Gardening Baboon

[this poem was written for Ally, after he spent an enthusiastic evening helping me to pull Novel II into shape]

I faltered last night
Been head-spun all week
No structure, no feel
For this opus of mine
No comfort of word-weeds
Cut back from the line
All a-tangled
They dangled
The leaves and the vines
Tripped me up
As bewildered
I hard-failed to find...

But no, there he was.
In the shade, all along.
With that sharp-pointed grin
And that opening mind
Causing weed indigestion
With arsenic question
And probing suggestion
And fists punching high in the air
For what flied
And shrugs
With that trickle-spine flair
For what died.

So simple, you’d think
Here’s a garden
And gardener
So one
To the other
- you’d think -
You would put

But when years
Fall on years
And habits are past
You look over
And under and through
But not fast
Holding tight
To the truth
Of the reason
He’s here
Of the blooms he can tend
Of the paths he can clear
With the light-fingered deft
Of a swinging
High-winging
Red-hunkered baboon
(It’s a compliment
- honest -
I’ll get to it soon)
Coming down from the trees
Sitting soft on brown knees
And picking the fleas...

Between us, we did it
Cleared a space
Made a place
My gardening baboon
And me.

Some Words

This morning
I read your blog
You were saying

(Really)
(Nearly)
Goodbye.

I left my desk
Cried a lot
In the company loo.

Later on, I read your poetry
Over lunch
(Soup, with beans in)

(And half a grapefruit)

The sun was shining
So I walked out
Went to Thornton's

Bought my favourite
Chocolate
Continental, in a bag

And some toffee cakes
Because they looked nice.

Altrincham didn't.

So I drove up the road
Looking
For a place to sit

"No parking here.
No really, we mean it.
We'll clamp you."

Lots of trees
And lots of land
But all of it
Private.

I found a church
I'm sitting outside

The Pope died this week.

This churchyard
Is surprisingly ugly.

I wonder
How many others
Today

Are having quiet
little
Julia moments.

The sun's come out
again

The cakes are
delicious

Your poetry
is on my knee

Apparently incidental
Fleeting
Were the moments
Your life touched mine

But your words
And your presence
And your life

Made a difference
To me.

So.
Thankyou.

That's all.

Thankyou.


This poem was written for Julia Darling. For details of how it came about, see here.

Keep those thinks in

I need me a pen
To keep close by the bed
And to catch all the thoughts
That spill out from my head

Because I can’t lie still
For the drip, drip, drip, drip
That leaks out from the side
And drains off from the tip

Of a restless brown mind
Getting stuck in the mud
Like a child that won’t wait

Not a cow chewing cud.
Not stolid
Not placid
Not this one, oh no
Can’t keep those thinks in
But then can’t let them go.

An affliction, a friction
A curse of the mind
That puts paid to all rest
With a double-back bind.

Written in bed. Because this has happened before, and I do have that pen.

Little One

The days came brighter
The steps came lighter
And the little one came with a smile.

The eyes said “Hold me”
The lips said “Softly”
The little one said with a smile,

“Come nuzzle me slowly
Come cuddle me wholly
With wicked intent
And a stickle-brick bent
Looking at me
And through me
And whistling coolly
The chinks
And the kinks
And the salty high jinks
Being bended
And mended
And welded to you
Like a sculpture
A culture
A grace-high-winged vulture
That falls from the sky
And then takes me to die
In a feather-bed place
With a smile on my face
And an orchid
Enchanted
In peace.”

The sheets billowed gently
With sighs as momentum
The air sweetened softly
It sang to itself …

and the little one came with a smile.



Little One was written for a girlfriend of mine called Kathy.

Give Them What You Think

Give them what you think
they ought
to want
Not what they think
they want.

Nobody

Nobody ever visits
The Reviews page

But they ought to want to.

Streams of Consciousness

I've never been a very dilligent poet. I find it much harder to edit poetry than prose. It tends to just ooze out of me, at which point I run away and leave it behind. The following four were streams of consciousness on a slightly drunken Friday night.

If I Could Know

If I could know
And write
And know
That in writing something
- something -
Something
Would change.

What LARGE
or small
Could do
The thing
- the thing -
The Thing
I want
To do.

What thing
(what thing)
WHAT
THING
?

That thing.
The one.
The thing
- you know -
the thing.

That all
Who dream
And know
And write
- and dream -
And know
they want.

That thing.

A dream,
A hope,
A want,
A need,
A shame,
A love,
A thing.

Because
A concept
Is a thing, too.

But wanting
And knowing
Are not
The same.

How can
You
Know?

Really
Know?

The desire
That pushes
And pulls
It might
Not
Be pure.

It might
Not
Be pure.

For Joy

For joy
Is pure
I think.

For joy
Feels
Serious
Worthwhile
Free

And that
Is a thing
- a thing -
A thing
Worth
Having.

But happiness
Is only good
When it belongs to someone else.

Art

Art
Is a thing
You could
If you wanted
You could
Devote
To.

Art
Is
Something.

I think.

But what
What
- what -
What
If it isn’t?

What

What?
WHAT?
What?

“Muu-uuuum...”

“What?”
“WHAT?”
“What?”

“I love you, Mum.”

Silly Sex and The City Ditties

The next poems are all double dactyls, and were kick-started by a post in Anna Pickard's blog, Little Red Boat.

She was talking about the fact that Kim Cattrall*, from Sex and the City, has a part in a play in London. She was also talking about Sarah Jessica Parker, and how she has a face like a horse. And the fact that Kim Cattrall has been advertising tea-bags. But doesn't get her tits out in the West End play. She wanted a limerick which referred to fun-bags (i.e. boobs), teabags, the stage, Kim C, etc.

Which prompted me to come up with this:

I saw Kim Cattrall in a play
She didn't do much for her pay
No teabags to sell
No funbags, oh well
At least old Horseface stayed away

And then somebody suggested double dactyls, so I looked them up... and that was it, I was hooked.

I should probably point out that I was drunk, it was a Friday night, and I don't have anything against Sarah Jessica Parker. Or people who use vibrators. Or people who bear resemblances to horses, or indeed slags. I mean actual slags, rather than people who bear resemblances to slags. Not that I have anything against them, either. In fact I've been known to be a bit of a slag myself. And proud of it.

Right. Glad we cleared that up. I'm not that keen on Sex and the City though, I have to admit.

* My dad was unimpressed by the double dactyls below, because he was pronouncing Cattrall with the emphasis on cat. But I wasn't. I thought Cattrall was pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, a bit like Coral (as in Gunfight at the OK). I hate people thinking I've got things wrong. Unless of course I have. But in this case I didn't. Or at least, I might have done - now that I think about it I haven't a clue how Cattrall is pronounced. But I was still right in the context of the double dactyl. As long as you pronounce Cattrall my way. Which you will now - because I'm telling you to.

My mum likes to write double dactyls, too. I've copied in some of hers below.

Hoppety-skippety
Jessica Parker has
Sex in the city
and bells on her car.

BUT Kim Cattrall is just
Peripatetically
And energetically
Better by far!

Higgledy-piggledy
Jessica Parker can't
Act her way out of a
Brown paper bag.

Co-actress Kim says that
Sarah can't come unless
Animatronically
Aided, the slag!

Actorly kitten-gal
Kimberley K Cattrall
Actually hasn't a
Face like a horse.

How then did Jessica
Get so equinular?
Extracurricular
Lessons, of course!

More Double Dactyls

After that, I got a bit carried away. The sound of the words took more and more precedence over the meaning. Although I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

I don't think the second one is offensive, but if anyone is offended by it, I'm very sorry.

Pumpicle tumple-sump
Cuddlesome Grumple Bump
Isn’t a log or a
Clog or a bee.

Contradictorally
I’d have to say that he’s
Testiculorically
Welded to me.

Windily-spindily
Mr Fallopades
Frequently falls from his
Perch in a tree.

Often I've told him that
Tsunamagorical
Countries are just not the
Best place to be!

Double Dactyls by my Mum

Ever since my son Felix was born, poems have been arriving in the post from my mum. At some point I'll get around to transcribing them all and posting them up on this site. But for the time being, here are some double dactyls she wrote.

Things to Come

Rumpity tumpity
Felix A. Sudbery
isn't quite old enough
yet to write verse.

When he gets started, his
antepenultimate
tricksy self-reference
couldn't be worse.

Mighty

(arkady krarkady should be pronounced with the same stresses as rumpity tumpity)

Arkady krarkady
Felix Terribilis
crows like a creature of
earliest time

When he's amused he laughs
pterodactylically
multiple dactyls of
monstery rhyme.

Felix really did have a laugh just like a pterodactyl. And don't ask me how I know what a pterodactyl sounds like. It's just obvious what a pterodactyl sounds like. I dunno, maybe it's one of those thingummywotsits - you know, those memories that get handed down in your genes. And yes, I know humans might not have walked the earth at the same time as pterodactyls (I honestly haven't a clue whether they did or not) but their DNA probably did. This is a genetic memory we're talking about, after all.

Empiric fantasy

Higgledy Piggledy
Henry Plantaganet
Can you imagine it
Ventured to roam

But in Australia
Antipodeanly
Found he could only be
Monarch at home.

What's a double dactyl?

A dactyl, as you may know, is a poetic foot of the form >-- (ON-off-off). For example, interstate, realize, microphone, cereal, limerick, etc. etc. A double dactyl, naturally enough, is two dactyls in a row.

A double dactyl is also a poem, a form invented by Anthony Hecht and Paul Pascal. Quite like a limerick, it has a rigid (if peculiar) structure. Two stanzas, each comprising three lines of dactylic dimeter followed by a line with a dactyl and a single accent. The two stanzas have to rhyme on their last line. The first line of the first stanza is repetitive nonsense. The second line of the first stanza is somebody's name -- strictly speaking, a proper noun. Note that this name must itself be double-dactylic. E.g. Gloria Vanderbilt, Jesus of Nazareth, Gilbert and Sullivan, Archangel Gabriel. In the second stanza, one entire line must be a double-dactylic word. E.g. biopsychology, geopolitical, gastrointestinal, abecedarian, etc. etc. There are a few more rules but here's an example, based on the inventor of microscopy, Anton Von Leewenhoek (whose surname is pronounced "LAY-ven-hook").

Small Problem

Higgamus Hoggamus
"Anton Von Leewenhoek
Has a small problem," con-
Fided his wife.

"Microbiology
Doesn't disturb me; his
Microanatomy's
Blighting my life!"

Theodore L. Drachman

This actually goes above and beyond the call of double dactylic duty; note that he uses two dd's in the second stanza when all he really needed was one. Note also that, like a limerick, it should be clever -- there should be a punchline. And it should, of course, have something to do with its subject.

The definitive double dactyl reference is Jiggery-Pokery: A Compendium of Double Dactyls, Anthony Hecht and John Hollander eds., Athenaeum New York, 1967.