
The hero
The heroine
The bed
The bedroom
The newly pressed suit
(I will play the VILLAIN)
The poem begins this evening at a poetry-reading
Where the hero and the heroine
Are sitting and thinking of making love.
During the interval, unseen
they slip out and hurry home.
Once inside they waste no time.
The hero quickly undresses the heroine,
carries her naked into the bedroom
and places her gently upon the bed
like a newly pressed suit.
Just then I step into the poem.
With a sharp left hook
I render unconscious the hero
And with a cruel laugh
Leap upon the heroine
(The cavortings continue for several stanzas)
Thank you for playing.
When you go out tonight
I hope you have better luck in your poem
Than you had in mine.
Framed
In the Art Gallery
it is after closing time
everybody has left
except a girl
who is undressing
in front of a large painting
entitled: ‘Nude’
(The girl undressing
is the girl in the painting)
naked now she faces
the girl who gazes
out at the girl
who naked faces
the girl who
naked gazes out
of the picture
steps the nude
who smiles, dresses and walks away
leaving the naked girl
gazing into the empty space
Framed
by this poem.
the picture
In the Art Gallery it is nearly
closingtime. Everybody has left ex
cept a man and a younggirl
who are gazing at a picture
of themselves. Lifesize and life
like it could almost be a
mirror. However it is not a
mirror, because in a few minutes
a bell will ring and the man
and the younggirl will move
away leaving the original couple
staring into the empty space
provided by this poem.
The Revenge of My Last Duchess
Downstairs, Neptune taming the sea-horses, let us descend.
The Count your master is generous and I seek his daughter’s hand.
My first wife was put to death, at my command some say
I thought to reason with her, but that is not our way.
My name, after all, is nine hundred years old
She never appreciated that, and worse, her looks were bold.
Her eyes went everywhere and her smiles were cheap
Other men she whispered to, while moving in her sleep.
Bringing their lives, unwittingly, to an agonizing end.
Yes, even the painter of the portrait before which we stand.
Why do you ask? You pale. Why do you look alarmed?
A dagger raised? For pity’s sake I an unarmed.
You cry vengeance. I beg, sir, what harm have I done?
Frà Pandolf! Oh God, I see him now, you are his son!
How Patrick Hughes Got to be Taller
Patrick was always taller.
In Bradford
when he drove a brick wall
and grew prize rainbows
he certainly was.
One of his secrets
is self-portraiture.
He draws himself
up to his full height
then adds a few inches
for good measure.
Another is his ability
to reduce the scale of objects
and people around him.
While friends and I
shrink into middle age
Patrick, cock-a-snook,
stands out like a tall thumb
on the nose of time.
Evenings I see him,
perspected against the bar
Full of tromple-l’œil
Beer in hand
Taller.
The Boyhood of Raleigh
After the painting by Millais
Entranced, he listens to salty tales
Of derring-do and giant whales,
Uncharted seas and Spanish gold,
Tempests raging, pirates bold.
And his friend? ‘God, I’m bored.
As for Jolly Jack I don’t believe a word.
What a way to spend the afternoons –
the stink of fish, and those ghastly pantaloons!’
Ex art student
Neat-haired and
low-heeled
you live without passion
hold down
a dull job
in the world of low fashion
ambition
once prickly
is limpid is static
portfolioed
your dreams
lie now in the attic
The Theatre
On arriving at the theatre in good time there was no queue
so I collected my ticket and passed through the empty foyer.
I bought a programme and called in briefly at the bar
before settling into my seat in the centre stalls.
I opened the programme to find that every page was blank
and was on the point of returning to the foyer to complain
when the house-lights began to fade. At that moment
I realized that I was completely alone in the auditorium.
But it didn’t matter, because when the curtain rose
and the stage was flooded with light… nothing happened.
The only sound was the buzzing of the electrics
The only movement, the occasional ripple of the back-cloth.
Reluctantly at first I watched an empty space
thinking, I am watching an empty space. Then slowly
the emptiness within me began to fill the vacuum without.
Too soon the safety curtain like a dull screen-saver.
To avoid the usual crush I had taken the precaution
of ordering my interval drinks before the performance.
And alone in the bar sipped my whisky impatiently
until the first bell called me back to my seat.
Though similar in every respect, the second half
was even better than the first, and internalizing,
I could more easily interpret the significance
of what I was not seeing. The effect was dramatic.
When the final curtain fell I knew I had witnessed genius.
I jumped to my feet and applauded. ‘Author!’ I cried. ‘Author!’
As the applause died down I climbed on stage, took a bow,
and with all due modesty, acknowledged the silence.
Big Ifs
To the mourners round his deathbed
William Blake was moved to say:
‘Oh, if only I had taken
The time to write that play.’
Nor was William Shakespeare
Finally satisfied:
‘I know there’s a novel in me.’
(No sooner said than died.)
Beethoven in his darkest hour
Over and over he railed:
‘If only I had learned guitar
Before my hearing failed.’
In the transept of St Paul’s
Slumped Sir Christopher Wren:
‘I’d give them something really good
If I could only do it again.’
Leonardo, Mozart, Rembrandt
Led sobbing through the Pearly Gates:
‘If only I’d have…
I could have been one of the Greats.’
Children’s Writer
John in the garden
Playing goodies and baddies
Janet in the bedroom
Playing mummies and daddies
Mummy in the kitchen
Washing and wiping
Daddy in the study
Stereotyping
Joinedupwriting
From the first
tentative scratch on the wall
To the final
unfinished, hurried scrawl:
One poem.
A Literary Riddle
I am
Out of my tree
Away with the fairies
A nut. A fruitcake. What am I?
Answer: one line short of a cinquain
What prevents a poem from stretching into Infinity?
what prevents a poem
from stretching into Infinity
is the invisible frame
of its self-imposed concinnity
Haiku
Snowman in a field
listening to the raindrops
wishing him farewell
Two Haiku
only trouble with
Japanese haiku is that
You write one, and then
only seventeen
syllables later you want
to write another.
The Spotted Unicorn
‘Chi Wen Tzu always thought three times before taking action. Twice would have been quite enough.’
Having been an admirer of the great Chinese philosopher Confucius for many years, I was reading through Book 5 of the Analects (the choicest pearls of his wisdom) when I was suddenly struck by the above. Who was this Chi Wen Tzu? And what manner of man always reflected thrice before acting? My research led me to the discovery of a number of diaries written by an indecisive and yet inventive and brilliant poet, whose j
ournal will shed surprising new light on a little-known period of ancient history.
8 October 480 B.C.
Tonight, young wife lying naked
on panda-skin rug. Full moon
hanging in sky like Chinese lampshade
(one of those round white ones).
At sight of fragrant body
its hills and valleys
bathed in silver light
am overcome with desire.
Wonder what course of action to take?
Make love, then and there?
Make tea, then make love?
Open bottle of rice-wine,
write up day’s events in diary,
relax in warm bath,
then make love?
9 October
Wife gone home to mother for fortnight.
Not like being woken up at 4 a.m.
by drunken diarist.
Tonight, house cold and empty
as purse of K’ung Fu Tzu.
Have not eaten all day
so think about what to do for supper:
Send out for take-away?
Drop in at Hard Wok Café?
Crack open third bottle of rice-wine and see how feel later?