Etcetera. That’s poetry, man.
And look at the ocean, look at the surf.
It breaks on the rocks.
It breaks and breaks but – it’s never broken.
Up it jumps again – that’s poetry
Every word that anyone writes
Is an attack on old age.
You want a safe bet?
Put your money on death.
And what is death? Only the hush in the hallway
After the last words have been spoken.
Death, death, death –
It’s an emotion.
It moves.
Blake on His Childhood Visions
The first time I saw God
Was when I was four years old.
He put his head in the window
And set me a-screaming.
When I was about eight
I was walking on Peckham Rye
When I looked up into a tree
And it was full of angels –
Their bright wings
Bespangling every bough like stars.
I ran home to tell my parents.
Mother had to stop my father beating me for lying.
Everyone has the gift of seeing visions, yes.
But they lose it, because they don’t work at it.
King Lear’s Fool Waves Goodbye
here I go
holding on to sanity
in one hand
like a bottle of green and stagnant
mineral water
here I go
holding on to nonsense
in the other hand
like a mobile phone
made of marzipan
I take a swig of pond:
Hello, I’m on the surface
of some sort of planet
or peanut
holding on
brothers and sisters
holding on
A Sense of Complicity: Advertising Supplement
William Sieghart likes poetry. He sponsors poetry competitions which help some poets, even if many of us don’t much like poetry beauty contests.
But the day after May Day this year, William sent me ‘a rare poetry commission opportunity. A leading advertising agency would like to use poetry in a forthcoming advertising campaign for one of its clients. As a result, I am helping them commission poems from poets.’ Each poet will be paid £200. Up to £3,000 will be paid to authors of the 24 poems used in TV and radio adverts.
What sort of poems? Well, the adverts are aimed at the 45-60 age group. ‘They are adverts, so although very different from normal commercial break fodder the poetry needs to be relatively upbeat, conversational, witty and thought-provoking. The main criterion is that the poems should give a sense of complicity and should make the listener feel understood.’ And so on.
Why does this matter a damn? Because poetry is one of the few places in our civilisation where you can expect to be told the truth. And advertising is (very well paid) prostitution. So I wrote to William:
Advertising Will Eat the World
art is the desperate search
for truth and beauty
a matter of life and death
advertising is the cynical hunt
for maximum profit
a matter of lies for money
poetry makes love with the language
advertising rapes the language
music dances with children and gives them wings
advertising steals from children and artlsts
art is the opposite of advertising
poetry just ran to me
she is weeping on my shoulder
It hurts her to be in the same poem as advertising
‘Get rid of them,’ she whispers to me,
‘Send those fucking advertisers away.’
yours sincerely,
Adrian Mitchell, Shadow Poet Laureate
PS: I hope no poets collaborate with your mistaken scheme.
NOTE: I also enclosed the following two advertising poems, but William never replied to me, so I published the lot in Red Pepper. William still doesn’t write.
Rest in Peace, Andy Warhol. Enjoy.
Elvis and Jackie Onassis
Marilyn and Mao-tse Tung –
They all looked alike to you
You sucked out their veins
Now all that remains
Is a series of lifeless adverts for you
Shallow as a shiny puddle
You were proud of your shallowness.
You started as an advertising man.
You ended as an advertising man.
And you sold your product – Selfishness.
Relax, Andy, you weren’t the first.
And you certainly weren’t the worst.
Necrophilia got much sillier –
Step forward Damien Hirst.
Pioneers, O Pioneers!
Guns before Butter!
Strength through joy!
Knock-out slogans.
SS lightning bolts!
Swastika armbands!
Stunning logos.
Hitler and Goebbels!
Brilliant admen.
The Café Kafka
A curving corridor
of vanilla pillars
and pistachio plasterwork.
It’s an edible café,
the Café Kafka.
Lampglobes bulge
and overflow
with splashing light.
Even the draughts which flow
along the diamond-patterned floor
are warm in the Café Kafka.
Outside the Café Kafka
the third snow of winter
is slinking through Helsinki
and my charcoal fedora sits proudly
on the black marble table-top.
Only six hours ago,
when I met her
in her magical studio,
her first words were:
‘What a beautiful hat!’
Who said that about my hat?
The mother of the Moomins,
Tove Jansson.
AUTOMAGIC
Memoirs
let ghosts imagine
being alive
I well remember
being dead
Her Life
(another for my mother)
She didn’t know the value of money –
it filtered in her purse and flooded out.
She didn’t know the value of the body –
something she shrugged about.
She didn’t know the value of the love
which she transmitted ceaselessly.
She tried to hoist the wounded world on her frail shoulders –
It seemed a possibility.
Disguise
Every morning after I shampoo my fur
I climb into my humanskin costume and
Put on my human mask and human clothes.
Then I go out into the human city
And catch a human bus to work.
As I sit at my computer
Summoning up images of the financial world
None of my colleagues knows
That inside my human hand gloves
Are the brown and burly
Sharp and curly
Paws of a grizzly bear.
Yes, I am a bear in a cunning disguise,
Only passing as human
Trying not to yield to temptation
As I lumber past
The sticky buns in the baker’s shop
The honeycombs in the health shop
I am married to a human woman who knows my secret
We have a human daughter
Who is rather furry and has deep golden eyes
And gentle paws
We call her Bruinhilda
I took Bruinhilda to a circus once
But there was a performing bear
Riding a unicycle, juggling with flames
Dancing to an accordion
>
I sat tight
Though she might have been my mother
I sat tight
While the inside of my human mask
Filled up with the tears of a bear
Sorry
Sure, I worked as a slave to Time
And knew his bullwhip’s vicious touch
But didn’t know who punished me
Or why my shoulders hurt so much
He rode me like a motorbike
On some mad ride through towns in flames.
My mind and body tensed with overwork
Till I could hardly say my children’s names
And, maddened by his rhythmic lash,
Sometimes struck out at those I met
And hurt the innocent and weak –
I am still scarred by that regret.
Thanks to My Dog in an Hour of Pain
weariness
blankness in my bones
tears like molten lead shoulders down my throat
a dead white pebble
in the left side of my chest an empty fur glove where my heart
should be sitting
the clock strikes and won’t stop striking
striking the time of grief
weariness
blankness in the bone
don’t tell me I’m wrong I know I’m wrong
My Adam’s apple like a knotted up wrongness
I should be dancing in muddy boots
but I find myself addressing this Deathbed Congress
and I say:
melodies carved down to the bone
fears like a stock exchange movie in a foreign language
I power-steer my pony down the off-side of a canyon
me and my dog have come to clean up this anguish
oh the dust bites and keeps on biting won’t stop biting
but
sweet dog in the moon
sweet dog in the snow
sweet dog in the wheat
sweet dog in my sweat
in my mind in my heart
and in my arms
sweet dog how you save my life
for you see how bleak I am
how blank I am
you view my collapse with love and no surprise
dear goldenface and deep down toffee eyes
Pour Soul
My body was a pleasant house
bit of a responsibility
what with a leaky roof frozen pipes
that burglary a touch of dry rot
and the legendary subsidence
but it mildly pleased me
as I strolled from room to room
or curled up on the window-seat
to watch the ebb and flow of the street
But one night I dreamed the dream of death
and woke up in the ashes of my house
a homeless soul
two dark eyes
a towelling dressing gown
and two blue feet
that’s what I felt like
a soul without a home
The cold street wind ruffled my mind
and loneliness ran through my veins
I floated to my wife’s house and rang the doorbell
but my fingers were made of mist
and the button wouldn’t press
when I knocked the door with all my might
my knuckles produced only a flimsy hiss
and when I breathed on the window
the glass did not even reflect my face
Of course I tried other houses –
my children, my best friends –
houses bursting with voices
and lights and lives and music
and food and animals –
but I couldn’t make myself heard
poor soul
couldn’t make myself heard
Finally, my spirit exhausted,
I lay down on the air
and let myself lie loose
and nothing happened for quite a time
quite a long white time full of nothing until
I felt myself drifting down the street
and out of the town past the farthest houses
into a dimmish countryside
and swerving round the side of a bare hill
and into a deep forest
As I floated among the trees
I began to sing the song of a poor soul
and I could see that song fluttering in front of me
like a vermilion humming bird
and so I followed my songbird through the woods
I was surrounded by green
by a thousand shades of green
and gradually I found my song was joined
by other voices
so I smiled and looked up
and in the branches I saw perching
so many singing souls
And as I travelled from tree to tree
visiting the singing souls I found
that many of them were old friends of mine
and sometimes stayed holding each other’s hands
to sing our hearts out for a time
And yet I always travelled on
and finally, in a grove of silver birches,
found my lost daughter
and my mother and my father
So here I perch
happily in the silver birches
singing with those I love our songs of love
Take your time, but when you’re ready
come and join me in the silver birches.
Not Fleeing But Flying
I don’t run away
But turn and stare
Into death’s empty
Headlight glare
A take-off run
My wings unfold
Heartbeat wingbeat soaring
Up into the gold
Now if they ask you
Was I fleeing?
If they ask you
Was I crying?
If they ask you
Was I falling?
Tell em I was laughing
Tell em I was flying
Tell em I was sailing
Tell em I’m gone
IN THE OUTLANDS
The Ballad of the Familiar Stranger
Well the sun was whiskey-yeller
And the tumbleweed was still
And the stubble sprouted blue upon his jaw
As the charismatic gringo
Fixed me with his eyes and said:
I ain’t never going to Dogwood any more
I was ten days out of Pecos
When my Chevvy hit a bull
Bust a windscreen lost a hubcap bent a door
What a man receives a man retrieves
So I pushed it back to town
But I’m never going to Dogwood any more
Well she stood thar like a cactus
And I trembled like a clown
While a steel guitar played Speed Me to the Shore
When you’ve found a hat that fits you
Then you might as well go home
But I’m never going to Dogwood any more
Now when I smell buckwheat pancakes
Or I hear some fancy dude
Imitating Donald Duck my heart feels sore
For the something in between us
Was too big for both of them
And I’m never going to Dogwood any more.
So pass the Chivas Regal
And the Penthouse for July
If I slide right down this wall I’ll find the floor
I got teardrops on my moustache
Armadillos in my jeans
And I’m never going to Dogwood any more
There’s a kid in Sacramento
With a phone book on his head
There’s a vulture with a big toe in its claw
There’s a story-telling stranger
In the alcoholics ward
And he’s never going to Dogwood
No he’s never goi
ng to Dogwood
They won’t let him into Dogwood any more
(This song should be punctuated by the whistle of a lonesome train in the distance. Should an encore be called for, the audience deserve the following)
There’s a Mayor in Zalamea
There’s a Mill upon the Floss
There is punishment and crime and peace and war
Well they say that Michael Jackson
Is the Shadow Peter Pan
And I’m never going to Dogwood any more
Every Day Is Mothering Sunday to Me
The sea is mother to the shore
The scalp is mother to the hair
The bread is mother to the butter
The table is mother to the chair
The town is mother to the country
The zoo is mother to the bear
Come down to the Mother Market
Millions of Mothers are on view
Their smiles shine down the mile-long aisles
And there on a shelf is the perfect Mother for you
Oh seek her and take her by her motherly hand
She steps into your silvery shopping cart
Pay at the till the amount on her label
And wheel her out of the Mother Mart
But should you be still dissatisfied
Fill in our Mother-Cover-Guarantee
And you’ll be shipped another Mother
From the Mother Factory.
Rosaura’s Song
Come on Everybody Page 31