Do lamp posts
Show, by their fitful glow
The ghosts
Of sinners long ago?
And, on seeing that fitful glow
Do dying men go
Back, down that dark track
And perceive
Ghosts under lamp posts.
And, if so
Do they grieve
For the money spent
On cheap scent
Long ago?
Perhaps it is so,
But That, I can not know.
When a young man named Coker
Said, “your poetry ’tis mediocre”,
I gazed into the fire
And replied, “do you admire
“This poker, my late friend coker?”
“Muddy” first appeared here in 2016. Looking at the state of British politics, and the world in general, I feel impelled to share this poem again.
—
Thoughts muddy
I will forsake
And take
Refuge in my study,
Among poets who speak
Words that endure beyond a week.
I shall sit listening to birdsong.
The long
Summer days willimperceptibly turn
Into Autumn. I shall the world spurn
And yearn
For Keat’s Nightingale.
A young lady who comes from Kent
Has all her money spent
On expensive gifts for me,
Which is strange, you see,
I’m married to a girl from Ghent!
Changing faces.
So many graces
But, always, the same change.
Exchange of faces.
So many graces,
But, always, the same change.
Passing faces.
So many graces,
But, always, the same change.
Rearrange of faces.
Long lost graces,
But, the same, inevitable, change.
A young man named Matt
Owns a very strange hat.
It mews and it purrs,
And its covered in furs,
And he calls that hat a cat!
On going to bed last night
I met a young woman in white.
When I said “are you a ghost?”
She offered me hot buttered toast,
And the stars they winked last night!
When a young man whose name is Bert
Said, “I demand that you iron my shirt”,
A young maiden called Nelly
Covered him in much Jelly,
But she’s always been known as a flirt!
—
When a young man whose name is Bert
Said, “I demand that you iron my shirt”,
A young maiden called Nelly
Covered him in much jelly,
And bert, he bought a brand new shirt!
When a young man whose name is Hurd
Said, “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the word”,
A girl called Nelly
Replied, “so said Shelley,
But the last word, you’ve got that wrong Hurd!”.
(the correct quotation is, of course “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”).
Losing track
Of heels.
In a line,
Women and wine.
No turning back,
Losing track
Of heels.
(The reference to “women and wine” was inspired by https://poetry.elcore.net/CatholicPoets/Dowson/Dowson51.html, although in Dowson’s poem it is “woman and wine”, not “women and wine” which is referred to).
