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Dai's Meaningless Miscellany
(assorted verses, culled from 25 or more years of scribbling, 1986-present) (latest additions, 11/6/15)
All things come to he who waits, as some thick prat once said But before you rush in blindly where those cheering angels tread Just pause a while and ask yourself, which option would be worse: A psychiatric patience or a psychopathic nurse? You never know quite where you stand, no exes mark the spot Her heart is stone, her blood runs cold, but the rest of her is hot. You're on a roller coaster with no brakes and no reverse You lose your heart, you'll lose your mind to a psychopathic nurse Your body’s on the table, your emotions on the rack; She takes your pulse and raises it but never gives it back... A thousand mocking Cupids pronounce the dreadful curse: You're banged up in a padded hell with a psychopathic nurse Oh, she can make the patient but not disturb the bed She treats all of your senses and discharges you half dead. As you climb aboard the night bus, it's a double-decker hearse May you ever rest in pieces with your psychopathic nurse (c1986, inspired by John Cooper Clarke, completed 2011, not based on any real person) Don't touch me: this is a day For pulling teeth; for films; for cummerbunds: Sesquicentennials and a pack of cards. What did Paul get you? Something nice? My paramour, my little queen? I go to see her soon, depart by train. Baisaient la Nymphe indeed, mon cher ami. Dancing, wine, a river of cassis ... By the way — I found this key; I think it's yours; it bears a little tag: In faded ink it reads 'Parade Sauvage' — Tried it in all my locks — it doesn't fit. 20/10/2004 – my 52nd, Rimbaud’s 150th Earth colours: browns and greys; a road in snow, a blasted, withered tree beneath a clear but chilly sky. An empty room: a candle flame, lace curtains, lifted by the breeze, wafting through an open window. An isolated farmhouse or a barn, alone upon the hilltop, deserted in the prairie. Presence in absence, places haunted by the spirits of the living. 28/2/2006 I've said it before and I'll say it again In Wilde's immortal phrase ~ "All Bad Poetry Is Sincere" Whatever anyone says Sincerity is important ~ As Walter Cronkite said Indeed, it's the key to everything "Fake that and you've got it made" Emotion and suffering on their own Will never write readable verse If you're in too close to whereof you write It just gets worse and worse Good poems and self-indulgence Cannot go hand in hand Technique must always lead the way To the poet's promised land OK, my verse is insincere It's also pretty shite But it’s late and I’m tired and you don’t really care, So I'm off to bed ~ Goodnight. (2006 ~ on an online message board for bad poets see also Struck Regularly in Bathetic Phallacies) I bought a dead man's easel From his daughter down in Wales — I guess he turned to painting When his health began to fail, So they bought him paints and palette; Some 'how-to' books on art And a dinky table easel So that he could make a start "Chin up, old man," they maybe said, When things started getting rough; "It's good to have an interest "To take your mind off — stuff." But the palette knew no colours; The books remained unread; With the stand still in its packing, The man lay cold and dead How soon after did poor Katie Gather up that sombre stash, To sell it off on E-bay — Clear it out and raise some cash? I looked her up on Facebook — Pretty, not yet twenty three — Thinking, I may well be older Than her father lived to be. While I sit alone and long for death, Will the easel call to mind How sad that would-be artist was To leave his life behind? Now I try to paint your portrait In Magritte's surrealish style: The rose you hold before your face Conceals your gamine smile As I try to fix your beauty I'm aware that life is frail — I use a dead man's easel And his daughter mourns in Wales (2008) The violence here upon the streets And that 'our boys' deal out Are sides of the same sad tarnished coin Of that I've little doubt. Flipping burgers or fighting wars For land or gas or oil Go out and fight on Lothian Road Or on some foreign soil The dim and thuggish always are, By those with power and gold, Used as fodder and used as brawn ~ Ever the old same old Don't call this action 'sacrifice' Or think your leader cares ~ The price of pain and bloodshed weighed In Haliburton shares Turn round and see your enemy Retrain your guns and knives On Starbucks, Macs and Burger Kings And help reclaim your lives! (2008) From now on, they will always be with me: the small black dots, dancing, and the aurora snake, describing lazy arcs in my right eye vision. With time they may fade from view: yet always remain there, floating in the vitreous humour (that name that made us schoolboys giggle*), edited out by a cunning brain. But always ready to return, in times of stress or weariness, to bring to mind the night you brought plasters and balm to the Penguin Café. envoi * In Spain I broke my humerus. I am plagued by Fate’s bad puns. (February 2011) Oh, take that name that they have given you. Now take that name and put it in its box, its box that they have given you, then take that box that holds that name, that name that they have given you, and put it on that shelf, that shelf that they have designated, that they have designated for that box, that box that they have given you, to hold that name, that name that now lies hidden in that box, that box that they have given you, upon that shelf that they have designated to store, away from view and safe from interference, that name that they have given you. (12 10 2011) Up on the stage the Pasty-Faced Wasters, a six-piece outfit, post-rock, neo-proto-punk, are setting up. No two sets the same, rarely even planned out in advance, the audience kept safely in the dark. They like it that way They won't play Glastonbury or Later with Jools. (10 2011) I’m sending my shit to Dundee Six small samples, sealed under sticky flaps in a secure envelope. A sign that the State, in Scotland, cares; a reminder of the risks that come with approaching senesence. Two years ago I did the same, all but certain something, after two years’ pain, festered somewhere in my gut; a sign that my life, this hollow farce of loneliness, might soon be over. Maybe this time … (7 11 2011) golden graced oh no wrought finely from within bought finally with in later years not graceless gold — on — go told facelessly to show fought gamely but in vain caught mainly dreams in shame and tears your face a mess — we know old base but so short-lived a life apart taught lovers' lessons part greater fears from baser cold — no show (10 11 2011) … saw that they were naked, ran, as best they could with shameful, hand-cupped genitals, to Primark (Eden branch) at garden’s edge got kitted cheap with solomons and tees for when the Man came by. … … eternal ones, for whom a billion years are but a day, blinked ——— and missed my whole existence. All my prayers passed by, the momentary buzz of a passing mozzie … (March 2012) My head feels so light, there’s a pain in my chest My breathing is laboured, I need lots of rest I’ll prescribe deadly poison, take three times a day Till the breathing has stopped. Now please go away. (March 2012) Before we start, bit o' parental guidance: kids, don't let yer parents read this, it's got fuckin' bad language in it. 'Ere goes… To find success in life's weird game, To know which trends are gonna suit yer, To get yer laid or make yer name, It 'elps if yer can see the future. To steal a march on some new craze Last year I arsked that bird in Delphi, And she intoned the cryptic phrase: The next big fing will be the selfie! Fuck, I must be gettin' old Me young bloke's pass is well expired: 'Ere's one more fad that leaves me cold (And me shoulder's gettin' tired) Arm's-length photos of me boat Won't make me famous, fit or wealfy, Win back me love or works promote, So what the 'ell's my raison d'selfie? Sendin' snaps of bits and butts? To me it all sounds rahver silly, But then, wiv my expansive guts, It's years since I've seen little willy! So, if I needs to take a peek I guess I could, all sly an' stealfy, Into my well-lit baffroom sneak And send meself a sexting selfie. But I just stand 'ere, like a fool, 'Oldin' me camera back-to-front; 'Ow come, if this is so damn cool, I'm feelin' such a stupid cunt? To Brits, brought up to show reserve, It sorta feels a bit un'ealfy. Don't fink I've got the bleedin' nerve To show the world a fuckin' selfie. Or 'ave I? 'Ave a fuckin' great 2014, awright? (December 2013) You smile. They don't smile back. You step ahead of them to board the bus, not rudely; just to give them time for grabbing one last, urgent drag. Can pleasure seized so hurriedly be worth the name? Or does that haste, that desperation, just make it so much more intense? (April 2015) 2. Witting follows witting. Impressions made by the soldiers' boots combine in rhythmic novelty 6. I simply know, when Birtwistle, Beethoven, use a note, a chord, it's where it ought to be, involved 9. Like the neatly-furled umbrella, left, still dripping, in the cloakroom, I miss the whole performance 11. Screaming, in the chilly, ill-stocked mid-May air above the flats, the birds who never land arrived today (May 2015) I too went through my statutory teenage Huxley phase, reading almost everything old Aldous wrote. The man did drugs, ahead of Sixties cool, and wrote sci-fi with added intellectual cachet. Seventies telly gave me adptations of Island and Eyeless in Gaza, complete with mandatory naked flesh; and now I cringe at memories of reading through Crome Yellow, taking it serious, relating to the callow young protagonist, not realising that we both were twats (2014) Were you an early resurrection? Brought back, like Sherlock Holmes or Bobby Ewing, by popular demand, to a new life in the Crimea, only to star in yet another tragedy? Aufersteh'n, nur einmal mehr zu sterben? Not quite — you end the sequel living still; but priestesses are mortals too, and even if we do not let poor Nelly starve, she has to go one day, as do we all. Your life has troubles yet in store. We live in weird times; but then we always did. (Dec 2015) The ritual furling of the old umbrella, bought in that shop near Gower Street serves as a postlude to a shapeless day. (Oct 2016) It suits the plutocratic, fatcat pigs: An economic system built on gigs. No pension plans, no pesky union fights, No sick pay, holidays or workers' rights. You fine them if they can't turn up when told, And drop them if they get too sick or old. Ideal for any fit young buck (or wench): A life with the Deliverübermensch But zero hours suit certain types of folk: The ones who aren't incapable (just broke). The freedom that it brings seems rather grand To those who have no ratrace future planned. They own a bike or car, live near the shop; They're fit enough to work until they drop As Nietzsche said, you need to be quite hench To work in der Deliverübermensch They sort your parcels, bring them to your door, Or keep the shelves stocked in the sportswear store; They drive you home when you're too pissed to walk, Or pedal round with your fried rice and pork. In heatwave, sleet or snow or pouring rain, They bring your supper and they're off again. You must admit, there's nothing that can quench The spirit of Deliverübermensch But is this model really selfsustaining? Do we all lose more than the few are gaining? Are we exploiting those who can't be choosers? Upsetting only whingeing snowflake losers? Will it collapse like other fiscal fictions, And leave us crushed beneath its contradictions, The air filled with the rancid sweaty stench Of all those dead Deliverübermensch? (April 2021) |