POEMS - With Tongue In Cheek

[Gray]

Loved that, Keith

[keithgood838]

Thanks Gray. Sometimes the background to a poem
is 'quite interesting'. The this idea germinated on watching
Frank Skinner's debut appearance on QI when he said:
'If I were a colon I would be peeved about playing
second fiddle to a semi-colon on a keyboard.'
I think Frank forgot that the shift key confers upper case
status, and he didn't go by his gut instinct.
He is a favourite funny man of mine; I particularly
like him for his unpretentiousness. How can one not like
someone who said on his own TV show that his head
was the shape of a lightbulb?
Keith

[keithgood838]

CLAIMING KINDRED
by D.M. Black

I am reluctant to review new publications
of modern poetry, mainly because I find
much of it frustratingly obscure. However,
from time to time along comes a paperback
that shines a shaft of insightfulness through
the fog of my incomprehension.
Scottish poet D.M. Black's Claiming Kindred
is the most recent assimilable book of verse
to come into my appreciative possession.
Although I wouldn't presume to compare
my work with his, his The Bumble Bee contains
echoes of my The Wasp In The Glass posted herein:

I thought: let him die at least in sight of the sun
and the chestnut trees, the extravagant summer roses.
He lay still. I turned to go in but a sizzling arrested me -
I looked back - he was gone - like a humming arrow
I saw him sing into the green depths of the air,
then higher and higher on a swerving, all-but straight path,
lofting superbly above the tree tops
like someone in no doubt at all where he's got to go.

'He began frantically flexing his antennae as he dried out
under the warm sun.
Startingly, he suddenly soared away none the worse
for his intrusive sousing, perhaps doubly relieved
at not having to explain away his naughty skive
like a bee at the mercy of a haughty queen waiting in the hive.'

I like this evocation of late-flowering love:

TWO AT A PARTY

Cupid has lit the love-lights in her eyes,
And here she is again, at sixty plus,
gazing (responsible, and rapturous)
At her old colleague who can still magnetize

- Despite cancer, retirement, and white hair -
Her poised rejoinders and hilarious sparring.
He too is magnetized: witty, co-starring.
He rules the truths of history from his chair ...

Finally I couldn't conclude these extracts
without featuring: IN MEMORY OF PIPPIN,
the author's late lamented pet:

Alert small bitch, half-terrier,
Half whippet, with the strength and speed
Bestowed by each parental breed -
You reach the close of your career ...

So long the path down which you fared,
Memory is hard-pressed to recall
The hurtling canine cannonball
Who'd greet us when we hardly dared

Open the front door, and who'd then
Rush off and rip up her blanket to celebrate ...

You were not rejected. Now gone deaf,
Incontinent, face ash-white, not brown:
We've called the vet to put you down.
Shocked by our power to end your life ...

I think this book, published by Arc Publications,
would make the ideal Christmas present
for any lover of memorable verse.

Keith

[Marian]

They are memorable indeed Keith, "Pippin" brought a tear to my eye as always when thinking of the aging and the sad loss of a pet.

From my nursing days I remember a few lines of a poem that I do wish I could remember properly. I don't suppose you have ever come across it.

"He came, had surgery, and now is gone,
Welcomed back by Shropshire fields.
The neoplastic shadow lifted and erased
by timely reaping of the seeds of death."

It follows on to describe how all the sugery treatments etc. he received was perfect but ends with..

"But we are left with failure on our hands,
He was afraid that day, but was afraid to speak."

[keithgood838]

The lines you quote are unfamiliar to me, Marian.
However, I shall stay on the lookout for them.
Rudyard Kipling was a devoted dog person and wrote
numerous lines in tribute to them:

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

High on my list of favourite animal verses
is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's long paean to her pet:

TO FLUSH, MY DOG

Loving friend, the gift of one
Who her own true faith has run
Through the lower nature,
Be my benediction said
With my hand upon thy head
Gentle fellow-creature.

Like a lady's ringlets brown
Flow the silken ears adown
Either side demurely
Of the silver-suited breast
Shining out from all the rest
Of thy body purely ...

[Marian]

Thanks for those Keith. I think it was Rudyard Kipling who also wrote..

On the passing of his dog.

"He is not dead, not dead,
But on the path we mortals tread.
Has gone just a few steps ahead."

Time for more cheerful thoughts I think!

[keithgood838]

SOCCER SYMMETRY

Two Yorkshire stalwarts each
with a 3-2 score;
Robert and Gray, you cannot ask for more.
Important League victories that enable
you to leapfrog up the Championship table;
let us hope for honours you contend
when the campaign is nearing its end.

[ROBERT M.]

[keithgood838]

(N)EUROZONE

Letting ev'ry applicant join the club
is admirable but is ill-advised;
you don't invite everyone down the pub
back home to quaff the cellar you have prized;
that way you indulge extravagance
and hangovers come at painful expense.

Keith Good

[Marian]

Very true Keith!

[keithgood838]

AUSTERITY
(G20 Prescribed)

The patient was subjected
to neglectful malnutrition
after coming off the life support machine,
now symptoms of relapse
into troubling debilitation
need no diagnostic deftness to be seen.

Keith Good

[keithgood838]

AIDE-MEMOIRE
(11:11:11:11:11:11)

By pinpointing a moment in November
Father Time ensures that we remember
the bravehearts who ran towards shell
and bullet of hell's murderous mayhem;
we will spend more than one evanescent spell
remembering them ...

Keith Good

[Gray]

Lovely, Keith.
Do you know, I would love to go for a pint with you!

[keithgood838]

CHEERS!

Hi Gray, your suggestion
is something I would love to do,
and halfway into the session
I would enjoy, doing for you,
my Matt Monro singing impression.
But to be not just vocally like him:
'Oh for a beaker of the warm south
(a taste of that alcohol-free uninhibition)
with beaded bubbles winking at the brim.'
In the absent influence of effervescent Monro,
I would settle for a palatable pint of Parkin's Caskflow.

Keith

[Gray]

It's something we must work on, Keith.