GUZMAN WAS HERE
They seek him here
They seek him there
This damn Guzman is everywhere!
Public enemy number one in Chicago
He is now succeeding Al Capone;
El Chapo Guzman tunnelled deep
Then called a taxi on his new smart phone.
literary
MY FATHER – a poem by John Osborne
John Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre.
In a productive life of more than 40 years, Osborne explored many themes and genres, writing for stage, film and TV. His personal life was extravagant and iconoclastic. He was notorious for the ornate violence of his language, not only on behalf of the political causes he supported but also against his own family, including his wives and children.
Osborne was one of the first writers to address Britain’s purpose in the post-imperial age. He was the first to question the point of the monarchy on a prominent public stage. During his peak (1956–1966), he helped make contempt an acceptable and now even cliched onstage emotion, argued for the cleansing wisdom of bad behaviour and bad taste, and combined unsparing truthfulness with devastating wit.
MY FATHER
My father lived a simple life
But he was a man apart
With gentle ways and humble mind
And an understanding heart
He loved and cared for people
Helping those in need.
He strove to make folk happy
For kindness was his creed.
He never aimed for dizzy heights
Of luxury or fame
But where he walked and where he talked
With love he carved his name.
He was like a rock to lean upon
Each problem he would share.
He found his strength in his belief
And in kneeling down in prayer.
He loved his home and lived his life
With fullness to the end
He taught me much I owe him much
A father and a friend.
Death was peace and joy to him
It was no fearful thing,
His faith was simple and sincere
And God alone his king.
HOME BEFORE DARK
SEPTEMBER IS THE LOVELIEST MONTH
September is the loveliest month.
The sky is on permanent fire
The trees painted many colours
Burnished, it seems, with pure desire
In the park, ducks glide silently by
And the always busy seagulls
Resemble sea-planes
Coming in to land from on high
Whilst near the dozing oak tree
The squirrels nutmeg each other
Each acorn hoarded
For the soon-to-come cold weather.
Your arm in mine
We stroll down the park
Heading towards the sunset
Home before dark.
BUNKER ON PORTLAND BILL
BUNKER ON PORTLAND BILL
This windowed concrete slab
Touching the hedgerows
Bunkered in leaf-strewn soil
Chivvies me
Muskets were reddened here
By shorter men than I
Defenders of a long-gone realm
Stooped between fissured ceiling and creviced floor
What mayhem bedlamed this rocky causeway?
Its cannons foddering the deep
The stun of steel slamming granite
The stench of gunfire turning stomachs
Loose limbs cluttering pathways
Death hovering
All quiet now on this promontory;
Sheep nibbling, tea and scones in the old armoury
Picture postcards of battles fought and won
Day-trippers picnicking
In the shadows cast by the big guns
HOW TIME FLIES
This was the first performance of my first play. How time flies!
HOW TIME FLIES!
LOOKING FOR GOOGLE
LOOKING FOR GOOGLE
Driverless cars
Headless chickens
Oops! mind that blind…
Oh, what the Dickens!
The lingua franca
In Google we trust,
In God if we must.
Look, no hands!
It’s not a boast
It’s a statement of fact,
I don’t drive, it’s all an act.
The phone on my table
Speaks in eighteen different languages if tasked
And can answer questions
(Sometimes before they are asked).
Now they have sent ten thousand
Helium balloons into the stratosphere
Seeking all the disconnected;
Wi-Fi for all – and soon
They could – in theory – I guess
Set up shop nowadays on the moon
This is their ‘toothbrush’ test;
“Focus on the user and all else follows”
Culture and success go hand in hand;
If you don’t believe your own slogan
You’re already in no-mans land.
GATWICK by Craig Raine
I think Craig Raine’s new poem, Gatwick, deserves an airing, if only because of all the controversy it appears to have caused. It’s a great poems imo; funny, clever, and contemporary. His work reminds me a lot of Philip Larkin. Any poem that gets a line to rhyme with ‘Gatwick’ deserves to be read!
GATWICK by Craig Raine
I
Tom Stoppard sold his house in France: ‘I was sick
of spending so much time at Gatwick.’
II
At the UK Border,
I double
and treble
through the retractable
queuing barrier.
Now I have my passport splayed
at the requisite page.
She glances, she frowns,
she turns it upside down
so it can be read by a machine.
She stares at a screen.
And then she asks,
looking up from her desk:
‘Craig Raine the poet?’
We have less than half a minute.
‘I studied you. For my MA at uni.
I did an MA in poetry.
Now I’m in the immigration service.’
I want
to give her a kiss.
But I can’t.
Why is this
so marvellous?
So hysterical?
We are close. We are both grinning.
We have come
together by a miracle.
Two sinners simultaneously sinning.
In passport control. No shame.
III
She is maybe 22,
like a snake in the zoo,
shifting, tightening, dwindling,
stretching, lost in her Kindle.
I want to say,
I like your boots. The way
the laces criss-cross
under, without piercing the eye-holes’
white majolica gloss
rising like perfect bubbles.
I want to say, hey,
I like your moles.
Which you get from your father.
This family of Swedes
sit in different seats,
directly behind each other
on the Gatwick-Oxford bus.
I want to say I like your big bust.
Which you try to disguise with a scarf.
You’d like it smaller by half.
I want to say,
you’re so young today
it’s almost painful.
For both of us.
And slightly disdainful
to your grateful parents,
patient, tamed creatures.
But when you get old,
(gradually, without a fuss,
because it makes sense)
you will have the handsome features
of your mother.
(I choose to ignore
her mother’s pelvis, large bore,
and the two foot span
of her hefty can.
Which is older and wider,
and also lurking inside her.)
I can say these things, I say,
because I am a poet and getting old.
But of course, I can’t,
and I won’t. I’ll be silent.
Nothing said, but thought and told.
AN APPRECIATION
AN APPRECIATION
Looking at a lovely woman
Is like eating chocolate all day long
When they look that good
They can do no wrong.
Her loveliness is a line
That runs from her crown to her toes
There is music in her smile
That follows her wherever she goes.
SCOTLAND FREE
SCOTLAND FREE
Bonnie Prince Charlie tried and failed
At Culloden his protest stalled
And Cumberland his forces mauled
For him there was no other chance
He ran the gantlet back to France.
Now Scotland has its chance again
You had it once, a nation then.
Independent, free, no tyrant’s yoke
For Scotland freedom’s not a joke
Fight like a fishfag, Union be damned!
Your hills, Your lochs, your lives, your land.
SAID JONATHAN AMES
SAID JONATHAN AMES
I shit in my pants in the south of France.
Said Jonathan Ames
And once I dropped my load
In a bin bag down the old Kent Road
As well as shitting some bricks
When I tried sky diving as one of my party tricks.
I feel much better now.
My Writing Life 