Uninspired

Today, I woke up in the south of France,

and struggled with the writing of at least

five poems, each new effort meeting failure

just like the previous one. None of it clicked.

Idea. Lines. Abandonment. Repeat.

 

It’s better to have tried and failed, I think,

than never to have tried at all. There is

a saying – Inspiration has to find

you working. What it doesn’t add is that

it sometimes doesn’t find you, even if

 

you get the bunting out, illuminate

your working space with neon tubes which read,

‘I am now working, working, working… find me!’

while saying, ‘Wow! I’m working really hard.

Hooray for work and inspiration. Hint, hint.’

 

Today scored low on the achievement scale.

decided that frustration was his new

best mate, and made too many cups of tea.

He read a lot of other people’s poems

and contemplated nothing worth the writing.

 

And on that line, this poem should have ended:

a bleak, depressing, nihilistic thought;

but inspiration came. It wasn’t much

(to wit – this poem), but it did arrive,

all bleary-eyed and sleepy though it was.

 

 

 

Timeless

   For James Green

There’s no such thing as time, if we believe

the mystics, for time is just

the measurement of objects relative

to space. A day is only such from our

perspective, here on little planet Earth.

There is no time, they say, there’s only now

and only ever has been now.

 

And that was what was on my mind before

I fell asleep last night, a night which may

be seen as little more than an illusion,

depending on your mystical perspective.

 

Mystics be damned! I like the measurement

of time. It’s useful if you have a train

to catch, or a wife whose birthday needs

remembering. I wonder how I would

arrange to meet my old friend Jon if time

could not be measured. Here I am in France,

not far from where he lives. ‘When shall we visit?’

he’d asked. A simple ‘Be here now’ would not have worked.

 

Thinking of time, I calculated that,

in just two years, we will have known each other

for forty years, which isn’t bad as friendships go.

Next month, I meet with Pasc, another old friend.

Continuing my time-related thoughts,

I realised our friendship was now forty-one.

And then, a glorious epiphany –

this month I’ve known James Green for fifty years!

I wondered what it was that he was doing with

his non-existent time while I was starting

to feel a bit old. Maybe he’s unconsciously

tapping a rhythm on the nearest surface,

a habit every drummer seems to have.

Perhaps he’s tutoring some reluctant child,

I thought, or getting ready for a walk

with Bex, or talking to his cat, or writing

a song… which brought me back to Pasc and Jon.

 

Pascal, as he then was, had been recruited

to play the bass in my first band.

At our first gig, he’d had to play unplugged

because we’d left his lead behind and didn’t have

the time to get back to the house and pick it up;

a better way of making friends I do not know.

And Jon and I had spent our sixth-form years

strumming guitars and talking music

and searching, always searching, for a bloody plectrum.

 

We could have been a four-piece band, I think,

and picture us rehearsing never-written songs:

Pasc with his unplugged bass, Jon looking in van

for that elusive pick, me singing

my dreadful adolescent lyrics,

and, always in the background somewhere, James

keeping the non-existent time on his drums.

Tomatopear

The tomato who wanted to grow up a pear,

   Said, ‘I’ve got the right shape but my colour is red.

Oh, daddy, why can’t I be green? It’s not fair!

   And with that he stormed off with his red face to bed,

   Where he dreamt what it would be to be green instead.

But it didn’t much matter at all, for you see…

…We ate that poor pear-shaped tomato for tea.

Among the Trees

   for Jon Bowen

 

We’ve just sat down to eat a salad/French bread

with bits and pieces, vaguely rustic lunch when

I make some bland remark about how lovely

it is to be surrounded by so many trees.

 

‘Trees are the answer,’ Jon remarks, and I

agree, but have no time to register my

agreement as he comes out with a measured,

‘it doesn’t matter what the question is,’

before I have a chance to counter with

another bland and uninsightful statement,

like, ‘Absolutely,’ or, ‘Quite so,’ or even, ‘Yes.’

 

Instead of making my unnecessary verbal noises,

I get out of my chair and head towards

the bedroom, where I write his gem of wisdom

inside my notebook, knowing first-

class inspiration for a poem when I see it.

 

And in the middle of the writing of the poem,

a tiny grasshopper lands on the table,

next to my hand. I notice that a leg

of his his caught up in a fragment of

a spider’s web. I let him grasp my pencil.

I place him on a piece of wood, remove

the little filament of sticky thread,

and write. And when I look again, he’s gone.

 

Like Jon, who’d gone back to his vineyards after

our post-lunch conversation, which, as always,

revolved around guitars and music; laughter,

as always, punctuating all we’d said.

The best advice I could have given to my younger self

would have been a simple, Choose your friends wisely,

Fergus.’ At nearly forty years of distance,

I almost hear him say, ‘I did.’

 

Amphibrachic Ode to an Agave Plant

   for Paul

 

I ate my pyjamas in springtime,

   Last week, I drank ink from a printer,

But pity the man who confesses,

   ‘I lost my agave last winter!’

 

I chopped all my wood with a teaspoon,

   And now I have many a splinter,

But sorrow’s for he who’s caught saying,

   ‘I lost my agave last winter!’

 

This life is bizarre and absurd, like

   A play by that fraud Alan Pinter,

His best lines make mush, much less sense than,

   ‘I lost my agave last winter.’

 

This poem is hardly long-distance,

   Composed by a poemy sprinter,

   But what is its last line? You guessed!

   ‘I lost my agave last winter!’

 

Cocaine Bear, the Poem

‘I fancied something highbrow,’ read the message,

underneath the screenshot of a title –

‘Cocaine Bear’ – and

 

‘God, it’s shite. Was it ever going to be

anything but?’

 

I replied asking if the film remained

true to the original Shakespeare, wag

that I am.

 

What next, though, for the makers of ‘Cocaine Bear’?

‘Heroin Bull’ or ‘Marijuana Tiger’?

‘Amphetamine Hippopotamus’

or ‘Magic Mushroom Wolf (Live Action Version)’?

Or maybe ‘Anabolic Steroid Shark’?

 

So many questions! Anyway, I hear

the sequel, ‘Cocaine Bear Does Rehab’,

is right up there with ‘Hamlet’ in its violent drama.

 

Why aren’t the recovering cocaine-addict community,

outraged at the insensitivity

at being taunted by the word Cocaine

on buses, billboards and the like?

Their woe-is-me complaints would fit the zeitgeist nicely.

 

I suppose when you’ve snorted your septum

into oblivion and fucked up your life,

you probably don’t worry about shit like that.

Advice to This Poem

Avoid unnecessary repetition.

Stick to the metre. Be consistent with

the line length.

Make sure that the mere is kept at all times.

Avoid unnecessary repetition. If rhyming, keep it simple (no one likes

to struggle with a Hudibrastic mouthful)

and be effective. Steer clear of invective

(you ma be angry, people like to laugh, though).

Avoid Unnecessary repetition,

if that’s a thing. It is? Oh, right. In which case,

avoid unnecessary repetition

(some people think you can’t say that enough,

the fools). Please bear in mind the audience.

Be kind to them, as some may well be poets,

and may live lonely, loveless, lachrymose lives.

Avoid all attempts at alliteration.

The most important thing you should remember

is never end this poem with

‘avoid unnecessary repetition.’