My Fertile Period

Rather encouraged by the fact that virtually no one actually reads this, I have the confidence to express myself more. Way back in the past I would attempt to write poetry. However, my "muse" eventually dried up (if it ever had any juice in it at all) and so I just have a small back catalogue. I will blog a few of my efforts here. 

The first is/was my one and only "success", having been read out at the "Old Court" theatre in my home town as one of the top ten in a local competition. Just to add that the reader got it all wrong, reciting the words with a deep serious pomposity that was far from my own rather ironical and ambiguous attitude towards the words. No matter, here is my opus, titled "Before Bacon: An Ode to Despair":-

Oh! I wish I'd been born before Bacon
When the sun still moved in the sky,
When hope was in more than a daydream
And beauty in more than the eye.

When the Great Chain of Being had God at the top
And Old Nic down below in his lair,
When people were burnt for love of their souls
And not just because they were there.

Back in those days before Auschwitz
When there was till trust to betray,
Before Symbol and Myth became Number
And the Cross became DNA.

Oh! I wish I'd been born before Bacon
When Saints trod the Pilgrim's Path,
When people still jumped at a bump in the night
And not at a bump in a graph.

When Crusades were fought for Truths believed
And Faith was the Devils hammer,
Nothingness only the clay God used,
The Absurd a Bishop's stammer!

When Man was seen as something more
Than atoms swirling in air,
Before the face of the Risen Christ
Became the face of despair.

Yes, I wish I'd been born before Bacon
Though there's not much to choose in the end;
But I might have had serfs and a castle
And I might have had Christ as a friend.

The "absurd" - unless, of course, "the journey is home"

Well, on to another, a poem about a young severely handicapped boy who once lived next door to us. His name was George. One day when I left the house his mother was standing beside his pushchair. She was chatting to another lady, who just as I passed reached down and patted the child's head and I heard her say:- "he's a little angel". I remember a feeling of rage at her words which I never understood at the time. But anyway, I wrote this - intentionally naive - little verse:-

see no wings on georgie

else he would be bound

set no seal upon him

place no fences round

see him not for what he could be

what he should or what he would be

see him as he is before you

love the living truth, see georgie

hope for guidance, hold no answers

in the mornings when you wake him

as he casts his eyes upon you

your response can make or break him

I think that the reason I eventually stopped attempting to write poetry was that I discovered the "real" stuff. Which is sad in certain ways. Even though our own attempts are often no more than doggerel they are ours and often seek to express emotions, viewpoints and human empathy. That such is expressed in what in a literary sense is poor is in many ways beside the point. Knowing ourselves and expressing ourselves has a value beyond literary merit as such.

Anyway, as I say I discovered the "real" stuff. Partly due to a guy called Malcolm Muggeridge who had a way with words. He would often quote a couplet or two from William Blake which touched a chord in me. Up until then, and from my experience at school (where the only poems we were introduced to were awful pompous celebrations of the British fighting spirit), the poetry I knew was boring. Blake I found was not boring, and I eventually bought a "Portable Blake" and his "Songs of Innocence and Experience" were genuinely life changing. I moved on from there.

The British Fighting Spirit

While my muse was active (I am joking) I kept a little note book, so my efforts must have meant something at the time. What was strange as I read through them many years later was that I could hardly remember writing some of them. One in particular seemed to come up out of nowhere and was particularly striking in a very emotional way; this because eventually my own mother declined with dementia, and her last three or so years were particularly stressful in many ways. So my words, written before this happened, made me think of those who may have just passed my own mother by as she must sometimes have stood, bewildered and lost.

And When She Had Gone, Pity Came

She seemed to have no yesterdays

And very little else

As she stood alone in the passing crowds

Staring, talking to herself.

I approached her with a numbing dread

Would she turn to me and speak

And isolate me from a kinship made

With all others on that street?

But I had no need to worry -

Her mouth gaped and trembled wide;

So I passed her without a sideways glance

And left her far behind

Yet looked back. She had moved at last

To the pavements edge, still lost -

(I remember thinking how strange it seemed

That she looked before she crossed)

As said above, with my own mother declining with dementia well after I wrote this, it now has more resonance with me. During her decline, mum went out and got herself knocked down by a car. So yes. Makes me think.

Another few of "me poems" and then I will call it a day. The next is called "Palm Sunday", which can mean many things. For me, at the moment, I think of the wars of religion and the inquisitions, the sheer pageantry and might of the so called "ages of faith", and I wonder what it was all about compared to, say, a mothers love for her child. Each to their own.

I was standing on some low ground

Near the road from Bethany

When suddenly the distant sound

Of cheering came to me.

I looked up, saw a distant crowd

Where rocks and roadside met

But what was causing cries so loud

I could not see as yet.

Within my heart a wonder flowed -

A longing to draw near,

Yet as I reached the winding road

I found the way was clear

The cheering crowds had moved away,

Left nothing to be found

But dust upon the beaten clay

And palm leaves scattered round.

What price a cup of tea?

Here we have a ditty written after actually hearing the words "Oh! What an exquisite desk!" in the High Street while feeling, myself, just a little pissed off with life.

"Oh! What an exquisite desk!" she said,
Gushing away from her husband's hand.
Then "Oh! what a lovely four-poster bed!"
(Later the Ming vase on its stand).

So she continued, voice rising shrill,
Straining to wrench life and death apart,
Using American Express to fill
The empty mansions of the heart.

And finally, we all know the programmes where the experts and the analysers all earn their wages summing up the latest "situation".

Those programmes are always the same;
Those Current Affairs programmes are always the same.
The editions that deal with some new war,
Those programmes are always the same.
First the historical background is given;
How historically the conflict arose,
How the crisis began - such information is given.
Then the World Perspective is given;
Everything is put into context.
The conflict is put into focus.
The Superpowers - all are placed in perspective.
The relevant politicians are referred to;
The words and attitudes of the relevant politicians are referred to;
A relevant speech of a relevant politician is referred to.
There is some in-depth analysis.
Then some film is shown of the actual battle area;
The areas actually touched by the conflict are shown.
Where the bombs have fallen - some film is shown.
Then come the women and children screaming.
Then come the women and children screaming.
Then come the women and children screaming.
Then come the women and children screaming.
Then various solutions to the crisis are discussed;
Various proposals for resolving the conflict are discussed.
The various experts discuss the various proposals.
Those programmes are always the same.

No one need be screaming

Protecting oneself, one protects others.

Protecting others, one protects oneself

(Buddhist text)