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Adrian Mitchell

There have always been poets who performed. Blake sang his Songs of Innocence and Experience to parties of friends.

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0005 Totally Boring Poem

I’m totally bored by:


poems that sound like other poems

poems that try to sound unlike any other poems

poets who never take risks

poets who think that taking risks
makes them good poets

poems with 'meaning'

poems with no meaning

poets who slag off other poets
as if that achieves something

poets that tell you that rhyme
is not for an age but for all time

poets that tell you that rhyme is outmoded and boring

poets who think that the poetry of 'the past'
is greater than that of 'the present'

poets who think that the poetry of 'the present'
is greater than that of 'the past'

poems that tell you the poet's the first to discover sex

poets that tell you they’re the best sex you’ll ever have
although you’ll never meet them to find out

poets that tell you they’ve been dumped

poets who've never known love and being dumped

poets who are ambitious

poets who are unambitious

poets who tell you all about higher things

poets who reject higher things

poets who think life’s just a joke

poets who think life’s no joke

[...] Read more

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My Innocence Killed Me

INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE OH WHY DO I CRY? INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE WHERE IS THE TRUTH OVER THE LIE? INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE CAN THE GROUND KEEP ME DOWN? INNOCENCE OH INNOCENCE, WHO KEEPS PULLING YOU DOWN?

FAIL TO THE SYSTEM MY INNOCENCE WAS TAKING AWAY
I WISH FOR IT BACK EACH AND EVERY DAY
AS I LIE SMOTHERED UNDERGROUND
I COULD HAVE SURVIVED IF INNOCENCE WOULD HAVE STAYED AROUND
MY SHELTER, MY GROUND, AND ALSO MY ROOF
WHICH WAS DESIGNED ONLY TO PROTECT MY PROOF
EVIDENCE IS SUBMITTED ONLY TO HELP
WHEN I TURNED TO LOOK INTO YOUR EYES YOU LEFT
SEEKING WEALTH
ONLY TO LEAVE ME INSIDE AN EMPTY CHAMBER
FILLED WITH SO MUCH MAINLY ANGER
MY DISAPPOINTMENT IS PERCEIVED AS RAGE
IT'S JUST A CRAZE
TO BE TAKEN OUT OF MY MISERY RELEASED FROM THIS CAGE


INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE OH WHY I CRY? INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE WHERE IS THE TRUTH OVER THE LIE? INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE CAN THE GREED KEEP ME DOWN? INNOCENCE OH INNOCENCE, WHO KEEPS PULLING YOU DOWN?

NEGATIVE INTERIOR EMOTIONALLY INFERIOR
WHY DOES MY FREEDOM HAVE TO BE DESTROYED OVER MATERIAL?
LOOKING AT INNOCENCE AND IT SEEMS SO STRANGE.
LOOKING AT MY SITUATION AND REALIZING NOTHING WILL CHANGE.
PURE INJUSTICE TRAIL IS NOT THE SAME.
TAKING MENTAL PICTURES PLACING THEM INSIDE A FRAME.
WHEN THEY ENTER HELL HOPELY THEY BURN IN FLAMES.
I WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.
TO DEATH WHAT IS GAIN?
TO BONDAGE WHAT IS A CHAIN?


INNOCENCE WAS SLAINED AS THEY SCREAMED OUT MY NAME I'M ASKING FOR CHANGE GOT DEATH IN EXCHANGE PARDON MY SCREAM AND KICKS FORGET ABOUT MY INNOCENCE FREEDOM INVOLVE TRICKS AND I CAN'T HELP BUT LAUGH MY INNOCENCE IS THE ONLY REASON I GOT STABBED ON THIS SLAB AS I'M SLICED IN HALF REACHING FOR THE INNOCENCE THAT I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GRAB YELLING OUT SO UNJUST VOICE YELLS OUT HUSH AND RUSH INTO MY EMBRACE AS THEY REVIVE MY SPIRIT AND TOUCH MY FACE. IS IT GOD OR INNOCENCE THAT I CHASE?


INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE WHY DO I CRY? INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE WHERE IS THE TRUTH OVER THE LIE? INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE CAN GREED KEEP ME DOWN?
INNOCENCE OH INNOCENCE, WHO KEEPS PULLING YOU DOWN.

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Good Poets and Bad Poets

Some poets get awards and think they are good poets.

Some poets never get awards and think they are bad poets.

Some poets think they are good poets only in their own mind

Some poets think they are bad poets in somebody's else mind.

Some poets think they are good poets in somebody else mind.

Some poets think others think they are good poets but they don't in their hearts.

Some poets think they are good poets in their hearts but not in anyone else's mind.

All are insecure, except those who get security from the opinions of others and that, alas, doesn't last and isn't real.

Some poets have left the entire scene and live only in their mind.

Some poets take criticism and don't mind.

Some poets avoid criticism and do mind.

Some poets write poetry to get love.

Some poets love to write poetry.

Some poets are ahead of their time, in their mind

Some poets spend a lifetime feeling like failures in their mind

Some poets live only after they die.

Some poets have much to say but can't articulate

Some poets retreat, believing others don't understand

So which one of these am I?

I guess I am all of these and none of these

and no matter what my description

I intend to keep doing what I do:

Write. Right

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Old Friends

Old friends
Are the best friends
All my old friends
Are my best friends
Old friends
Are the best friends
All my old friends
Are my best friends
Saw you walk into the club last night
Could not even believe what I was seein
How do I even stop thinkin of you?
cause in my eyes youre still mine
Nobody told me I would feel like this
Wanting you more as the years walk on by
Now Im not afraid to say what i, I believe
But I wish you were my wife
My old friend
Old friends
Are the best friends
All my old friends
Are my best friends
(my old friend)
Old friends
Are the best friends
All my old friends
Are my best friends
First time we met so cool, cool I never knew
You would become so closely to my heart
And now when I look back, girl I was so blessed
The rest never passed the test
Im choosy when it comes to newfound friends
And I wish they could be so smooth
(just like you)
And you never sweated me girl that was so tight
You were an angel in my life, oh, if
(I knew then)
What I know now
(what I know now)
Oh, yeah
(you wouldnt be with him)
You would be here
(youd be here with me)
My old friend
Old friends
Are the best friends
All my old friends
Are my best friends
(my old friend)
Old friends
Are the best friends

[...] Read more

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The Queen of Jhansi

1st Stanza

The throne was shaken and tensions rose among the Raajvanshs, the royal heirs,
In aged India, new ideas were taking hold,
The people of all India lamented their lost freedom,
And decided to cast off British rule,
Old swords glittered anew as the freedom movement of 1857 started.
The Bandelas and Harbolas sang once again of the courage of the Queen of Jhansi,
How she fought like a man against the British intruders
So was the Queen of Jhansi.

2nd Stanza

She was as dear to the Nana (Nana Ghunghupant) of Kanpur as his real sister,
Laxmibai was her name, her parents only daughter
She'd been with Nana since her schoolgirl days
The spear, knife, sword, and axe were her constant companions.
She knew by heart the tales of valor of Shivaji
The Bandelas and Harbolas sang once again of the courage of the Queen of Jhansi,
How she fought like a man against the British intruders
So was the Queen of Jhansi.

3rd Stanza

None were sure, was she Laxmi or Durga devi or Devi durga reincarnate?
The people of Marathward were awed by her (expertise) skill with the sword,
They learned from her how to fight, the strategy of war,
To attack and humiliate the enemy were her favorite sports.
Her love for Maharashatra-kul-Devi was equaled only by her love for Bhavani.
The Bandelas and Harbolas sang once again of the courage of the Queen of Jhansi,
How she fought like a man against the British intruders,
8) So was the Queen of Jhansi.

4th Stanza

Laxmibai was married in Jhansi, with great jubilation
Entering the joyous city as Queen,
Grand celebrations were held in the palace in Jhansi, in honor of her coming.
Just as when Chitra met Arjun or Shiv had found his beloved Bhavani.
The Bandelas and Harbolas sang once again of the courage of the Queen of Jhansi,
How she fought like a man against the British intruders,
So was the Queen of Jhansi.


5th Stanza

Her presence was a blessing at the palace of Jhansi and candles of celebration burned long
But as days passed the dark clouds of misfortune overshadowed the royal palace.
She put aside her bangles and prepared for battle
For fate was unkind and made her a widow

[...] Read more

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Goody Blake and Harry Gill

Oh! what's the matter? what's the matter?
What is't that ails young Harry Gill?
That evermore his teeth they chatter,
Chatter, chatter, chatter still!
Of waistcoats Harry has no lack,
Good duffle grey, and flannel fine;
He has a blanket on his back,
And coats enough to smother nine.

In March, December, and in July,
'Tis all the same with Harry Gill;
The neighbours tell, and tell you truly,
His teeth they chatter, chatter still.
At night, at morning, and at noon,
'Tis all the same with Harry Gill;
Beneath the sun, beneath the moon,
His teeth they chatter, chatter still!

Young Harry was a lusty drover,
And who so stout of limb as he?
His cheeks were red as ruddy clover;
His voice was like the voice of three.
Old Goody Blake was old and poor;
Ill fed she was, and thinly clad;
And any man who passed her door
Might see how poor a hut she had.

All day she spun in her poor dwelling:
And then her three hours' work at night,
Alas! 'twas hardly worth the telling,
It would not pay for candle-light.
Remote from sheltered village-green,
On a hill's northern side she dwelt,
Where from sea-blasts the hawthorns lean,
And hoary dews are slow to melt.

By the same fire to boil their pottage,
Two poor old Dames, as I have known,
Will often live in one small cottage;
But she, poor Woman! housed alone.
'Twas well enough when summer came,
The long, warm, lightsome summer-day,
Then at her door the 'canty' Dame
Would sit, as any linnet, gay.

But when the ice our streams did fetter,
Oh then how her old bones would shake!
You would have said, if you had met her,
'Twas a hard time for Goody Blake.
Her evenings then were dull and dead:

[...] Read more

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III. The Other Half-Rome

Another day that finds her living yet,
Little Pompilia, with the patient brow
And lamentable smile on those poor lips,
And, under the white hospital-array,
A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise
You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again,
Alive i' the ruins. 'T is a miracle.
It seems that, when her husband struck her first,
She prayed Madonna just that she might live
So long as to confess and be absolved;
And whether it was that, all her sad life long
Never before successful in a prayer,
This prayer rose with authority too dread,—
Or whether, because earth was hell to her,
By compensation, when the blackness broke
She got one glimpse of quiet and the cool blue,
To show her for a moment such things were,—
Or else,—as the Augustinian Brother thinks,
The friar who took confession from her lip,—
When a probationary soul that moved
From nobleness to nobleness, as she,
Over the rough way of the world, succumbs,
Bloodies its last thorn with unflinching foot,
The angels love to do their work betimes,
Staunch some wounds here nor leave so much for God.
Who knows? However it be, confessed, absolved,
She lies, with overplus of life beside
To speak and right herself from first to last,
Right the friend also, lamb-pure, lion-brave,
Care for the boy's concerns, to save the son
From the sire, her two-weeks' infant orphaned thus,
And—with best smile of all reserved for him—
Pardon that sire and husband from the heart.
A miracle, so tell your Molinists!

There she lies in the long white lazar-house.
Rome has besieged, these two days, never doubt,
Saint Anna's where she waits her death, to hear
Though but the chink o' the bell, turn o' the hinge
When the reluctant wicket opes at last,
Lets in, on now this and now that pretence,
Too many by half,—complain the men of art,—
For a patient in such plight. The lawyers first
Paid the due visit—justice must be done;
They took her witness, why the murder was.
Then the priests followed properly,—a soul
To shrive; 't was Brother Celestine's own right,
The same who noises thus her gifts abroad.
But many more, who found they were old friends,
Pushed in to have their stare and take their talk

[...] Read more

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William Butler Yeats

Narrative And Dramatic The Wanderings Of Oisin

BOOK I

S. Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.

Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,
The swift innumerable spears,
The horsemen with their floating hair,
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
Those merry couples dancing in tune,
And the white body that lay by mine;
But the tale, though words be lighter than air.
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.
With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds,
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;
And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea
A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
And like a sunset were her lips,
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
And with the glimmering crimson glowed
Of many a figured embroidery;
And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
That wavered like the summer streams,
As her soft bosom rose and fell.

S. Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

Oisin. 'Why do you wind no horn?' she said
'And every hero droop his head?
The hornless deer is not more sad
That many a peaceful moment had,
More sleek than any granary mouse,
In his own leafy forest house
Among the waving fields of fern:
The hunting of heroes should be glad.'

'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn,
'We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,
And on the heroes lying slain

[...] Read more

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Lost Mr. Blake

Mr. Blake was a regular out-and-out hardened sinner,
Who was quite out of the pale of Christianity, so to speak,
He was in the habit of smoking a long pipe and drinking a glass of
grog on a Sunday after dinner,
And seldom thought of going to church more than twice or - if Good
Friday or Christmas Day happened to come in it - three times a
week.

He was quite indifferent as to the particular kinds of dresses
That the clergyman wore at church where he used to go to pray,
And whatever he did in the way of relieving a chap's distresses,
He always did in a nasty, sneaking, underhanded, hole-and-corner
sort of way.

I have known him indulge in profane, ungentlemanly emphatics,
When the Protestant Church has been divided on the subject of the
proper width of a chasuble's hem;
I have even known him to sneer at albs - and as for dalmatics,
Words can't convey an idea of the contempt he expressed for THEM.

He didn't believe in persons who, not being well off themselves,
are obliged to confine their charitable exertions to collecting
money from wealthier people,
And looked upon individuals of the former class as ecclesiastical
hawks;
He used to say that he would no more think of interfering with his
priest's robes than with his church or his steeple,
And that he did not consider his soul imperilled because somebody
over whom he had no influence whatever, chose to dress himself up
like an exaggerated GUY FAWKES.

This shocking old vagabond was so unutterably shameless
That he actually went a-courting a very respectable and pious
middle-aged sister, by the name of BIGGS.
She was a rather attractive widow, whose life as such had always
been particularly blameless;
Her first husband had left her a secure but moderate competence,
owing to some fortunate speculations in the matter of figs.

She was an excellent person in every way - and won the respect even
of MRS. GRUNDY,
She was a good housewife, too, and wouldn't have wasted a penny if
she had owned the Koh-i-noor.
She was just as strict as he was lax in her observance of Sunday,
And being a good economist, and charitable besides, she took all
the bones and cold potatoes and broken pie-crusts and candle-ends
(when she had quite done with them), and made them into an
excellent soup for the deserving poor.

I am sorry to say that she rather took to BLAKE - that outcast of

[...] Read more

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Friends Will Be Friends Will Be Friends ...

Friends Will Be Friends Will Be Friends . . .
Written by John Deacon, Freddie Mercury
Friends will be friends
Friends will be friends
Friends will be friends
Friends will be friends
Friends will be friends
Another red letter day
So the pound has dropped and the children are creating
The other half ran away
Taking all the cash and leaving you with the lumber
Got a pain in the chest
Doctors on strike what you need is a rest
It's not easy love, but you've got friends you can trust
Friends will be friends
When you're in need of love they give you care and attention
Friends will be friends
When you're through with life and all hope is lost
Hold out your hand 'cos friends will be friends - right till the end
Now it's a beautiful day
The postman delivered a letter from your lover
Only a 'phone call away
You tried to track him down but somebody stole his number
As a matter of fact
You're getting used to life without him in your way
It's so easy now, 'cos you got friends you can trust
Friends will be friends
When you're in need of love they give you care and attention
Friends will be friends
When you're through with life and all hope is lost
Hold out your hand 'cos friends will be friends - right till the end
It's so easy now, 'cos you got friends you can trust
Friends will be friends
When you're in need of love they give you care and attention
Friends will be friends
When you're through with life and all hope is lost
Hold out your hand 'cos right till the end - friends will be friends
Yeah yeah

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Now, Heart' - Some Of What I Remember When I Listen

A river is a process through time, and the river stages are its momentary parts.
—Willard Van Orman Quine

From early poems,1970s, youthful indiscretions/attempts to vocally/poetically arrive at/derive a worthwhile writer's voice. Some explication might serve or enhance these under serving, undeserving though 'striving-after' poems hidden in old journals understandably unpublished but now so with apologies which are these expiatory explanations. Recently rediscovering these early arrivals, derivative yet aspiring I recognized and reembraced an enduring self maturing, arriving into late middle age:

Obsessed newly by jazz, mad about the many miraculous lady singers, entranced all too easily as youth are wont to be by sorrows and sexual infatuations which feel, emphasis on 'feel', like love, here are two of many 'songs' as tributes and life markers to jazz singers who provided soundtrack and felt expression to my angst and easily inflated/deflated sense of self, of beloved others, and of that new territory, independent life away from parental home and childhood community discovering, blundering into the fray of separate hearts and minds, irresponsible genitals and insouciant jouissance ('juiciness', in French) , discovering then and again and again that like Walt Whitman I 'contain worlds' and many disparate selves poorly formed, most of them collective projections and expectations of who or what I wanted to be, what others wanted and expected me to be, resulting in much confusion, tumult and multitudes of momentary throw-away selves. Thus singers like Bessie Smith and Dinah Washington became anchors, warm contexts and containers, for my daily fragmentation and re-formation.

I lived on 3rd street in downtown Chattanooga, a refugee from zealous, politically conservative white evangelicals and the vestigial yet still viral Southern Confederacy. Just a block or two from where Bessie Smith was born, I used to watch from my upstairs porch the steep hilly street's comings and goings with a glimpse of the Tennessee River between tenements across the street, its persistent rich aroma heavy in the air. I imagined Bessie Smith as a little girl playing up and down the street like the kids I saw then - once, two of them gleefully chasing a frighteningly large and confused looking rat.

William—he insisted on 'Willie'—an old man down the street who knew Bessie as a little girl, used to come up to my porch after one day hearing Bessie from my phonograph singing blues onto the always busy but attentive street. One of the first and permanent things I learned from my porch is that a city street has keen, observant eyes, acute ears, omnivorously seeing/hearing everything, indifferently, perhaps, but nothing escapes it, a roving, all-knowing urban Eye of God.

Extremely green and eager as green always is though stutteringly, and without apology, I enjoyed Willie's many stories and back pocket bottles of Old Mr. Boston Apricot Brandy, both of which—story and spirits/spirited story —dissolved or appeared to, age, racial, cultural, and sociological differences, along with those catalysts/cata-lusts, the forever alchemical Bessie and other jazz singers, Billie! Dinah! Ella! Sassy! Lil Ester Phillips! Nina Simone! to name only a few of the sensuous solutio chanteuses resolving sexual confoundaries by Miss-ambiguating sins' plethera with loose lilt and will- o-the-lisp whisper tongues.

One night Willie, much 'in the pocket'—an expression for being well onto tipsy which I've never heard from anyone but him—wanted to dance to a Bessie tune playing, 'Back Water Blues', him recalling nights as a young man in rural Tennessee where he'd worked hard days in oppressive vegetable fields then hit the after hours juke joints for 'colored, twas segregation days, ' he explained, where he would go to drink, dance then dive/delve, as it were, into the sensual mysteries of moist skin, hot breath, mutually open mouths with their commodious moans and mumbles, venial hands, always vital parts, private hearts mutually pounding ancient known rhythms, odors and tastes of gin and those slender, forbidden, now greedily stolen bites in those all too short nights with their damned intrusive dawns.

'Dawnus interuptus, ' I quipped, us both slapping knees, passing the narrative bottle fore and aft hefting moments re-grasped between us, offerings to the equally narrative river, the all-knowing hungry street.

Jumping to his feet, Willie described 'powder dancin'' (pronounced marvelously, 'powdah') which I had never heard of. Talcum powder would be copiously scattered onto the dance floor where couples in stocking or bare feet would ecstatically dance, gliding and sliding sweetly scented, muskily bent toward later glides and slides in the slippery joy of momentary allure and amour on dimmed porches or surrounding woods often enough and gratis upon delicate slabs of moonlight gratuitously dewy providing cushion for Passion's out and in, honoring and dignifying deities of skin wanting more making more skin, headlong Nature's frictional algo-rhythms indelibly scored in every/each his/her yawing yen.

Willie shouted, 'YOU GOT ANY TALC POWDER? ! '

...The jazz us trembled...

'NO! ' I bellowed, curious.

'YOU GOT ANY FLOUR? ! '

Even more curious, 'YEAH! ! '

'GO GIT IT! QUICK! ! '

He grinned an Old Mr. Boston juke-joint night-memories quaff-again grin.

Martha White, a brand of flour sold down South, has never been put to better use. Willie threw handfuls of 'Martha' over the tenement-planked living room floor as I half protested at the mess it (and me and Willie) was and would become. Completely gripped by his present-in-the-past brandy trance, a much younger man now, he suddenly grabbed me, brandied and tranced, too, my long hair flying, and danced me all over the floor the night through with swigs of Old But Now Spry 'n' Sprightly Mr. Boston with pauses to change record albums on the phonograph, 'catching up our breaths, ' he panted.

Next morning (more likely early afternoon) , Willie long gone, I awakened sprawled on the penitent porch—a cool concrete floor my sinner's bench—sweaty and thick as pan gravy, mosquito bitten, marinaded in Tennessee night mists. I staggered into the living room onto the ghostly floor powdery white, 'stroked' with two attached, or close to, sets of foot prints, heel slides and smears, a kind of 'Jackson Pollock meets Tibetan sand painting 'yazzed' yantra'**' with cigarette ashes flicked into the flickering impermanent mix. I've not powder danced since when we drank discovering oral history's joys, opened eager ears and fraternal arms forgetting fears of race and religion, age and expressed/ espressed Desire's multilingual disseminations.

I know that wheat is anciently sacred but now even more so for flour, the sight and feel of it, its unbaked smell, turns me again toward a Chattanooga 3rd street, its compass river swelling like bread nearby bearing witness still for one cannot say too much about rivers—their irreverence of edges scored, spilling themselves, proclaiming natural gods deeper than memory yet dependent upon it for traced they must be in every human activity, no matter the breech, for something there is to teach even deity though it may be wrong to do so, or hearsay to say it or sing, but the song is there for those whose ears are broken onto bottoms from which cry urgencies of Being and between, dutiful banks barely containing the straining Word.

**From Tibetan Buddhism. Visual meditation devices,
Yantras function as revelatory conduits of cosmic truths.

1. To Bessie Smith,3rd Street Chattanooga (circa 1971)

Already the river begins its sweat.
April to September I'll be on the porch
Come sunsets listening to cars in the
Dark and you, remembering the flour
On the floor and me and Willie in
Stocking feet dancing till dawn,

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Day Of The Locusts

Oh, the benches were stained with tears and perspiration,
The birdies were flying from tree to tree.
There was little to say, there was no conversation
As I stepped to the stage to pick up my degree.
And the locusts sang off in the distance,
Yeah, the locusts sang such a sweet melody.
Oh, the locusts sang off in the distance,
Yeah, the locusts sang and they were singing for me.
I glanced into the chamber where the judges were talking,
Darkness was everywhere, it smelled like a tomb.
I was ready to leave, I was already walkin,
But the next time I looked there was light in the room.
And the locusts sang, yeah, it give me a chill,
Oh, the locusts sang such a sweet melody.
Oh, the locusts sang their high whining trill,
Yeah, the locusts sang and they were singing for me.
Outside of the gates the trucks were unloadin,
The weather was hot, a-nearly 90 degrees.
The man standin next to me, his head was exploding,
Well, I was prayin the pieces wouldnt fall on me.
Yeah, the locusts sang off in the distance,
Yeah, the locusts sang such a sweet melody.
Oh, the locusts sang off in the distance,
And the locusts sang and they were singing for me.
I put down my robe, picked up my diploma,
Took hold of my sweetheart and away we did drive,
Straight for the hills, the black hills of dakota,
Sure was glad to get out of there alive.
And the locusts sang, well, it give me a chill,
Yeah, the locusts sang such a sweet melody.
And the locusts sang with a high whinin trill,
Yeah, the locusts sang and they was singing for me,
Singing for me, well, singing for me.

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Hunted Down

Two years had the tiger, whose shape was that of a sinister man,
Been out since the night of escape - two years under horror and ban.
In a time full of thunder and rain, when hurricanes hackled the tree,
He slipt through the sludge of a drain, and swam a fierce fork of the sea.
Through the roar of the storm, and the ring
and the wild savage whistle of hail,
Did this naked, whipt, desperate thing
break loose from the guards of the gaol.
And breasting the foam of the bay, and facing the fangs of the bight,
With a great cruel cry on his way, he dashed through the darkness of night.

But foiled was the terror of fin, and baffled the strength of the tide,
For a devil supported his chin and a fiend kept a watch at his side.
And hands of iniquity drest the hellish hyena, and gave
Him food in the hills of the west - in cells of indefinite cave.
Then, strengthened and weaponed, this peer
of the brute, on the track of its prey,
Sprang out, and shed sorrow and fear through the beautiful fields of the day.
And pillage and murder, and worse, swept peace from the face of the land -
The black, bitter work of this curse with the blood on his infamous hand.

But wolf of the hills at the end - chased back to the depths of his lair -
Had horror for neighbour and friend - he supped in the dark with despair.
A whisper of leaf or a breath of the wind in the watch of the night
Was ever as message of death to this devil bent double with fright.
For now were the hunters abroad; and the fiend like an adder at bay,
Cast out of the sight of the Lord, in the folds of his fastnesses lay.
Yea, skulking in pits of the slime - in venomous dens of eclipse -
He cowered and bided his time, with the white malice set on his lips.

Two years had his shadow been cast in forest, on highway, and run;
But Nemesis tracked him at last, and swept him from under the sun.
Foul felons in chains were ashamed to speak of the bloodthirsty thing
Who lived, like a panther inflamed, the life that no singer can sing -
Who butchered one night in the wild three women, a lad, and a maid,
And cut the sweet throat of a child - its mother's pure blood on his blade!
But over the plains and away by the range and the forested lake,
Rode hard, for a week and a day, the terrible tracker, Dick Blake.

Dick Blake had the scent of a hound, the eye of a lynx, and could track
Where never a sign on the ground or the rock could be seen by the black.
A rascal at large, when he heard that Blake was out hard at his heels,
Felt just as the wilderness bird, in the snare fettered hopelessly, feels.
And, hence, when the wolf with the brand of Cain written thrice on his face,
Knew terrible Dick was at hand, he slunk like a snake to his place -
To the depths of his kennel he crept, far back in the passages dim;
But Blake and his mates never slept; they hunted and listened for him.

The mountains were many, but he who had captured big Terrigal Bill,
The slayer of Hawkins and Lee, found tracks by a conical hill.

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Tiger's Rumour and other Parodies William Blake - The Tyger

Tyger’s Rumour


Rumour rushing rampant right
round faithless forests of wraith night,
what immoral hand or eye
could frame fly tearless symmetry?

In what deep and dark disguise
spread irking libel, lurking lies?
on what wasp wings dare they aspire –
e’er slander sting tongues air fame liar?

What woeful infamous black art
wrung toxic sinews, tocsin heart
rung when sin heart broke cheating beat,
what sleight of hand to greet deceit!

What wrong's hammer, what strong chain?
in what furnace forged? What brain
fed wily worms sly envy's [g]rasp,
bred spiteful deadly [t]errors’ [g]asp?


11 December 1991 revised 18 September 2009 robi3_0504_blak1_0003 PXX_JXX for previous version see below
Parody William BLAKE 1757_1827 The Tyger

Tyger’s Rumour


Rumour rushing rampant right
round faithless forests of wraith night,
what immortal hand or eye
could frame fly tearless symmetry?

In what deep and dark disguise
spread irking libel, lurking lies?
On what wasp wings dare they aspire –
e’er slander sting tongues air fame liar?

What woeful infamous black art
wrung toxic sinews, tocsin heart
rung when sin heart broke cheating beat,
what sleight of hand to greet deceit!

What wrong's hammer, what strong chain?
In what furnace forged? What brain
fed wily worms sly envy's [g]rasp,
bred them deadly, errors’ [g]asp?

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Tyger's Eye - after William Blake

Tyger's Eye


Tyger Tyger, once again
we'll praise your uncontested reign
where golden eye implies rebirth,
of jungle lord's word none constrain.

From distant deeps of tropic skies.
to forests sparse where eagle flies,
your power ripples round world's girth -
how could it e'er be otherwise?

Strength in each and every part
needs no paltry poet's art
to illustrate your peerless worth
which rhymes through time in class apart.

Neither hammer, chain, may blind
furnace features, anvil mind,
you represent upon this Earth
both force and freedom none may bind.

[c] Jonathan Robin - parody William Blake written 27 June 2008 robi3_1775_blak1_0003 PXX_CNX

___________


The Tyger

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes!
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the fire!

And what shoulder, and what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand! and what dread feet!

What the hammer! what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain
What the anvil, what dread grasp,

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Byron

Canto the First

I
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.

II
Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
And fill'd their sign posts then, like Wellesley now;
Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk,
Followers of fame, "nine farrow" of that sow:
France, too, had Buonaparté and Dumourier
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.

III
Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
Were French, and famous people, as we know:
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,
With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.

IV
Nelson was once Britannia's god of war,
And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd;
There's no more to be said of Trafalgar,
'T is with our hero quietly inurn'd;
Because the army's grown more popular,
At which the naval people are concern'd;
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service,
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.

V
Brave men were living before Agamemnon
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
But then they shone not on the poet's page,
And so have been forgotten:—I condemn none,
But can't find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);
So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.

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The Piper And The Prey

this is how friday ended
a little bit hard to believe
my perception slightly bending
as the piper came on the scene
it was something so hypnotic
the music even changed
the crowd got up and got chaotic
and they paid so they could play

the pied piper played
the pied piper pushed
songs to make them crave
songs that seemed so good
songs that made it easier
songs down in their blood
songs that take, steal the love
until the song has had enough

at first, the dance was hesitant
not long before everyone knew it
the music spun them 'round and 'round
then it pulled the dancers into it
i danced my dance at my own pace
he laughed, knowing i would change
it took all i had in so many ways
saw others dance until they fell on their face

and still the piper played...

the pied piper played
the pied piper pushed
songs to make them crave
songs that seemed so good
songs that made it easier
songs down in their blood
songs that take, steal the love
until the song has had enough

bodies on the floor
unconscious and awake
the piper gave them more;
they took all that he gave
he played a new illusion
while the world began to sway
the dance became delusion
our hearts became the prey

and i danced as he played
and i danced as he pushed
songs that made me crave

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The Ballad of the White Horse

DEDICATION

Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light?

Where seven sunken Englands
Lie buried one by one,
Why should one idle spade, I wonder,
Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder
To smoke and choke the sun?

In cloud of clay so cast to heaven
What shape shall man discern?
These lords may light the mystery
Of mastery or victory,
And these ride high in history,
But these shall not return.

Gored on the Norman gonfalon
The Golden Dragon died:
We shall not wake with ballad strings
The good time of the smaller things,
We shall not see the holy kings
Ride down by Severn side.

Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured
As the broidery of Bayeux
The England of that dawn remains,
And this of Alfred and the Danes
Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns
Too English to be true.

Of a good king on an island
That ruled once on a time;
And as he walked by an apple tree
There came green devils out of the sea
With sea-plants trailing heavily
And tracks of opal slime.

Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;
His days as our days ran,
He also looked forth for an hour
On peopled plains and skies that lower,
From those few windows in the tower
That is the head of a man.

But who shall look from Alfred's hood

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Fresh Air

I

At the Poem Society a black-haired man stands up to say
“You make me sick with all your talk about restraint and mature talent!
Haven’t you ever looked out the window at a painting by Matisse,
Or did you always stay in hotels where there were too many spiders crawling on your visages?
Did you ever glance inside a bottle of sparkling pop,
Or see a citizen split in two by the lightning?
I am afraid you have never smiled at the hibernation
Of bear cubs except that you saw in it some deep relation
To human suffering and wishes, oh what a bunch of crackpots!”
The black-haired man sits down, and the others shoot arrows at him.
A blond man stands up and says,
“He is right! Why should we be organized to defend the kingdom
Of dullness? There are so many slimy people connected with poetry,
Too, and people who know nothing about it!
I am not recommending that poets like each other and organize to fight them,
But simply that lightning should strike them.”
Then the assembled mediocrities shot arrows at the blond-haired man.
The chairman stood up on the platform, oh he was physically ugly!
He was small-limbed and –boned and thought he was quite seductive,
But he was bald with certain hideous black hairs,
And his voice had the sound of water leaving a vaseline bathtub,
And he said, “The subject for this evening’s discussion is poetry
On the subject of love between swans.” And everyone threw candy hearts
At the disgusting man, and they stuck to his bib and tucker,
And he danced up and down on the platform in terrific glee
And recited the poetry of his little friends—but the blond man stuck his head
Out of a cloud and recited poems about the east and thunder,
And the black-haired man moved through the stratosphere chanting
Poems of the relationships between terrific prehistoric charcoal whales,
And the slimy man with candy hearts sticking all over him
Wilted away like a cigarette paper on which the bumblebees have urinated,
And all the professors left the room to go back to their duty,
And all that were left in the room were five or six poets
And together they sang the new poem of the twentieth century
Which, though influenced by Mallarmé, Shelley, Byron, and Whitman,
Plus a million other poets, is still entirely original
And is so exciting that it cannot be here repeated.
You must go to the Poem Society and wait for it to happen.
Once you have heard this poem you will not love any other,
Once you have dreamed this dream you will be inconsolable,
Once you have loved this dream you will be as one dead,
Once you have visited the passages of this time’s great art!


2

“Oh to be seventeen years old
Once again,” sang the red-haired man, “and not know that poetry

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Friends

Scooter!! yeah!!
Were gonna hit you harder!
Yeeah! cmon, cmon!
Friends!...well be friends!
Well be friends...well be friends!
Friends!...well be friends!
Well be friends...well be friends!
Friends!...well be friends!
Well be friends...well be friends!
Friends!...well be friends!
Well be friends...well be friends!
Were gonna hit you harder!
Yeeah! cmon, cmon!
Friends!...well be friends!
Well be friends...well be friends!
Friends!...well be friends!
Well be friends...well be friends!
Friends!...well be friends!
Well be friends...well be friends!
Friends!...
Yeeah! cmon, cmon!

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