Month: May 2005

  • Four poems that run into each other, by Sophie.





    Daddy showed me some sex-sites

    On his computer.

    I told mummy,

    Mummy told a Policeman,

    Daddy is now in trouble.



    His bit of spare came round in tears

    But Mummy would not let her in.



    I would like to write more

    But Mummy says

    It’s best not to.



    Daddy might not be allowed to see me again,

    The only regret will be

    Is two less people to write about

    In my poetry.



    —

    It’s evening time.

    Nanny has taken me to the seaside

    To forget about daddy,

    (Her son).



    We watched the sun creep down and we cried together.



    I said sorry,

    And Nanny said sorry.



    And we walked hand in hand

    On the edge of the sand

    Like the owl and the pussycat.



    —

    It’s nice having a weekend holiday

    (The Monday is a bank holiday).



    Nanny is of course sad

    But I let her win at “Connect 4″

    And she taught me chess



    And we forgot the one day of rain.



    —



    The holiday is already nearly over

    So I took one last stroll

    To the rock-pool,

    And Nanny slipped

    And got her leg wet.



    I was worried that Nanny hurt herself,

    Cos she IS very old,

    But she was ok

    And dried herself with a beach towel

    As I said goodbye to the camp clown.



    —

    Sophie Lucy Morgan, aged ten.

     

    Notes

     

    Next here: Haiku (British, Canadian style) by the ff % 243 crew (ie myself!)

     

    On the Goliaths’ site Three_Headed_Goliaths site is a poem by Tiffy Witherington
     

  • More truthful misery on my The_Clowne_from_Clown site!

     


    Sunday: here: 4 poems by Sophie Lucy Morgan. And on the Three_Headed_Goliaths
    (now), poor Tiffy meets her ungrateful son in jail again.




    The City And The Stars.

    _____________________



    And they all come to the city

    In their vast cars

    And staying at vast hotels

    Paying for just one night

    A chambermaid’s weekly wage.



    They come to the city

    For a great charity show

    Dipping their hands only so far into their pocket

    As if giving a tip

    To a concierge

    They do not particularity like.



    They come to the city

    To show off their wealth

    And the police boss us workers about

    When we are only trying to get home.

    For the stars come first, meeting the President

    Whilst we shiver on the metro-lines

    And curse the city

    And the stars.



    —

    Marie St. Denis

    ——

     


    Never knowing

    What the new day will bring,



    What happiness

    What woe.



    A new life

    A new death?



    We all wake up and bless the day

    And yet not all of us will be there

    At the end of the day.



    Who know what heart may give away

    What wall may fall

    What water may lure.



    Who knows if a car

    Will travel too fast

    Or who’ll forget

    To look both ways.



    I start my personal morning prayer

    And bless those not yet born,

    But I do not know

    Who will die.



    I pin up a church notice

    And the town gossip comes around.

    I visit the church hall

    And arrange the chairs

    Knowing that every move I take

    May be my last.



    I help pick up the litter

    From the church yard,

    Pick the flowers up

    From the shop.



    It may be sunny or wet or cold

    But the day will begin

    Pretty much the same.



    It is the end of it

    That I’ll never know about

    As I did not that day

    When I kissed you goodbye

    And never thought of adding that

    I love you until the day I die.



    —

    The Reverend Tobias Trontby †


    ————-

     


    She was never a child,

    Never allowed to be

    If it got in the way

    Of her working,

    Or if she got in the way

    Of her father’s fist.

    —-

    Lord Pineapple

     

     

    ————-

     

  • I have closed down the Sarahs’ site it upset too many people in the end. When it first began, their inane and ignorant comments made people laugh, now they only get people nasty with me. The Sarahs’ are off to a new home where I am sure they will be happy. (Guardian Talk).
     

    ————————–

     

    As she threw some dirt upon his coffin,

    She said “thank you for being my friend”



    I held back those tears

    That vicars are not suppose to shed.



    It seemed such a sad thing to say

    After they had been married for 55 years.

    “Thank you for being my friend.”



    Up above in the evening sky

    A star began to shine

    And I wanted to believe that

    It was her friend.



    —



    The Reverend Tobias Trontby  †



    __________________



    Margaritæ Sorori





    Will they come for your soul my dear,

    After all of this time,

    Will they come for your soul Margaritæ,

    And for your spirit, and rob us all

    Of the love you felt for us?





    Will they come regretfully,

    And with tender touch,

    To guide you into heaven,

    Until you are all in our past?





    Margaritæ Sorori,

    Will they come for you at last

    And ease your burning memory,

    So much that has been lost

    With the rotting of your brain?





    We loved you so much my dear,

    And remember you as you were,

    A lady singing daisy-pies,

    A mother, a queen, a goddess.





    Will they come for you and rob us,

    We whom you no longer know,

    We who you helped in so many ways,

    And gave so much kindness to?





    Margaritæ Sorori,

    Let us pack away the books that you

    No longer understand,

    The food you can no longer eat,

    The thoughts you no longer have.





    Let us pack them all away, and ask

    For the angels to give you

    As you gave all of us,

    Love and heart and happiness,

    And a key to your mind.





    —

    The Rev. Tobias Trontby  †





    ________________



    Jesus in 2005



    “As Samual lay bleeding in a ditch,

    A good Samaritan crossed the road to help.

    ‘Bloody terrorist!’ thought Samual

    And shot the Samaritan dead.”



    When Jesus then fell silent,

    The soldiers spat in the sand

    And returned to torturing Jesus,

    Even nailing him to a cross.



    —



    The Reverend Tobias Trontby  †





    _______________



    “Will we meet again in heaven?”





    Will we meet again in heaven

    Like we met on earth?

    Will we be able to hold hands again,

    Kiss again,

    And make love again?



    My body grows old,

    Yours melted in the ground,

    But that does not mean

    That somewhere we will not be as we were.



    Will we meet again in heaven,

    And will I be able to say

    “I love you”

    Like I once said it to your silent face,

    The day I kissed those sweet dead eyes of yours

    In that sad sad place?



    Will we meet again in heaven

    You and I?

    Will we meet again in heaven

    When it is my turn to say good-bye?



    —



    Reverend Tobias Trontby.  †


    ________________

     








     

     

  • Read LittleEgypt ‘s site for a chance of meeting me!


    “An English Summer…

    And my windscreen-wipers

    Sounds like a baby bird.”



    I wrote the above haiku

    As my wipers screeched

    Across my car window

    Sounding like a nest of chicks.



    Welcome to an English Summer!

    It has not stopped raining for weeks.

    It is always raining,

    No wonder I am depressed.



    I stop my car at a beauty-spot

    That is half-hidden

    In the mist of the downpour.



    I eat my cheese and Tomato sandwiches

    As my July fingers freeze.



    These days there is as little sun in the sky

    As there is upon my heart.



    —



    Tiffy Witherington.





    __________________



    I was asked “how many names have I wrote under?” Well, here are a couple of personæ I have tried and found wanting!



    Sir Hubert Mountbatten.

    ______________________

    Loves the sand,

    There each morning

    On my private beach,

    Two your old Raffles.

    The name my daughter

    -In-Law picked

    For my two year old

    Grandchild.



    Lady Margaret too

    Loves the sand.

    Since the death of Denis

    She has been sad.



    Both love the sand,

    The young digging,

    The old staring

    Forgetting things,

    Dear Margaret.



    Both play the sand,

    One with his hands

    The other with her mind,

    Both sifting though sand

    Time between them.

    _________________





    Comment: This user-name didn’t quite take off, a friend of an ex-Tory Prime Minister was never likely to name himself if penning poems on the internet!



    ————————-



    Where are you Mr Bush?

    Another soldier has died, they said he was brave.

    They said he had a picture of you in his pocket.

    Would you be at his grave?



    Would you proudly salute a man

    That fought for his freedom and died?

    If not Mr Bush, if not

    Have you got something to hide?



    A man died for America last night

    Spilt his blood onto foreign soil

    Did he fight for the freedom of the world

    Or do you just want the f****** oil?



    —



    Pete Famagusta



    Comment: Once or twice have I tried an American personæ, but I can’t seem to pull it off.





    __________

    Finally, I have wrote a number of poems as “ghosts”, I think another American-Iraq anti-war poem that is so different to the above is the one I’ll use today.



    ————-

    So cold you lie,

    So cold.

    I never did hate you,

    Soldier;

    Not even when I took

    Your brief life

    Away from your mother.



    This is war my friend,

    So cold you lie,

    So cold.

    I hope you are

    In your heaven

    With all those

    Vestal Virgins.



    This is war my friend,

    War.

    You died for one dream,

    I would for another,

    For I am dead too my friend,

    So cold you are

    So cold.



    I have not seen you yet,

    But I’ve met your brother

    We gave thanks to my God

    We gave thanks to his Alleh…



    But I have not seen you.



    So cold you lie,

    So bloody cold.



    —

    The Ghost Of Private R. Turner, US Marine.





    ______________

    All poems as wrote by Terry Cuthbert.

     

    (note: Re Americans:THE TRUTH: I love their culture their honesty, their land, If I could, I’ll become an American tomorrow and won’t be ashamed of it.

    I’ll update Monday I think, to rid these off the front blog and I’ll post some of the Rev Toby’s more religious poems. Terry.)

     

    Meanwhile on my The_Clowne_from_Clown site, a brutally honest poem about myself

  • In my book “Bubble & Squeak” (forward by LittleEgypt , with a poem by PoeticaC:  Lit-Agent: The_Queen_Of_Swords) There were several of my personæ, one which was not present was the one I had wrote especially for the Edinburgh Festival.



    Ever the clown, I dressed up in a borrowed Douglas kilt, with matching scarf and tam’o'santer, and carrying a child’s bagpipes in my hand as I recited my  Wee Duncan D. poems.




    Many are funny, here are 4 more serious ones.

    ————————



    “if only ah cud be a poet awl oo’ the time!” Rabbie Burns.





    I cud ha’ wrut

    A bonnie poem

    This morning,

    If only I had a pen.



    If only I had a way

    O’ gitting a pen

    There an’ then



    Then I cud ha’ wrut

    A bonnie poem

    This morning,

    If I hadna job tae dae.



    I stood ahim

    The Second Provost

    Who stood ahim

    The First…



    An I had nae way

    O’ gitting a pen

    When this morning

    I stood sae prood



    An’ we aal bowed

    Tae a better Scotland!



    I drink oon tha’!



    —

    Wee Duncan D.





    ————————



    Lines fae mi father.



    An’ the train tha’ ha’ clanged it’s wey frae coal truck tae coal truck is gane,

    An we may nay see it’s likes again.

    They let the grass grow there father, aye,

    Grass an silence under the silent sky.



    It’s a field o’ emptiness but fae us auld,

    An’ where the line once were it noo blaws cald.

    Ye worked in these yards didnae ye, mi dad,

    Worked there gin retirement frae a wee lad.



    Noo the yard is nae mair, it’s noo lang syne,

    As is mi memory of ye, father o’ mine.

    They are shunting in heaven dad, aye it’s true,

    An ye are working up there fae the good o’ Crewe.





    (note: Crewe was the h/q of dad’s lonely Scottish yard.)



    —

    Wee Duncan D.





    ————————



    St. Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh.





    Sitting i’ the graveyaird

    Alang wi’ the deid,

    Armed wi’ a buik

    That I yet haen’t reid.



    Leuking at aal the nature

    I’m hunkering here amang,

    An’ wonnering why I’m dying

    Wi’ mi poems syne unsang.



    —

    Wee Duncan D.





    ————————

    Widowered



    I’m as lonely as the moon.

    A whishie o’ a hert-woun,

    Fae where there were twa there is aynoo yin;

    The end o mi suld sang ha’ begun



    ————————-

    Wee Duncan D.

  • First poem is from 1968, and already you can see my nuttiness in it!



    “Flower-Child”





    Sitting on my ass

    Just a smoking grass

    And watching the clouds in the sky drifting past.

    Happy to laze

    In an euphoric haze

    Wishing the day will forever last.



    I close my eyes and I sleep

    Not too heavy and sure not too deep

    Just listening to bird-song

    Letting my thoughts drift along

    And the hours by slowly creep.



    What a wonderful place

    With the sun on my face

    And the big unicorns

    With their long sexy horns

    Made to please the human race.



    —



    Terry.

    _____________



    Moving on:



    One of my first jobs on the paper was reporting on a building site where archologists were working. This story is thus true.





    “At the Dig.”



    “If these bones could talk,”

    The old man sighed.

    “What will they say?”



    He held the skeleton as if

    It was a lover,

    And he sighed again.



    “See the ribs have been crushed

    As if the poor soul

    Was kicked to death.”



    He performed the sign of the cross

    And gently placed the skeleton

    Back into its grave.



    Up in the sky

    I could hear

    The rumble of thunder.



    —-



    Terry.

    ____________



    Another poem wrote about real people I met in my job and like the above I did not so much “write” it as turned a real incident into a poem.



    “Free-verse Sonnet.”



    A mad man with a beard

    Plays at aeroplanes

    In the background

    Of the home-cum-cafe

    Where a red-faced mother

    Serves us our teas.



    We say nothing

    We do not even comment upon

    The inclement weather.



    We drink in silence,

    As the screams of the demented man

    Mingle with the soft tears

    On the old woman’s face.



    —

    Terry



    The following is about my cousin, they told her her mother (my auntie) was feeling better, she drove 200 miles to be by her bedside, but on arrival found she had passed away.





    “The Bereaved”



    They lead her crying

    From the hospital office;

    The flowers that she was to give

    To an old lady

    Were still grasped in her hands.



    Outside, it was a beautiful day,

    And children were singing

    The very same songs

    That her mother had taught her

    So many years ago.



    —



    Terry.

    ______________



    Finally, a poem wrote this week after leaving a comment on James  site:





    “There would have been a time for such a word” (Macbeth.)





    There would have been a time

    When I could have juggled with concepts

    And abstracts in mathamatical forms,

    But not any more.



    There would have been a time

    For so many words

    When esprit de l’escalier

    Was as alien to me

    As dancing on the moon.



    When I had read Joyce

    And Wittgenstein

    And Einstein too,

    And considered them easy reading

    In a form of snobbery

    I kept to myself.



    There would have been a time,

    Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,

    But to me there is no tomorrow

    Only my yesterdays

    Of lighted genius.



    People called me that, ha!

    How shallow it sounds now,

    How much of a lie

    A make-believe.



    So much so, that only rarely do I hanker

    After what I have lost

    And what noble Macbeth hath won!



    —



    Terry.

    _____________


    And look out for Baldmikes on my favourite box, he’s a great photographer.

  • The spider ran one way,

    And I, the other.

     

    —

    Sophie Lucy Morgan, aged 10

     

    _____________

    Aye, I missed the bus.

    I missed the number 86.

    It roared off just as I

    Arrived, panting, at the stop.

    The stoney-faced driver

    Must have saw me running

    As he drove off.



    That’s the story of my life,

    Missed buses, missed dreams, missed men.

    They always roar off on seeing me,

    Just like the number 86 bus.



    —

    Tiffy Witherington.


     

    —————————-

     


    In the cold edge of night

    That draws on the city

    In the shape of a fog

    Broken only by cars showing their horns

    In the fury of seconds being lost

    On their way home

    In a charmless artless formation

    That calls out for love

    A thousand times more real

    Than the death of a poet.



    —

    Marie St. Denis.

     

    ———————-

     


    another fucking boring night.

    ___________________________



    another fucking boring night

    walks its whitestar-lamp way

    & drags its iced-canal moon

    across the bitter streets

    to an empty bus-station

    of rolled-up newspapers

    covered with dog-shit

    under hungry looking flats

    pleading for my pocket hands

    to strangle their grey

    breathneck of concrete.



    & I loll here

    sod all to do

    but to scare

    passing chicks

    with stiff-cock leers

    until dawn car-rumbles

    over my lonely mind.



    another fucking boring night

    yawns upon its signpost street

    & walks away within

    its own cloak of

    repeatious nightmares

    dragging dead eyes into

    its dole-Q arms,



    & dead mouths

    into its hateful

    shadows.



    —

    blackie fortuna.

    ———————

     

     

    note: just had an eMail asking me to put some of my Lord Pineapple poems here, ones that were once published under my real name. WILL do Saturday.

     

    A tiffy poem is on the  Three_Headed_Sarahs site.

  • “blackie fortuna” was my first out-personae, and my first major poetry book (1976) was “black bones” under the name blackie fortuna. This was not to pretend that I was black, but to try to see life as someone I was not. I was a middle class white man, I wanted to see how a young black man would view life. Already “he” was homeless. Many of the poems now seem dated, and most contain language some of you would rather not read.


    Here are three poems, the first two from the Seventies, the last a newish poem.


    ————


    “Purple Thistle Landscape”

    ________________________



    Purple thistles

    In green grass drinks

    And stings my trumpet eyes,

    Tower their mauve fingers around my neck

    And suffocate me with cotton wool.



    My hammer heart,

    Lonely and broken

    Steps out of its savage beat

    And soaks the cowmud into my bowels

    Deranges the blue of the sky

    Into an alien mudscape.



    All around

    Voices whisper

    As I wrap my cloak of newspapers

    Around my drizzle bones

    And try to sleep in the stretched skin

    Of my mind.



    The sounds

    Vibrate in the wind of august leaves

    Sticking the gum in the stars

    Around my black ears

    Hearing the ghostly

    Speeches of purple kings

    In robes of silk

    Shut in their majesty

    Of thistledown regiments…



    (The night turns cold.)

    —

    blackie fortuna.

     

    —————

     


    Uncle Tom

    __________



    the night that my poor uncle tom

    kicked the bucket after a night on

    the tiles like,

    the city-crowd left him

    to rot in the neon-gutter

    among november leaves

    & shitty waste;

    said he was a drunk black bastard,

    & was not really dead.

    but the flies knew that he was dead ok

    as they swam his stout-bottled eyes

    and drank the stale beer

    from his cold lips,

    until the sneering voice of a passing copper

    swept those pesky flies away.



    they sure didn’t tell

    us kids of this shame,

    not till we asked

    to see our uncle tom.

    & my mum said that he

    was now digging up words

    to say sorry to

    the family he had left behind.

    —

    blackie fortuna

     

    ——————

     


    In a dirty part of town

    where fast-food restraunts share the streets with rats,

    they have a place

    called a hostel

    where you can kip the night

    in piss-bed sheets

    next to men who talk to themselves

    and swear loudly.



    In a dirty part of town

    the politicians and police demand we stay

    keep us off the streets

    so no one can see the mess they caused.

    Put us in a hostel

    a place that replaced

    the mental hospitals,

    closed to save money

    with the pretense it is a good thing.



    In a dirty part of town

    we are supposed to lie down

    a shame to the community

    who do not like failures,

    who think everyone is a success in life.



    Someone said I was too articulate

    to be on the streets,

    too much the poet.



    Well, build me a home,

    give me a job

    and some honour and some clothes.



    Anywhere will do

    except in the

    dirty part of town.



    —

    blackie fortuna.

     

    ————————

    Someone has fell out with the Sarahs’, read the comments on their latest blog, esp comment 15!

    Three_Headed_Sarahs And my comment on their blog-face speaks the truth. I AM pissed off with the fact a lot of people on Xanga do not like me.

  • “Sleep, it is a gentle thing…”



    Those who do not flippin’ work

    Always seem to be asleep,

    Their heads filled with dreams that

    Will in fact, pass them by.



    Me?

    I make a cup of tea

    And curse my watch

    And how I’ve botched my life.



    When you cannot sleep

    At least, not deep,

    You are half-asleep all day,

    And in a corner of a bar you say

    “I need to close my eyes”

    And then you are away.



    Your mind goes blank

    And you do not thank

    The customer who cries

    “Tiffy’s asleep, bless her!”



    Why can’t I sleep at night?

    I do things right,

    I pop my sleeping pills

    Until I feel ill

    And cry for them to work,

    Knowing they never will.



    Yes, I lie awake all night, it’s true.

    Lie awake all night,



    Worrying about you.



    —

    Tiffy Witherington.

     


    ————————


    Yesterday buttercupped into today

    as the cold rain fell onto my upturned feet

    stuck out as they are from the soggy cardboard

    that was my home

    for another damned night.



    I unwrap the mess.

    I am filthy. But there

    is nowhere to wash

    no public baths no where



    dossers like me can not but stink

    it is part and parcel of my downer.



    If only the hostels were not so full

    of drug-crazed loonies that’ll

    steal all of my sad little stuff

    just cos I’m black.



    I step out into the rain

    squashing the ground with my sogged feet

    and wait for the long boring day

    to buttercup into tomorrow.



    —

    blackie fortuna.



     

    ——————-

     


    freedom bus

    ____________



    at last the bus is taking me away from the city,

    the bus’s torn posters echoing the torn night,

    for their ain’t no black dreams left in the city

    with its rows of ugly shadows

    there ain’t no decent black shadows

    unlit by car headlamps,

    and no blades of grass unglared by neon.



    the bus is taking me away from the city

    & the soft click of the ticket-machine

    is music to my ears,

    its gearpurring, its red uphoistery

    & its grubby-stained floors

    all seem romantic to my soul.



    for the bus is taking me away from

    the place where they stole my colour,

    taking me away,

    so I can kip in some field

    & watch the blackness

    smile inbetween the stars!

     

    —

    blackie fortuna.

    ————-

    Some photos of Lord Pineapple have started to appear in THIS blog: http://theclownfromclowne.blogspot.com/

     


     

    For full photograhs.

     

    Sorry not been on much, it’s not that I am downloading photos as much as I can’t sit for long on the computer thanks to a thousand pains!