Come on Everybody

by Adrian Mitchell

  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