Naas

While pillaging my old university notes for some help in putting together my new teaching course, I came across a forgotten poem I wrote when I was 23, living in Ireland and evidently going through my W. B. Yeats phase.

Naas, winter 2003

Her senseless mercy shines upon you still
And tempers time and grief with pins of joy;
None but the purest heart would dare employ
That snare of kind and poisonous goodwill.

The worried walk away from beauty's sight
Is set with foreign voices faintly heard.
Into the fog a line of lanterns blurred
Warms the sleeping stillness of the night.

Then rise and face the winter's silver dawn
That over mist-strewn fields pours,
For crowds of stars and mountains are yet yours:
A lover's balm for pity's gentle thorn.

I think we can all be forgiven for turning to poetry once at some point in our lives.

Verbal Abuse

Here's a poem I wrote when I was seventeen and had found my first thesaurus.

Verbal Abuse

I beg forgiveness should you find abstruse
My rueful lexicon abuse
And hope you view my persiflage
Not as verbal camouflage
For your insensate lambastement
Unless, of course, you knew what I meant
When I coalesced my coterie
(A lie, I confess; read: lottery)
Who bowlderise, as you can see,
Such hedonistic hyperbole
The likes of which you'll find, to this,
Is a pure antithesis -
I find myself too insensate
Right now, and entre nous,
I've heard such obliquy of late
From larrikins like you
Full of a vacuous cachet
Whose rhetoric turns air blue -
Quis talia fando temperet
a lacrimis, and true!

I have no mouth, and I must scream

Poor snowman. Day five, and he soldiers on, half-blind, half-handed and mute.

Last night I dug out an old folder of my writing from when I was a teenager. Having a malformed sense of irony meant that I was never able to take any poetry I wrote seriously. I could write serious and heartfelt prose, but not poetry (I still can't). This is good because it spares me the embarrassment of rediscovering the angsty teen laments I might otherwise have written.

Instead, I wrote stuff like this, penned when I was seventeen and not getting out very much.

Old Eejit Bill and his Mysterious Sack

There was a tiny house upon

A grassy little hill,

And in this tiny house there lived

A fellow called Old Bill.

He was a strange old man, they said,

And thought him somewhat queer;

He didn't mind at all, instead

He smiled from ear to ear.

Bill went through town each morn, did he,

And on his back he took

A sack which bulged with mystery

All fastened with a hook.

Up to the well he'd walk each day,

While wearing still his grin,

And, careless, throw the hook away

And empty his sack in!

The townsfolk said that he was mad

And then tried to pretend

They didn't care what things he had

That down the well he'd send.

And so Old Bill was left alone

With his unusual ways

'Til one day on the telephone

A call filled him with amaze:

"What-what, old chap, and tally ho,

And other nonsense too;

Be where you be, go where you go,

But I shall still find you!

"You have a sack, Old Bill, you do,

With which you try to cover

Up your robb'ries, murders too,

Which I shall soon uncover!"

Old Bill, hearing words like these?

What thoughts would be involved?

In any case, and by degrees,

On this he was resolved:

No violent curse, no absent threat,

Would have his judgement torn;

So with his hooks (he had a set)

He readied for the morn.

What he took, nobody knows

(It sagged and smelled of wee).

So on tip-toes, to town he goes

As happy as could be.

He passed right by the butcher's place,

Where the butcher sat,

But rose, and thought lines crossed his face:

"That smells just like hog fat!"

The grocer next, whose name was Seth,

He said, "That smells like fruit!"

So without a moment's breath

He followed in pursuit.

The blacksmith, shoesmith, all smiths down

The street yelled, "Felon, stop!

He's taking all the goods this town

Has ever made! On top

"Of this he strides, with foolish feet,

Towards that very well!"

So they yelled, as young lambs bleat.

The crowd began to swell.

Bill reached the well and took his sack

And threw away the hook.

They yelled, "You fiend, you hand right back

All of those things you took!"

Bill stared them out with crazy eyes,

A grin across his face.

"Nought," said he, "but vile lies -

Now you shall learn your place!"

What happened next is all confused,

But we can speculate;

For we have found the knife Bill used

When each last one, he ate.

FINIS