The English Midfield
Without being asked
I have just taken ten minutes
to explain to my wife
the problem with the English midfield
I used a salt shaker
a pepper grinder
and a fresh lemon
she will never get those ten minutes back.
Punam over at dverse asks us to “Write about your favourite drink (alcoholic/non-alcoholic), write about getting drunk, use drinking as a metaphor, in short: write a poem in a form of your choice with a drinking connection”. (Update: I omitted to link this to Punam’s prompt, so I am now linking it to Open Link Night at dverse)
Willie’s Oasis
Houses hunker in the heat
Out on highway 82
The landscape sweats and saunters
Billboards block the view
And this is not New York City
This is not Saginaw
This a dry county, son
This is Arkansas
And I need a pack of Pauli Girl
I need a bottle of wine
I’m heading for Willie’s Oasis
Outside the county line
There’s a woman in line waiting
Someone’s girlfriend, someone’s wife
Says she wakes up every morning
And asks:”Is this my life?”
Beef jerky on the counter
Pickles in a jar
This is a dry county, son
This is Arkansas
And I need a pack of Pauli Girl
I need a bottle of wine
I’m heading for Willie’s Oasis
Outside the county line
Good ol’ boys are chugging out
Storm clouds on the horizon
The water looks like iced tea
Birds are improvising
And this is far from New York city
Far from Saginaw
This is Ashley County, son
This is Arkansas
My friend John Mitchell turned the lyrics into the song above (that’s Ben Mink on violin, look him up!).
Hurricane Donald
What mighty wind blows hard out of Mar-A-Lago
up-ending facts like trailers in a trailer park
ripping the roofs off reputations
revealing the gyrations in the bedrooms below
hailing down bombast and innuendo
on the corrugated tin of truth
a wind that makes Ian and Fiona
look like that nice Scottish couple across the road
(Is she Irish?), the ones you should invite over for dinner
or is it just a storm in a tumbler
is it just Donald raving
in the cocktail hour of his years.
Taking part in Open Link Weekend over at earthweal
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
Why did Yeats choose nine bean rows? Can’t say I know for sure, but let’s give it a try….
So let’s say that any number below five would not be enough bean rows for W.B.’s bean needs, then how about ” five”:
Five bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
It works, the “five” rhymes with “hive” and half –rhymes with “live”, but to my ear, there are too many “v’s”.
So let’s discard “six” because of that “x” and “seven” because of the two syllables and “eight” because it doesn’t chime with any of the other words, except maybe the “t” picks up the “t” in “there”. How about “ten”?
Ten bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade
We’re getting there: “ TeN, beaN, hoNey, aloNe,…….that “N” sound repeating but …..
”NINE ” wins !!! It has the consonance of the “n’s” and it also has that half rhyme with “hive” and “live”.
It’s almost as if Yeats knew what he was doing.
Footnote: A friend of mine told me recently that he had no recollection of studying Yeats at school. When he said this, those opening line from The Lake Isle of Inisfree, sprang in to my head “I will arise and go now, and go to Inisfree”, which I have heard so often that it has now taken on an orotund, stage Irish plumminess.
Our English teacher, Mr Courtney, loved that “bee-loud glade”.
Autumnal Sketch (haiku)
trees leaking colour
like a paint store catalogue
et tu, chlorophyll!
PUNK
Walking down Commercial
On a sunlit lunchtime
I see this guy talking to this girl –
She’s got tattoos, rings, black hair,
Blonde streaks – he is leaning forward
She is leaning back
And as I pass by, he says:” I have always thought
That punk and hip-hop have more in common
Than they have not.”
The peak of his baseball cap is flipped back
like he‘s caught in a wind tunnel.
Noise cancelling head phones circle his neck.
Is that an egg stain on his cardigan?
Did he play bass once in a band called Head Lice?
Or is he just another fan?
Who knows?
He looks disheveled, disinterred,
Pale as a Pogue*.
And I want to stop
And tell him
That I don’t know about hip hop
But I have always thought that punk
Is the sound
Of someone puking pints
Outside a pub at midnight
Without implying
That is necessarily a bad thing.
*Pale as a Pogue
I shared a plane once with The Pogues on a flight from Vancouver from Chicago . I got bumped up to business class (I was flying a lot at the time). The Pogues were also in business class, on the way to Vancouver for a gig. The year was 1991, I know this because Joe Strummer was with them and according to Wikipedia he joined the band for a short period in 1991 , Shane MacGowan had left due to drinking problems.
They were the palest, skinniest, sickest group of people I had ever seen. They looked like creatures who spent most of their time at the bottom of the ocean at a depth where the sun could not penetrate, or maybe they just got up late in the afternoon.
The only thing I remember from the trip is that Joe Strummer was ordering drinks as soon as the seat belt sign went off. Vodka and tonic was his drink of choice, I think. When the stewardess brought his first drink, she said:
“ I hope that’s not too strong for you, sir”
Joe replied: “Too strong? Too Strong?” and began to laugh hysterically and continued to laugh for quite some time. As the flight progressed he would turn every now and again to the other Pogues and shout “Too Strong?” and start laughing all over again. I guess he was taking the Shane MacGowan role seriously.
Graffiti Photo was taken in Getsemani, Cartagena, Colombia.
This poem was previously posted in Open Link Night over at dverse
Loose Thoughts About Change
doom has a harbinger
death has an angel
change has an agent;
if the winds of change are blowing,
staying inside is always an option;
to embrace change
put your hand in your pocket.
Goodbye Boris, Goodbye Liz, Hello Rishi!
I have to say
as an Irish person
how proud and honored I am
that the United Kingdom has appointed a prime minister
whose first name is an anagram of “Irish”;
I know we and the English have had our troubles in the past
Troubles with a capital T
(the Plantation of Ulster…don’t get me started)
but the English are subtle people
not given to public displays of emotion
and this gesture is quintessentially English in its subtlety
it’s as if they are saying thank you for Father Ted
it brings a tear to my eye
it takes the oatmeal biscuit
so “Hello Rishi”
as they say in Ireland
“buachaill inniu, fear amarach”
or loosely translated from the Gaelic
“I hope your politics change soon”.
Taking part in OpenLink over at dverse
Photo : statue of Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square, Dublin.
The Morning After
a forest fire haze turns the morning sun orange,
down in the Village square
dazed coffee drinkers nurse their hangovers
too many stayed too late at the Dublin Gate
here and there perky couples with dogs
take photos for their blogs,
jpegs spiral upwards into the cloud
which is not a cloud
it’s a bank of a billion hard drives
humming hard in flat roofed, air-conditioned buildings
somewhere I will always think of as Texas
no snow on the mountains
the glaciers have retreated
as if they’re afraid of something
leaving behind bare granite
over on the islands
there is talk of low water tables
and no water for the table
we fiddle while forests burn
Nero….. Nero has nothing on us.
This is a response to Lindi’s excellent challenge over at earthweal
Repartee
Slim gets off the no.3 bus
at the corner of Hastings and Main
-the corner of Desperate and Lost-
having travelled east on the 99 express,
his nose stuck in the feral stink
of some guy’s armpit,
wishing, not for the first time,
that he was six inches taller.
A country lyric twangs in his head
something about “the losing side of town”.
He surveys the wreckage all around him:
a guy with a raw scabrous face
scratches frantically;
a bundle of rags twitches in a doorway;
people are scurrying back and forth
like they’ve received a message
from an alien dispatcher
that the mother ship has landed,
and they can’t find a toothbrush;
further on in a laneway that smells of piss
a man and a woman, both dressed in black
with sweating raddled faces
sway back and forth shouting:
Fuck you! No! Fuck you!
in a profane loop.
Repartee, Slim says,
to no one in particular,
what an unexpected bonus.
This poem first appeared in The Galway Review
Taking part in OpenLink over at dverse
The Reverend George Weeble
The Reverend George Weeble
liked to visit churches
in foreign lands,
his parishioners called him:
the steeplechaser.
When I’m old and feeble,
George Weeble said,
when I retire, George Weeble said,
I want to be
where the spires conspire
to show me the way.
(this is one from mid pandemic)
I think I made a mistake
baselines, fault lines , paradigm shifts
ignorance has been weaponized
what will we do, what will we do
when all the nouns are verbed?
I think I made a mistake
how is there still doubt in that sentence?
A man goes to a party
to get infected with a virus
in order to prove
that the virus is a hoax,
the man dies.
It’s hard not to be harsh.
Is this a new baseline,
a new low?
Is it an intelligence deficit?
Is it lack of education?
No, this is something different
this is a sea change
the beast has left Bethlehem
the malware has been activated
the human race has started to self-limit.
Whatever god, assembly of gods
or conglomerate of alien scientists
malevolent or benevolent
that designed this whole shebang
that opened this can of worms
has had enough
the malware has been activated
the fix is in
it’s past midnight and the eagle has flown
Aunt Mary is hanging out the washing
the human race has started to self-limit.
A man goes to a party
to get infected with a virus
in order to prove
that the virus is a hoax,
the man dies.
Sanaa over at dverse asks us to :
“For Today’s Poetics, I want you all to write in the style of the Beat Generation. Pour out the first thought, the first thing that comes to mind and let the words take you forward.
Feel free to write about darker (more under-rated) subjects. The aim here is to explore the “human condition,” and to write spontaneously. Shall we?”
I thought the above poem might fit.
(Thanks to Brendan over at earthweal for the original challenge: Observe shifting baselines in your world, in climate change, your nation’s governance, the pandemic. )
Tracker
No sign of them for days
then a raven rising above the trees
seen from a boat on the swirling river
leads the tracker
to the bodies of the killers
mosquito whine, black flies buzzing
a homicide, then a suicide
evil turning on itself.
Taking part in the Quadrille (44 word poem) prompt over at dverse. The prompt word is “track”!
The Unbearable Lightness of Verse 8
he was a tautology
an oxymoron
a figure of speech
an agnostic
an atheist
he beggared belief
he was terminally contradictory
though he would say
he was not
he was a man for all seasonings
but not paprika
not bergamot.
Taking part in OpenLinkNight over at dverse.
After the Queen’s Funeral
after 10 days of pomp, mourning
and celebrity tears
the evening news with alarming insouciance
reverts to reality
the high cost of bananas
the prices at the pump
the war in Ukraine
another climate change catastrophe
the door slams shut on a fairy tale world
of kings, queens, princes and princesses
palaces, country estates, horses, hounds, corgis
and armor that’s always shining.
Desire – what is it good for?
tender is the night
long is the day’s journey into night
it’s easier to name a street car
than it is to name one’s desire
never attempt a ménage in a glass menagerie
there is nothing less erotic than a red wheelbarrow
a thing of beauty is a joy for a fortnight.
This poem was originally written as a response to Anmol Arora’s prompt – Poetics: Desire and Sexuality in Poetry, at dverse
photo taken in Sitges, Catalonia.
Also taking part in Open Link over at earthweal: earthweal
Summer has left the building
is already in the limo
snorting white powder
drinking champagne
dupes, fall guys
we wait for the encore
ignoring the bouncer
pointing to the door .
Taking part in OpenLink over at dverse
walk past the writing on the wall
look neither left nor right
*************
always whistle past a graveyard
*************
today is the first day
of the rest of your life
tomorrow is the next
*************
walk towards the noise
walk towards the noise
*************
neither a floater
nor a settler be
*************
to find the person of your dreams
you must first fall asleep
**************
if you’re feeling abysmal
pepto bismol will do nothing
**************
talk softly
don’t carry sticks of any size
**************
be all you can be
then try harder
***************
like a frog down a well
we only know the walls.
***************
to leave no footprint
we must fly and never land.
***************
never drink anything blue
***************
life is waiting for the other shoe
Taking part in Open Link over at dverse, where the prompt is Aphorisms
South of Bijou
Somewhere south of Bijou
they left themselves behind
the car smelt of stale coffee
they didn’t read the signs.
Somewhere north of Chamomile
they went their separate ways
peas split from a pod
buzzards circling the desert sky.
The Tide
tide way out, sand packed,
the kids, impressionist smears
at the water’s edge.
Todd and the Time Machine
I
Todd’s time machine
has three settings:
time was
time is
time will be.
II
Sometimes
the time travel sickness
hits him
like a five alarm flu.
III
Returning through the time hail,
through the accelerating centuries
he hears his wife yell
from the ever present
from the basement stairs:
I’m turning off that bloody time machine
your dinner’s getting cold!
This was originally written as a response to a dVerse prompt “Time and What if”.
The Evening News
a cheery fanfare
death, mayhem and disaster
dog befriends squirrel.
Pigeon
Early December,
downtown Vancouver
and it’s raining
more than the usual
cats and dogs,
it feels like the city
is trapped
in a giant car wash.
All year long the weather
has been acting like a child
that hasn’t been taught limits.
Three months of summer drought.
We woke up one morning
and white ash from forest fires
covered the deck,
and that evening down on the beach
we were treated to
a red ball sunset
worthy of Beijing or Mumbai.
The Indian guy in the coffee shop
told me it made him feel homesick.
Something’s happening to the frogs.
The Oregon spotted frog is Canada’s most threatened amphibian,
I saw that on TV program called
“Canada’s Most Threatened Amphibians”.
Also threatened is the northern leopard frog.
Sea stars have sea star wasting syndrome
We’re losing song birds, bats and bees
The world is an orchestra
and the string section is leaving
one by one.
Anthropocene
Anthropocene
Sixth Extinction,
soon there will only be us.
******
At the corner of Georgia and Granville
a pigeon waddles through a puddle
created by a blocked storm drain
and I’m thinking:
Who’d be a pigeon on a day like this?
Who’d be a pigeon at a time like this?
Trip Home
a Donnybrook walk
the Dodder’s brackish gargle
that long red brick dusk
ghosts, tall tales and memories
the walking and the wounded.
Taking part in earthweal open link weekend.
Stopdraggingthepanda 