The Ballad of the Yellow Soup

Carrot and celeriac

Caraway and cumin trace

Buck took them and he mulched them

For the Yorkshire provender.


Jack Buck he sojourns pretty lone,

He takes his brown beard on and off,

He talks to his suppliers and

He dreams of Beorhtnoth.


"Dig them out, them carrot roots

Wash them, mash them through

They give us an aesthetic

In an optimistic goo"


So I bought it from the provender

'Neath Jericho's rampart

Now come and sup this soup with me

Provender of my heart


Mister Buck is not good looking

Neither is celeriac

But I am dark and smouldering

And visually Assyriac -


Liquid sunlight under stars

Swig it back then dream

Of the effects it might have had

Granted a little cream -


But caraway and care away

You will not come with me to drink

Which makes me want to writhe and howl

And hurl Buck's potage down the sink,


Because I would eat dill for you,

As gravadlax or on its own,

Because I would spurn lamb for you,

Carved from the most succulent bone,


And now I'm just a cumin seed

I hope that Buck goes bankrupt soon.

Pallas and the Centaur

Perhaps it was a strange choice

but it happened to be right.

She hasn't smiled once yet

though it's pressing on for night


And the others would be riding hell

For leather home for stag,

And their thighs would drape my haunches

'Till my blazing back might sag -


But they've been told they're beautiful

And only beauts they'll take

So they canter us and lame us

For some Lapith hero's sake.


I have picked another mistress,

My offering is now clear:

Will she smile ere she ends me?

Does she hope to make me fear?


She will strike me when she softens.

My eyes, 'till then, are still

Fastened at her corse's nexus,

Tensened to extract its fill.

To Marguerite - Continued, by Blondie

Yeees!!! Yesss! Yesss!!! Eniiiiiisled,
Yess!!! Thrown tween straits yeesss
Shoreless yeaa, wiild
Take me with a nightingaaaale
Cross some soouunds on starry nights

Ohhhhhhhhh! It's like despair
My longing, ohhhhh!
Ohhhh! Ohhhh! Ohhhhh
Why? Ohhh Why can't our marges
Why why why ohhhh
Meet again meet meet meet ohhhhhhh....

Ohhh my longing, ohh my fire
Longing fire ooo ooo ohhh
I'm gonna kill a God God yeah yeah
And pickle him in salt. Yeah.

Censorship

I wrote a poem called The System

When I got up this morning.

It is a rather witty poem,

But in the mould, rather than of "A Poet's Mind"

Of Tennyson, which is damning but courteously

Imprecise, of Alexander Pope.

To wit, it names names - ten of them

All of the fair sex and for the most part fair.

I wrote it in red ink.

On The Resignation Of Sir Menzies Campbell

He was the best of them. For he alone

Was statesman, senator and servant all.

Too good for Pugin's lobby, too noble

To stand midst cameramen and knavish hacks.

Ming is too good for politics, in fact.

Besides, the man was awkward in the end.

His knighthood made the headlines less concise,

And his wife Elspeth was a minefield.

Elspeth? Scarcely a first names kind of dame.

Then Lady Elspeth? Fear the pedant's pen;

Correctly, Lady Campbell? Sexist, though;

Plain Mrs Campbell? None of us would dare.

Say what you like for Charlie Kennedy,

He let a bloke enjoy a G&T.

Why We Killed Socrates

Gorged out of measure is my feeling for him.

For not much of a reason, I don't much

Like him - I look at him, I laugh

With disgust from my senses and my sense.

And among the discerning, they brag

Of liking him, as if it were a skill.


Witnesses heard him bedding men and women,

My spite hears moans from a cold coverlet.

Those I love so often think him charming.

It's not even that I'm jealous, just

Incredulous. Rarely does anyone extract

With such crassness the numbers of mobiles.


The men I want to recognise

My quality - they've accoladed him,

Cambridge and Oxford shine with slug-trailed dew.

That's alright, as it rains a lot round here,

But vile silver softly clasps at hair,

Now he crawls inside all our pastimes by the Thames.


He doesn't want to stay. He's got

Better things to do. E.g., in London

I saw him lick his phone as it oozed honey.

The First Thing I Worked On Later

I like uncertainty. She's not

So rich in it as some. But is she

Short or tall? For something made her

Tower that morning. Such definite pigments.

Stiffie pallida mors whose touch leaves wounds,

Too ready to watch and cautious to act,

And the mouth, if very red, is wary,

Like a once-snared lynx's. But last evening

Some smut, not mine, disordered her sheathed chrome.

Her eyes hardly moved. But her chin, her chin

Wittily shifted like gelatin.

From "Poems on sore subjects"

I saw your tree-house in a darker garden

Than Headington affords: I see

A boat on real sands unreally,

I played with pigeon post a while,

And learnt to laugh with braggart ease.

Long calm awaited I continent's touch -

That is, the cheeks. But now it is the hair

That holds my thought. I want to know

As clearly as your eyes are grey, just so,

That your hair's brown. Farther yet, if you strive

To make it gold. If so, desist.