Slim Dickens
David Copperfield
now there’s a name
to conjure with.
Let’s read Oliver Twist again
like we did last summer
let’s read Oliver Twist again
like we did last year.
Great Expectorations –
the plague novel
he never wrote.
Raccoons in the Road
caught in the headlights:
too much eye shadow, fellas,
too much eye shadow.
Late at night in the White House
while Donald’s in bed asleep,
the dead presidents
one and all
leave their places
on the wall
to dance their dance
to sing their song
of presidential grief.
Sunshine On Goodge Street (Donovan mash-up)
in the chilly hours and minutes of uncertainty
a violent hash smoker shook a chocolate machine
and sunshine came softly through my window,
thrown like a star in my vast sleep
I opened my eyes to take a peek.
Yes, I could have tripped out easy
forever to fly, wind velocity nil
but I decided to stay.
(Donovan Phillips Leitch
Superman and Green Lantern
ain’t got nothing on you)
This is a found poem using lines from 5 Donovan songs: Catch the Wind, Sunny Goodge Street, Sunshine Superman, Hurdy Gurdy Man and Mellow Yellow. I’m sure you can figure out which line came from where, but just a note on the second line:
“a violent hash smoker shook a chocolate machine”.
This line is from Sunny Goodge Street and is my favorite Donovan line because of its inherent music –violent, smoker, shook, chocolate, all those o’s, that recurring ‘k’ and the internal rhyme between hash and mash. Say it out loud a couple of times and it will stick in your head!
Sunny Goodge Street appears on Donovan’s second album “Fairytale” and , according to Wikipedia, it “foreshadows the jazzy feel and descriptions of life in urban London that Donovan would continue to explore over the next two years”. There are a few covers out there (Judy Collins and Tom Northcroft), but they are little too earnest and none match the sludgy stoned feel of the original. The recording of the song is almost perfect, except for Harold McNair’s flute solo in the middle which nearly derails the whole thing. Take a listen:
Taking part on Open Link Night over at dVerse!
The Food on Air Canada Rouge
What’s worse than a summer deluge?
What’s worse than Christmas with Ebeneezer Scrooge?
What’s worse than a ride on a runaway luge?
the food on Air Canada Rouge.
What’s worse than a sequel to “In Bruges”?
What’s worse than a night in a crowded refuge?
(the air, loud with snores, the air a flatulent brew)
What’s worse than another night in the same refuge?
the food on Air Canada Rouge.
Air Canada Rouge is a no frills version of a no frills airline. Last year, I travelled with them from Barcelona to Toronto and it was a long nine hours – the on board entertainment system (download an app, sign on to on board Wi-Fi) didn’t work, legroom was minimal, service was begrudging, and as for the food, see above.
The prompt from Lisa over at dVerse is to write a poem on the subject of food, so I thought I would give this post another outing!
When Poets Fall Out
I know something’s up
you’re sending mixed metaphors
your rhythm’s way off.
Autumn Nail Sketch (haiku)
trees leaking colour
like a paint store catalogue
et tu, chlorophyll?
Taking part in Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #103 The Quest For A New Masterpiece Continues … Start Of Autumn.
The Name is at the Bottom Blues
it’s a name that you come across
in someone else’s bathroom
beside the shaving cream
the Tylenol
and those pills that people use
and suddenly
you’re soaked
in melancholy
from your head
down to your shoes
there ain’t no doubt about it
there ain’t no doubt about it
you’ve got those Estee Lauder blues.
Taking part in Open Link Night over at dverse!
Waiting for Slim
Sunday afternoon in late June
I’m sitting outside The Post-Coital Beetle
watching the traffic on Broadway,
at the next table, four bearded guys
wearing flat caps and plaid shirts,
looking like the bastard sons of Mumford,
are downing pints of over-hopped pale ale.
At the traffic lights, an eighteen year old Asian kid
checks his hair in the rear view mirror
while his Lamborghini growls
like a panther on a leash.
And who is this slouching along Broadway
his bald head shining in the sun?
No, it is not an image out of Spiritus Mundi,
it’s not one of the boys of summer,
it’s Slim,
a man with all the charm of a pit bull with distemper;
his remaining hair is scrunched into an angry man-bun
he’s carrying a magazine
which he slams down on the table in front of me
“Look at this bullshit!” he whines.
Later, as the sun goes down over Point Grey
and automatic timers turn lights
on in empty Styrofoam mansions,
we settle in to a plate of nachos
and one pitcher follows another
until we find ourselves face to face
trading lines like Lennon and McCartney (well, not quite)
and driven by our shared admiration
of Melania Trump’s granite cheekbones
we compose this maudlin cri de couer
Melania
his megalomania
don’t let it stain ya
don’t let it restrain ya
don’t let it contain ya
and if he should fail ya
remember this:
you know the size
of his hands
and his……..
(the last line is drowned out
by the roar of a feral Ferrari
tearing down Broadway).
The challenge from Sarah over at dverse is to write a poem about waiting, thought I’d revive this one.
The great Paul Simon once said: “I’d rather be a bucket than a pail”. Ok, maybe he didn’t but perhaps he should have. Anyway, this is not about rhymin’ Simon, this is about rhymin’ Diamond who once said:
I am, I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair
Implying that, in a room containing inanimate objects, the object most likely to reply would be a chair. That chair is important, not just because it rhymes with “there”. The chair suggests that Neil is in a room, and there is only one chair (“the chair”), so Neil is most likely lying on a bed and of course he is alone, so alone that he has resorted to talking to the furniture. Without the chair, he could be anywhere, it becomes the focus of his existential crisis. This is a “pop song”, grab the attention of the audience or they are gone and it has to look easy and that’s hard and he does it through that one detail, the chair.
It has to be said that Neil is perhaps not at the same level as Paul Simon when it comes to poetic, sophisticated lyrics, but he has his moments. Take the first verse of “ Cracklin’ Rosie”:
“Aw, Cracklin’ Rosie, get on board
We’re gonna ride
Till there ain’t no more to go
Taking it slow
And Lord, don’t you know
We’ll have me a time with a poor man’s lady”
There’s that internal rhyme happening – board, more, Lord, poor -and all those ‘O’s’, fifteen in total! And the assonance in the chorus of
“Cracklin’ Rose,
You’re a store-bought woman”
It goes a bit downhill after that – “you make me sing like a guitar hummin’” – hummin’ and woman – ouch!
But, for my money, Neil’s finest moment when it comes to writing lyrics is in “Sweet Caroline”. The song, admittedly, is not without some absolute groaners:
“Where it began,
I can’t begin to knowin’”
And that’s the first two lines.
Even the chorus, which contains that finest moment is a syntactical nightmare:
Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I’ve been inclined,
To believe they never would
Oh, no, no
I have wrestled with this for some time and the best I can come up with is this: ”I’ve been inclined to believe that good times never would never seem so good”. Think about that too long and I guarantee that steam will come out of your ears. But it doesn’t matter, because all that matters is that rhyme between “Sweet Caroline” and “I’ve been inclined”. He could have gone for “fine”, “wine”, “mine” etc but there is something about “inclined” that is so unexpected, so colloquial, so conversational. It surprises every time you hear it. And of course, the acid test of any chorus is how well it does in a pub or bar late in the evening and everyone is a little hammered and some skinny guy on acoustic guitar hauls out “Sweet Caroline” and everyone is just waiting to belt out that chorus and I guarantee you that the volume will perceptibly increase when they reach that line and everyone takes just a little credit for recognising how clever it is.
Self-consciously Poetic Haiku referencing Greek Mythology
twixt deck and deck post
Arachne’s tremulous web
shimmers with wet pearls
Two Bros at the Art Gallery
v- necked, buffed, burnished
pumped, pectoral, and puzzled,
aerobatic hair.
hard men, old hatred,
prod, papist, patriot games
I thought you were done.
**********
haiku prompted by
the pratfall that is Brexit
and the re-entry
to my consciousness
of the DUP, Sinn Fein
and Gerry Adams.
Redwood Haiku
new shoots from old roots
deep in the cedar forest
I’m birthing clichés
End of Summer double septo (redux)
like a wasp in late August
circling a bin of regrets.
This poem is a double septo also known as a quatorze, it consists of two seven syllable lines.
Boris Johnson at the G7
Can’t believe I’m here.
Oh! The joy of dissembling!
Japes, pranks and capers!
What is Macron looking at?
I think Donald might like me.
There’s Melania!
Those cheekbones, the north face of
the bloody Eiger,
scale her promontories, what!
No time for rumpy pumpy,
lots to do! Trudeau
is smirking, colonial
prat! I think Merkel
wants to spank me, go nanny!
Concentrate! Now where was I?
The nice people over at The Galway Review have published two of my poems: Naming Things and Having a Coffee and Reading Tom Wolfe on Chomsky in Harper’s.
Check them out here.
Cats I Have Known
there’s the cat with nine tails
there’s the cat with nine lives
there’s the cat that got my tongue
there’s the cat that is out of the bag
there’s the cat that curiosity killed
Percy was our first
a long-haired white
a tour bus for fleas
he led a long and lazy life
those fleas didn’t get around much.
Next came Sweeney
who left us too early
killed by a car
in the back lane.
Then Sasha the hunter
who brought us daily gifts
of dead birds and mice
and fought an ongoing battle
for ownership of the back yard
with two blue jays.
Sasha, too, fell foul of a car
in the back lane,
I heard about it
while checking into a Holiday Inn
somewhere in Alabama,
the peroxide permed ladies
at the front desk
passed me a note
which simply said:
“Sasha is dead”.
“Sasha is a cat”, I explained,
seeing the look of concern
on their powdered faces,
this did nothing to alleviate the gloom
I couldn’t get my room keys fast enough.
That was enough catastrophe for us,
Sasha’s ashes now rest in an urn
nestled in the bowl of the cherry tree
in the back yard
where she is visited frequently
by her former prey.
Photo : graffiti in Getsemani, Colombia
Taking part in Anmols’ prompt “all things feline” Over at dverse
No anagrams have been harmed in the making of this poem
when Loren
enrolled in Lawrence
she got a Rolex
a Rolodex
and a Grecian urn
from her uncle Lorne
a longshoreman
who lived by the shore.
Haiku overheard at the Day Care Centre
Brett is sensitive
about his silhouette don’t
look at him sideways.
Toad at the Gates of Doom
Outside the Gates of Hades
sits a cross-eyed toad
beside a burnt-out serpent
a broker and a phone
Outside the Gates of Heaven
sits an angel in disguise
beside an incontinent bishop
with ecstasy in his eyes
and the sign on the gate says:
Closed for Renovation
no judgement today
if you’re looking for accommodation
clear off, go away.
God is on vacation
taking a well-earned break
there’s only so much suffering
one true God can take
So, get your ass back down there
be good to everyone
drink lots of water
and try to get along.
(This poem came about because, for a brief period, I was listening to prog metal. Brief because, like all things prog, the talent rarely matches the ambition, the concepts. Pink Floyd were a progressive band but they were successful because they could write songs and had one of the best lyricists in rock, the concepts were secondary. Prog metal players, from what I can tell , are accomplished musicians – the guitarists can play at incredible speeds and the drummers sound like they are descended from the octopus but the lyrics are banal at best and the melodies vestigial. The album titles, though, are always interesting and that’s where this poem started – I was playing around with making up titles for prog metal concept albums…the poem evolved from there.)
Taking part in Open Link Night over at dVerse.
A version of this poem appeared with 4 other poems, a little while back in the online magazine Anti-Heroin Chic
The subject over at dverse today is “Smoke and Mirrors”, so I thought I would give the poem another outing.
Drain The Swamp Rag
(Walk that back
walk that back
I know I said it
but I walked that back.)
Attack dog surrogates
inveterate invertebrates
re-stock the swamp
with old white males.
Post logic, post truth,
snake oil and kool-aid
re-stock the swamp
with old white males.
Mike Pence, John Bolton
Rudy Giuliani
re-stock the swamp
with old white males
Inveterate surrogates
attack dog invertebrates
re-mail the stock
to the old white swamp
re-stock the swamp
with old white males.
The Unbearable Lightness of Verse 2
Last mango in Paris
last tangerine in Tangier
last farrago in Flanders
the last, the final frontier.
Last rutabaga in Tobago
last almond in Algiers
last marionette in Mar-a-Lago
the last, the final frontier.
Lines randomly composed while listening to a band from the Maritimes in the Dubh Linn Gate Pub, Whistler, British Columbia
Oh. the herring were running wild and fast
as we sailed out from St. John
and the cod were plump as Mary’s arse
on a Sunday morning after early mass
with sausages on the griddle, rashers in the pan
with a whack fol de diddle dairy oh
with a whack fol de diddle dan.
(my first and, hopefully, my last attempt at a seafaring song…a note to my readers:
please drink responsibly or you will end up writing rubbish like the above…)
Stopdraggingthepanda 