Why when
Middle-aged men
See young women
Are they drawn to them?
Tis the fear
Of the Reaper, who draweth slowly near.
Tis a dread
Of being dead,
Of dust
That causes them
To satiate their lust
In thought and sometimes deed
For the seed
Lives on
After we are gone.
“Alergic to something?” I enquire.
“Yes”. Desire.
Thoughts whirl.
Not the same girl
But her voice
And the same half-inocent laughter.
And after
Comes the choice.
Is,
Ought.
I can not
Help my thought
On this hot
Day.
And she sniffs in that self-same way.
I know a young lady called Marr
Who works in a gentleman’s bar.
One day, when the lights went out
I heard her shout,
“The bishop has my bra!”.
I know a young lady called Marr
Who works in a gentleman’s bar.
One day, when the lights went out
I heard her shout,
“Sir, you go too far!”.
They didn’t kiss because
It was
The first night.
It didn’t seem right
And it was neither the time
Nor the place.
He couldn’t see her face
And being unsure
Whether he would see her more
He did capture
A passing rapture
In rhyme.
The owl and the pussycat went to sea, in a leaky, cardboard boat.
They had lost all their money
To a girl called Honey
Along with a £5 note.
The owl looked up to the stars above
And sang to a small guitar
“Oh beautiful pussy, oh pussy my love
I wonder where we are?
We are? We are?
I wonder where we are?”
With a sorrowful sigh
The pussy made reply:
“Owl,
You are a stupid old fowl!
Make no mistake
We
Are not at sea
But on a lake!
Oh what a stupid old fowl you are
You are
You are!
Oh what a stupid old fowl you are!”.
So they sailed away
For a year and a day
To the land where the bong tree grows.
And there in a wood
A stoned student stood
Blowing smoke from the end of his nose
His nose
His nose.
Blowing smoke from the end of his nose.
“Dear student are you willing
To sell for one shilling
Your pot?” Said the student, “I will”.
So they took it away
And were arrested next day
By the policeman who lives on the hill …
(A shortened version of this poem originally appeared on Ester Chilton’s blog, https://esthernewtonblog.wordpress.com).
There was a young lady called Lou
Who stood in a pot of glue.
She said, with a sigh
“I don’t know why
I stood in this pot of glue!”.
There was a young man called Kirt
Who composed a poem about a skirt.
It being very protracted
I became distracted
And thought
It ought
To be short.
There was a young lady called Lou
Who lost a little black shoe.
When it was found under the bed
Of a vicar named Ted
It caused quite a to-do …
The (UK) Poetry Society are offering poets the opportunity to have their work critiqued.
There are various dates available in July and August.
The cost for Poetry Society members is £60 and £70 for non-members.
For further information please visit http://poetrysociety.org.uk/poetry-society-information/services/poetry-surgery/.
On 9 June, the author, Lionel Shriver, published an article in The Spectator, https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/06/when-diversity-means-uniformity/. To give a quote from that article which does, I think sum up Shriver’s argument:
“Second: dazzled by this very highest of social goods, many of our institutions have ceased to understand what they are for. Drunk on virtue, Penguin Random House no longer regards the company’s raison d’être as the acquisition and dissemination of good books. Rather, the organisation aims to mirror the percentages of minorities in the UK population with statistical precision. Thus from now until 2025, literary excellence will be secondary to ticking all those ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual preference and crap-education boxes. We can safely infer from that email that if an agent submits a manuscript written by a gay transgender Caribbean who dropped out of school at seven and powers around town on a mobility scooter, it will be published, whether or not said manuscript is an incoherent, tedious, meandering and insensible pile of mixed-paper recycling”.
Shriver has received a good deal of criticism. However, as a disabled (blind) poet I have some sympathy with the argument she makes (although I wouldn’t have expressed my views as Shriver does).
I wish to be judged on the merits of my poetry and not given preferencial treatment due to the fact that I am registered as being disabled. Having said that, I welcome initiatives to encourage the participation of under represented groups in the literary scene (provided that such initiatives are not prescriptive and do not entail the employment of quotas).
Amid the overreaction to Shriver’s article, one of the more balanced responses (with which I have considerable sympathy) can be found here, https://emmalee1.wordpress.com/2018/06/20/publishing-and-diversity/.
Kevin
