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  • First, The Three-Headed Sarahs’ have been told to clean up their site. The Moral Right is everywhere today.



    Now for two more pieces. Charlie had written two, but I thought I’ll give you prose for a change. The first is in dialect. any words you need explained, ask in the comment box.



    ___________



    Ethel and I.

    __________





    When I got home from alloutment, I saw Ethel by yon window.



      You know, some folk move about a lot, and their memories get diluted in new realities. Ethel & I, we’ve lived in same house nigh on 55 years, that is a lot of memories, a ruddy lot of memories.



      On the mantlepiece, at last over a gas fire to make it easier for us in mornin’, is a photograph of whom were the pup of our three sons; David on his motorbike. Why is it there? For it were same ruddy bike that had ended his young life, that it were, weren’t his fault they say, charlies found the stolen van what did it some mile ahead.



      Twenty-two were lad, David’s bike had hardly a mark on it, and I expect as poor pup lay dying he noticed that his pride & joy were still A-One.



      Ethel, house-proud in most ways, didn’t like dusting, said dust were bits of those who once walked the Earth. Said we make the dust & we will become the dust, dust were sacred like.



      Royt sentimental Ethel be, suppose I were too. Anyroad, I came back from digging, with two cabbages and a few parsnips, I put veg in kitchen and walked to window. “Alroyt me duck?” I asked.



      “Just thinking Fred,” she sighed, “thinking of the past.”



      Later on as she were cooking the parsnips and the smell flooded house, belonged to railway, house did, I bought it, rest in row is private too.



      Now railways gone, pit gone, steel-works all but gone. We get fair bit of trouble from youngsters, but they only be bored with Renishaw.



      Anyroad, Ethel were cooking parsnips in kitchen when I heard her go upstairs.



      “Royt strange” I thought, and I followed her up. She were bleating on bed.



      In the distance were sound of motorbike reving up, only other sound were Fluffy, our cat, snoring on bedroom mat.



      “Come on luv, make you a nice cuppa!”



      Lass looked at me and lit a fag, “Hab thou forgotten what today be Fred?”



      “Nay lass” I said, “Would have been pup’s birthday, I ain’t forgotten.”



      The motorbike roared past our house and melted into the distance, when it were gone, birds were singing on our garden tree.



      “Better see to dinner” Ethel said, smoke drifting up towards the ceiling.



    —

    Horace Smith Esq.



    _________________



    Text Barkertown.



    ______________



      On the Oxford-London bus, I fell asleep. As I had a freedom ticket, I decided to break my journey along the way at a small town on the edge of the Smoke. After a cup of tea in a cafe, I fell better and I wondered where I was, I looked for a name, but upon pillar-boxes, telephone kiosks or manhole covers, there was no name of the place that I was in.



      I looked at my cafe-receipt, it said on it “Barkertown”. Where??? I had never heard of a Barkertown! I stopped a policeman and lied to him to try and save face, “I’ve just driven down here” I said, “And I am not quite sure where I am.”



      “You are in Barkertown Sir.”



      “But Officer” I continued, “I have never heard of this place!”



      “Let’s look at your car, did anyone die with you?”



      I sat down, the Officer moved on, I heard a child crying, I realised then that was the first child I had seen, and most of the people here were very old.



      I frowned, and found a pub, and I started to chat with a sad looking young woman feeding her infant.



      “New to Barkertown too?” She sighed. “No fun being dead.”



      “Sorry?” I asked.



      “We were murdered you know, Stacey here and I, how did you die?”



      This woman was clearly no nutcase, so I said to her “I must have died in my sleep.”



      A man came up to me and said “There has been a terrible mistake Sir, you are still alive, I’ll put you on a bus.”



      “What about these poor people?”



      “The lady and her child will have to stay, they will get used to it, this is Heaven, we’ll take care of them!”



      I woke up, the bus was at Notting Hill Gate. I had been dreaming again, then I looked in my pocket, there was a cafe receipt marked “Barkertown” and a note saying “Tell the police that Tracy and Stacey Holdsworthy of Thurrock, Essex were murdered by Tom Lewis, and proof is in a box buried in his garden.”



      “It was true Sir” a policeman said a few days later, “But how did you get the note?”



      “I went to Barkertown” I replied, “Have you ever been in love with a dead person?”



    —

    Horace Smith Esq.



    (Note: that user name was the anti-hero of a novel I had written!)

  • ________________

    ________________

    You can never learn enough my friends,
    It’s the one thing that you do learn
    In the last of your golden days;
    When the Summer wine hath been bottled and sold

    And the leaves hath fallen from the trees

    And buried the youth that was inside thee.



    You can never learn enough I’ve found,

    In the closing chapters of my book,

    When I start to say goodbye to certain places

    In the knowledge my eyes shall never view again

    Their rich tapestory that makes this planet of God

    Such a wonderful place to live one’s life.



    And as I stand on this pulpit my friends,

    I would like you to share this reflection with me,

    We are all unique, He hath made us so,

    And yet we all walk through the same passage of life

    The beginning, the end, and all else between;

    So lets us now pray in the light of this church

    And thank the Lord for both thy and thee.



    Amen.



    —

    The Reverend Tobias Trontby. +

    —————-

    _______________

    _______________

     


    I had hardly any sleep again last night

    It’s driving me bonkers.

    How can I run a pub like this?



    I hope I’ll sleep tonight,

    I bet I won’t.



    It’s getting me forgetful,

    It looks like I am drunk

    As I prop my tits upon the bar

    And stare at infinity.



    I hope I’ll sleep tonight,

    I bet I won’t.



    I nearly fell asleep at the wheel yesterday,

    On a stretch of the M50.



    I hope I’ll sleep tonight,

    I bet I won’t.



    “What’s the matter Taff?”

    A customer asks

    “Dreaming about the valleys again, look you?”



    I hope I’ll sleep tonight,

    I bet I won’t.



    “Perhaps she’s in love”

    Mabel shouts from her pint mug.



    I hope I’ll sleep tonight,

    I bet I won’t.



    The rain beats on the windows,

    The pub sign creaks in the wind,

    The chime-clock ticks on and on…

    Oh where have I sinned?



    I hope I’ll sleep tonight,

    I bet I won’t.



    “HEY-LOW!!!”

    “She’s in love, Fish.”

    “Sorry” I mutter

    “What did you ask for?”



    I hope I’ll sleep tonight,

    I bet I won’t.



    —

    Tiffy Witherington.

    ————-

     

    (pic=Rev Toby’s Church.)

  • My The_Clowne_from_Clown  blog has a new piece up, you can comment there if you wish but I will answer your comments from this blog.

    The Clowne blog is in prose and is my reality.

     

    “George Dixon”

    ———————–

    “Evening All…”



    Most of you would not have heard of

    “Dixon Of Dock Green”

    On the TV, in the late fifties, early sixties.

    The laid-back copper who had inspired

    Many a person to become a policeman.



    It was a real George Dixon,

    (And a real name, this once;)

    That had given me one of my most shocking cases.



    In the strangely named village of Piddletrenthide,

    Neighbours reported noises from a chocolate-box cottage.

    My mate and I went to it

    To find the front door wide open,

    And to find the bodies of a woman and  three small children.

    A fourth, a little girl, was hiding in the garden, in deep shock.



    Her daddy had killed her family because “mummy had kissed another man.”



    A week later,

    A call came through

    That a man was sleeping rough on Portland.

    As no one had escaped from the prison over there

    We guessed it could have been the brutal killer,

    A one “George Dixon”.



    I myself, found the man near a cliff,

    I was so tempted to push the bastard over,

    I am sure everyone would have turned a blind eye…

    But I upheld the law

    For him to get ten lousy years.



    The other prisoners in the jail where he went

    Did what perhaps I should have done,

    But why George Dixon was on that jail roof

    We shall never know.



    —

    Charlie The Copper.

    ___________________

     


    “The Scream”

    ——————–



    What does

    “A burning bar of soap” mean?



    A policeman’s lot is not a happy one,

    As they sung in “The Pirates Of Penzanze.”

    Upstairs was the wife

    And our two little ones,

    And there I was filling in my crime sheets

    In the days before computers.



    I heard a scream

    And looked out of the window

    I couldn’t see anything,

    But then there was another scream.



    I grabbed my tunic and helmet

    And walked outside

    And saw nothing.



    I walked out into the village street,

    Not a soul was to be seen.



    After a while, I called it a night

    Went to bed and slept.



    The next night I was in bed

    When the misses woke me and said

    “Charlie, I just heard a woman scream!”



    This time it was in jim-jams and slippers

    When I walked into the empty street.



    Then there it was, a scream,

    A scream that sent shivers through my bones,

    And it was coming from the house across the street.



    “Do be careful luv!” My wife was by me in her dressing gown

    And giving me my truncheon.

    The blood-curdling scream hit up again

    Then I banged on the door.



    “Oh, sugar!” A man’s voice shouted,

    I was about to smash the window

    When our young married neighbours came to the door

    Dressed in Shakespearean costumes.



    They had been practising their roles

    In the forthcoming production of Macbeth.

    Guess who was playing Lady Macduff

    Watching her children being killed?



    “Next time” I sighed, “Do tell me first!”

    My kids were out on the street

    And a police car could be heard,

    For my wife had rung for help.



    We got given two tickets fot the production

    It was only an amateur affair,

    But “Lady Macduff” gave a performance

    Worthy of an Oscar,

    And I shivered inside when she screamed,

    And I thought about

    “A burning bar of soap”.



    —

    Charlie The Copper

  • parental advisory!


    A new personae: (try-out to see if it works). First poems by any new personae leaves something to be desired. Like all fiction-actors, I take time to blend into a personality. So hopefully, Charlie The Copper’s poems will improve.


    ____________________


     


    “The Chisel Beach Body.”



    It was at Chisel Beach Weymouth

    Where a child, a boy aged five

    Told his mummy that a man was on the beach

    With worms coming out of his mouth, he had smelt “yucky.”

    The woman contacted us straight away.



    We donned our masks and special suits

    And gloves too.

    Forensics were there in their droves

    As the Inspector held the boy’s excited hand.



    A murder victim on the beach!

    We shuddered at the thought of it,

    As efforts were made

    To keep the growing crowd at bay.



    Inspector Morris grabbed the boy,

    And gave him to his mother,

    And bent over the terrible find…

    And started suppressing laughter!



    What the f***?

    We ran to the body,

    There was some type of worms in it,

    The boy was right.



    And the tailor-dummy

    Did smell yucky.



    We gave the boy a ride in a police car,

    And thanked him for his action,

    And I wonder to this day

    If the boy believes

    That he had found a real man.



    —

    Charlie The Copper


    ————————–

     


    It was a boiling hot night,

    I said to Maureen

    “I hope we don’t have to chase anyone on foot.”

    Fortuneswell in Portland was a quiet place,

    And we just drove around it bored to tears.

    Then we saw him, an old man in a big thick coat,

    He was sweating and swearing and walking funny.



    Maureen said “leave him!”

    I was about to when he flagged us down.

    “Can you take me to hospital Constables?” he asked

    “Can you remove that coat first?” I wanted to know.



    Well, to cut a long story short,

    (You must expect cliches, I am new to this poetry lark!)

    The man only had a downstairs toilet,

    And every night he took a hot water bottle to bed to pee into.

    Tonight he had got his old john thomas stuck into it

    And could not remove it,

    Thus the coat and the hospital.



    Everyone laughed there to see the man’s knob

    Stuck inside that piece of rubber.



    You never know what to expect

    When you are an English copper!



    —

    Charlie The Copper.

    —-

    Profile pic (comment section) Dorset Police badge, the home of the ficticious policeman.

  • I could do with an angel right now,

    Someone to talk to.

    Someone to stop me wanting to die,

    Someone who will not laugh at me

    Should I want to cry.



    I look out of the window

    At the cold uncaring night,

    Hoping that my angel

    Is among those frozen lights.



    I’m drowning now my angel

    In a life full of sea,

    Won’t you come and help my heart,

    Before it gives up on me?



    I know I have never asked before,

    Too proud to want to believe,

    But I have grown heavy with air

    And I can no longer breathe.



    I badly need an angel right now,

    I’ve never asked before

    For someone to make me free.

    Yes, I badly need an angel right now,

    Will you be the one for me?



    —

    Terry Cuthbert.

  • On The Foot Of Riber Hill, Matlock.



    In the end,

    there was only the going back to die.

    He had left everything else behind,

    his dull flat, his depts, his car,

    his sponging children…

    He just emptied his bank account

    and got a train home.

    Back to the old place he went,

    back to the place where he was happiest,

    back to die.



    Next day they found an old man’s body

    at the foot of Riber Hill.

    They did not know who he was,

    all he had on him were clothes, money,

    and a smile on his dead face.



    He had come back home to die,

    to die where he was happiest,

    below the cliffs of Matlock,

    away from the smoke.



    It was nearly a year before they found out

    who he was,

    a lonely retired old man

    left behind when the world moved on

    from his dying.



    I think of him now,

    the smile on his face;

    and I long myself to go back home to die.



    Back to the place where I was happiest,

    On the foot of Riber Hill.



    —

    Terry Cuthbert.


    (pic is of Riber Castle on Riber Hill)

  • The Reverend Tobias Trontby.

    ____________________________



    The Reverand Tobias (Toby) Trontby.

    ________________________________





    He is one of these vicars who seems ageless and a lot older than one supposes he really is. Young at heart though, and fit, he has been in the parish of Shawthwaite (and hamlets) for 23 years. Ficticious Shawthwaite, (based on Castleton, though of course not on the vicar there!) resides in the rolling hills of Derbyshire Peak District, and has a population of about 3,000.





    The Rev Toby (as he is known) will do anything for anybody. No family of his own (his wife died in a car crash not long after they were married) he considers the whole village his family. Not very religious, and one of those C of E “fudgeberts” who do not believe in the bible and only half believes in the divinity of the Christ, he nevertheless is loved by the deeply religious as much as by anyone. Not for him “one-day-a-weeker” he organizes all aspects of village life, from the cubs and brownies to the Old A.P.’s trip to Blackpool and Skeggie. He is the first person anyone in need turns to, he is counseller, therapist and listener to the lonely.





    Of course he himself is very lonely but does not show it.



    ______________________________________



    Prose From Toby’s blog-spot blog.



    I walk to the shop, everything is dear in the remaining village shops, though at least we still have shops, smaller places do not.

    I should really go to Sheffield to buy my food, but a vicar is supposed to use the local shops (and the local bus, not that Stagecoach runs much of a service.) I don’t know why or even if it matters anymore. It might have done in the fifties, then we meant something to the people.



    Sometimes I wish I was in America, where people still believed in God, and where they went to Church Sundays and not just looked at the telly.



    The woman in the shop is always nice and pleasent, but she does only goes to church on special occasions, she no longer even come to Midnight Mass at Christmas.

    —-



    For Matins, I had 25 people in my church, including a baby that howled for the full hour. The funeral last month for cheerful old Mrs Enstone robbed me of two morning faithfuls, because Mr. Enstone blames God for his wife’s death. I went round to see him and he told me to “bugger off, you old tosspot!”

    I keep the hymns simple, nothing they would not know. Even so, by the third verses only Freddie, my alter-boy Bill and myslf were singing.

    I’ll give something away. Parishe just can’t get decent organists these days, so we vicars use a sort of karaoki machine, you type in the hymn number and the church is fulled with organ sound (or whatever sound you want). Few people seem to know it’s not a live person on the organ.



    On leaving the church, Mr and Mrs Church’s (sic) son Luke asks me for the upteenth time what I think about homosexual vicars. This is not some gentle banter, Luke, who came to pick up his parents, is a right-wing bigot who hasn’t been inside my church since he was ten. (And these names have NOT been changed.)



    ________



    For

    Well Dressing

    The blessing of the watersupply, in the form of the well, is an ancient ceremony which has recently been revived for the tourist industry, having virtually died out in the area by the 1950s.





    Some sources attribute the practice to the period of the Black Death in 1348-9, when probably a third of the population of England died of the disease, but some villages such as Tissington were untouched. The local people attributed this to their clean water supply and gave thanks by ‘dressing’ the village wells. However, it seems very likely that the practice goes back much further than this – probably to pagan times – and the fact that many well dressings have a ‘well queen’ suggests echoes of ancient fertility rites.





    The practice is continued mainly in the limestone villages of the central and southern peak with a succession of different villages dressing their wells between the end of May and early September. Traditionally, Tissington is the earliest in late May, and Eyam is the last of the large festivals at the end of August. The construction of the well dressings is a skilful art in which many whole villages are involved.





    After the well dressing is erected next to the well it is blessed in a short outdoor service, and usually a brass band will be hired for the occasion. Since many of the towns and villages have several wells, there will then be a procession around the town to bless each one in turn. The well blessing ceremony is usually the signal for the start of a week of celebrations (or ‘wakes’) with a range of events culminating in a carnival at the end of the week.



    ——–

    Harvest day would have been a flop if it wasn’t for the primery schools. My Shawthwaite church was full of small children giving fruit and tins so kindly. There are rules where such food goes afterwards, the tins to the local Derby & Joan club, the fruit and veg to be desroyed. This is because of some crap EC hygine law. As for the lovely meat-pie by cooked by penniless Samantha Jacobs Mum, that was going off by tea-time.

    Fuck the rules set by people with no feelings! I spent two hours giving the fruit and veg to the poorest people in the parish.



    _________




    “The Train Journey” (A Sermon I wrote)

    ___________________________________



    The other day I was going sorth on a train to see a dear old friend of mine, Tiffy: when this lady came and sat down beside me.



    When I am travelling, I always wear my dog-collar, and wear it with pride, sometimes it is a help to people who only want someone to talk with, like this lady.



    Sadly, she was a crushing bore, yes, she wanted to talk about Jesus, but to use his name as a vile hatred for what she called “Scrounging Gypo-illegal immigrants and filthy Arab terrorists”. 



    The lady ranted and raved and used the most foul language, and saying that she felt that Jesus would understand. In the end I pretended I had to get off at the next stop and moved to the next carriage, the only spare seat was right across from an Imran.



    This Muslim cleric and I talked about the beauty of life and the wonder of human beings each so different to each other, each so important to God.



    So you see my children, it is not what you believe in that leads you to heaven, but how you believe.



    That is why Jesus, who remember, embraced both sinners and outcasts, died to save us, to show God, that he loved us, his fellow humans, enough to give his life for us.



    Bless you all in the name of the Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost, He who loves all peoples that dwell upon Earth. Amen.



    —

    The Rev. Tobias Trontby.



    _________



    I sat in my church a long time today, and I thought about various things, and not only about God.



    I thought about the lonely, the sick, the depressed, and I thought about those like the nurses who gave their hearts for us, to keep us warm, and those like the soldiers who gave their lives for us, so we could remain free. And I thought about how this all fits in with my role inside the church.



    Oh yes, and I thought about you my darling, where you are you now Susan? Where in heaven are you singing with that same wonderful voice of yours, where are you singing those same songs that you once sang for me, queen of my soul.



    I lit a candle for you and I watched it glow and I remembered how you once lit a candle just for me.



    I sighed, and I left that candle glowing as I locked the church door.



    Outside, a nightingale was singing in the bushes, and I cried.



    ————-



    Shawthwaite Parish Notes.





    In my poems I write about drama, the lips that stole a kiss, the child that stole our hearts, the lost and the lonely and the dying.



    For there are the people who meet us the most, women looking for sex, little children (though less these days I need hardly say), and the ones who only want to hear those three little words: “You are saved”.



    The others ignore you or give a nod, and there’s old Mrs Moppet on the way home from her allotment every saturday (she, aged eighty, works during the week.) dropping in a sack full of vegetables that she sure God would want me to have on Sunday. Never comes to church does Mrs Moppet, Sunday is her shopping day.



    But to me, those who see me as bad or mad or just mentally blessing their coffin in the street, are entitled to their views, God embraces all, the sinner and the sinned.



    And of course I hear all the gossip. Every month in the church hall I am expected to meet Shawthwaite Rotery Club, which I expected to be all drinking men but are these old woman who between them know every scandal, however minor; in the small town. But among all the gossip is important tit-bits, Mrs Dewdrop had lost her son in Iraq, Mrs Honey has said thats he hadn’t seen a vicar “near her ruddy house for forty nigh years”, and so on.



    That’s enough for you to read today, and oh, all proper names have been changed.



    —



    Rev. Tobias Trontby



    __________



    Another cold day.



    It was another cold day, I put on my coat, I had done a reasonable service, I had been given a “John Doe” name, Herold. I used the name twice. I said he must have once been a proud and noble man who was worthy of high heaven, (the usual crap to hide the loss forever of another mortal being.)



    I did more than perhaps I should have done, without guidence from my bishop.



    And the two policemen and the one social worker bowed their heads, and so did I.



    It was another cold day, we were up at the crem, not normally my line, but I owed the police one for not busting me or even taking away my stash.



    So there was no coffin-bearers, no local copper, “how’d do there Rev Tobias?” No gentry “Hi there Toby!” No local butcher (a grunt and a nod) and no distant mayor who is a commie.



    Just myself and the two policemen and the female social worker…



    And the ashes of a headless man.



    _____________



    Hocktide.







    On the Tuesday of the second week after Easter, is Hocktide. This used to be the day when tithes (church and parish taxes) were collected.



    Of course, in the age of state taxation, this is just history, but it’s a big day in our small market town.



    The Hocktide procession starts from my church. The Bishop of Derby usually leads the procession, though one year it was lead by the Princess of Wales,  Princess Diana.



    Every year this Hocktide walk with most of the town and the hamlets joining in, many of them fine musicians: head towards St. Andrews Cavern, a massive man-made cavern and caves once mined for Blue John (link). http://www.bluejohn-cavern.co.uk/cav.htm



      Pennies used to thrown down a steep hole for the local kids to scramble after, but a death in 1962 put paid to that and now the local school-children are given a party instead in the church hall.



    Then at night the club-scene starts with throbbing music deep in the cavern. This is not for my ears, so letting my young assistant take over, I retire back to the vicarage and put on my ear-phones and drown myself in Mozart.



    —



    The Reverend Tobias Trontby.


  • Clay Cross Remembered?

    ________________________





    In a way you can sit on the stone bench

    eating your fish n chips

    in a drizzle of a rain

    opposite Clay Cross Park

    as you did so many years ago

    that you can’t really remember,

    but knew that you did

    by parents once telling you you did.





    You try and capture nostalga

    but it was all so long ago,

    and you only remember the sharp bits

    like falling over in the park

    or getting that tin steam-engine

    made in Hong Kong made for an American kid

    In Clay Cross market,

    or watching a firework display

    where there are now houses.





    But you know you was here before,

    you are a poet,

    you have the natural feeling

    for such things, even now

    when bones and muscles and brain-cells and eye-sight

    are all on the verge of ending

    the usefulness of their lives.





    You know you must have been there then,

    perhaps on this very bench

    eating fish n chips as a child of eight.

    For you can touch the dry-stone walls,

    the moss, the lichen…

    and know you was here before.





    But what if you did not know where you was

    and you could not remember this place at all,

    would you still get the tingling feeling of deja-vu?





    Perhaps it is all in the mind

    that you only know you was here

    because you know where you are

    and where you was forty-seven years and a stroke ago.

    And there is just the knowledge

    that nothing much would have changed over the years

    In Clay Cross, Derbyshire.





    Your memories would have been diluted too

    by many a past visit

    with note-book in hand

    and press-card in your pocket,

    interviewing on a cold wet day

    some poor sap who had watched his child die,

    and you forgetting, as you often did,

    not to yourself cry.





    Years of weddings and feasts and gala’s and sports matches

    some involving your children, some involving you,

    and that time where in a large church hall

    you played McBeth to about 200 people

    most whose minds had wandered off

    after the first scene.





    Perhaps all of this has diluted the times

    you had sat here with your parents and sister

    eating fish n chips out of an old newspaper

    on this bench on Holmgate Road

    at the back of the shops

    in Clay Cross town.





    You move away, no one speaks to you,

    no one remembers you,

    perhaps they think they might have seen you before

    and wasn’t you the chap…

    they shug their shoulders and move away

    or just smile at the sad old man that you have become

    then someone does speak, a woman grabs your hands

    “I remember you!” she says, “you was there when I needed someone, aye ma duck, you was there.”





    She invites you in for a brew

    there are fresh-made cakes on the side

    you shake hands with a bemused son

    who vanishes as soon as he feels it’s polite to,

    and you talk of old times

    and people now dead

    and you have to remember the last bus back

    to your son’s house

    or they’ll be worried,

    but in the end you are given a lift

    and you wonder if you will ever return

    To Clay Cross, Derbyshire.





    Memories are yours alone,

    yes, you may share some with a woman

    that you befriended when

    you were doing your job for the weekly rag,

    You can share them in this poem

    to the few dozen who will read it

    all of the way through,

    but in the end Terry, these memories are yours alone,

    and when you die so will they;





    Not unless part of you will always be here

    in time’s movements,

    eating fish n chips at aged eight

    in 1955

    In Clay Cross, Derbyshire

    In a tiny town in England

    that was once the epicentre of your life.





    —

    Terry Cuthbert.

    ————–

  • Could we have asked for more out of life

    Could we have demanded more?

    Could there have been fruit growing among the rocks

    Wine flowing in the water

    Words among the screams?



    It’s too late now,

    The train has gone from the desert

    The eye has gone from the mighty head.



    They are coming for us

    To silence our footsteps,

    To end our voices of love.



    They have already taken the children,

    We could hear them crying among the gunfire,

    Now it is our turn, and for what?



    Because we defied America?



    —

    Jacques du Lumérie

    ___________

     


    Another Daft Poem Wrote In Florence Park, Oxford.



    They say that god counts all the leaves

    That’s fallen from all the trees,

    I’m sure that’s right

    Cos he amn’t bothered about us humans.



    Perhaps that is him now

    That old man with the spike

    Slowly moving across the park

    With his litter-truck.



    Perhaps I should count all the leaves

    (There must be quite a few

    Fallen from this line of chestnut trees

    So I could start here.)



    Then perhaps god will find a bit of time

    To save the murdered children

    Or perhaps the great fool in the sky

    Will just join those other time-wasters

    Us Xanga bloggers.



    Which one of you is God?



    —

    Lord Pineapple

    ______________



    big old crow

    on big old tree

    i’m sure you crow

    just for me



    i’m sure your screech

    on this cold day

    will suddenly stop

    if i went away



    silly old crow

    on that tree

    i’m sure you crow

    just for me



    —

    Sophie Lucy Morgan, (aged nine)


    ———-

    And yesterday The_Clowne_from_Clown
     site was put up for those who do not seem to understand my comments.

  •  


    Look on the The_Clowne_from_Clown Blog for the truth about me. This is important because some of you do not understand me.


    Terry


    Blackbird.



    Almost all the leaves are gone

    From your tree, blackbird,

    It’s branches are letting in the light;



    And you are a dark shadow

    Sitting there.

    A black ghost against white clouds.



    The traffic in the distance

    Seem to be in another key

    In the cold mists

    Moving up from the ground.



    You know your evening has arrived

    Blackbird,

    You have finished your mating,

    Your feathers are turning white.



    Soon you’ll be on the ground,

    The ground that will have

    It’s revenge from you.



    I must leave this park bench now,

    My clock is ticking fast,

    Soon I too will be feeding those worms

    That once fed you.



    —

    Lord Pineapple.



    ________________





    “Death of a dragon”

    __________________



    You said that tomorrow

    Was a continuation of today;

    That my breath will still fire,

    My pulse still shine,

    Yet now I die, and tomorrow is

    Lies. All lies.



    Every morning I wake

    Tomorrow came,

    But now dusk falls

    And there is only yesterday.

    They said tomorrow

    Was a continuation of today

    The same warm fist

    The same magic eyes of mine

    Will burst forth:

    But now I die, and tomorrow is

    Lies. All Lies.



    You broke my tomorrow

    Burnt it in shreds

    When I had been happy

       firing the temper of your heart.

    But now I flame no more, no more;

    And water cruel my eyes,

    You went and you stole tomorrow,

    And left lies. All lies.



    —

    Lord Pineapple





    _________________________





    “An Apple”



    (“I can stare at an apple for hours”: Timothy Leary)

    ————–



    This is an apple

    one side red

    one side green

    and yellow all around.





    I hold it up to the air

    and smile

    I think of the tree

    from whence it came

    and fell

    into my cool hands.





    I bite into its crispy ball

    and feel my teeth tingle

    in its white powder.





    I breathe into the apple

    and become refreshed

    by its smell.





    This apple is my life

    this apple is my being

    this apple is my whole mind

    of water.





    I crawl into the apple

    until I am

    the apple





    Yes

    the apple is me.



    —

    Lord Pineapple



    __________________





    “A Man As Fine As Sand.”

    ————————————-



    (“In Turkey today, a young teacher is found dead with a bullet in his head. Government forces said they were not responsible”)

    —



    Deep in the desert

    He is playing with beads,

    His beard is hot and sticky

    From eating watermelons.

    His face is white with anger

    From a million insects.

    He sits on a landrover

    As if it were a camel.





    Poor man,

    Somebody once told him

    He was free.

    (Maybe it was General,

    Maybe it was a schoolteacher

    Paid for by the state…)

    Whoever it was,

    The man had been told

    He was free.





    He kept repeating these words

    All to himself

    Whilst the back of his neck

    Lay burning

    Under the barrel of a gun.





    The landrover

    Sped through the long desert,

    The sun played music

    On the dunes;





    They said it was a beautiful evening

    For a bullet to scream

    Into the back of a neck.





    As the poor man lay dying,

    And no longer sweeping the insects aside;

    The noise of the landrover’s engine

    Hid his warm happy words…

    “I am free,

    I am free,

    I am free!”

    —



    For Ahmed Inonu, fellow poet, 1939-1986.



    —

    Lord Pineapple



    _______________





    “The Mirror”

    ___________

    Cast: Four female humans in identical body-tights.



    Scene .



    D. sits on a table, her face featureless. In the background, A. B. & C. look straight ahead. All speak in a flat monotone throughout the play, (except at one requested time.)











    D. Someone died yesterday. I do not know who died yesterday, someone close to me I think, someone I was speaking with until only yesterday. It does not matter now who it was who died yesterday, I am not allowed to remember.



    B. None of us are.



    C. It is a mirror.



    A. We are not allowed to remember.



    B. None of us are.



    D. If we sat down and tried to think of the yester, we may die ourselves, I do not know why, but I know it is forbidden to remember anything except where the food comes from, and how to copulate.



    C. It is a mirror.



    D. They say people used to work in this place, but I pretend not to listen, for I know the only thing we must do is to walk around in our plastic cases as directed to by the government of the day.



    C. It is a mirror.



    D. Maybe that is why he or she died yesterday. Maybe they wanted to do more, to be a human again, maybe they had a thought, or even smiled. It does not matter, they are dead and we who are left must not think of them anymore.



    A. We are not allowed to remember.



    B. None of us are.



    C. It is a mirror.



    D. A baby was born this morning, we took it to the food outlet as usual, to be eaten later on when they have forgotten to feed us. But I must not remember that. The word usual is dangerous. It means we know something we must not know. We who are left must not think, and above all, we must not remember. It is dangerous to remember.



    D. gets off the table, and looks at the other three closely and carefully, then she turns to the audience.



    D. Yesterday, I think somebody remembered.











    Scene two.



    A. B. & C. are standing in a row, hands at their sides. They move only their mouths for this scene.



    C. We were born never to remember.



    A. We were born always to forget.



    B. We were born to speak the truth as it was given to us to do so.



    A. Everyday, Amen.



    C. When I was born, but I forget.



    A. It does not matter that you forget.



    B. It has not mattered since the glorious dust began to cover the outside world.



    A. It does not matter.



    B. All that matters is that we live.



    C. We live not to remember.



    A. We live to forget.



    B. We are the lucky ones.



    C. We are alive.



    A. And we live because we forget.



    B. We are the lucky ones.



    C. How long has it been?



    A. It does not matter.



    B. We are the lucky ones.



    A. Changing her voice to sad wistfulness: I had a child once, she was very pretty…



    B. You must forget.



    A. I can not forget.



    B. You must forget.



    C. All that matters are



    B. We are the lucky ones.



    B. It does not matter.



    A. Breaking down: It mattered once.











    Scene three



    A,B. & C. stand in a semi-circle. In the middle of this circle is D. All is silent, and no one moves for 100 seconds. Suddenly, D. gets out a knife & plunges it into A.’s back. A. falls silently into D.’s arms. D drags the lifeless A. offstage. D. then walks back and stands where A. stood.



    B. Do you remember the child’s smile, A.?



    D. There is no A.



    C. Do you remember the child’s name, A.?



    D. There is no A.



    Silence for thirty seconds, B. & C. blink back tears.



    B. & C. (smultanously): There is no A.



    D. Do you know of A.?



    B. Who is A.? I do not remember.



    C. Who is A.? I have forgotten.



    D. There is no A.



    B. There is no A.



    C. There is no A.



    D. A. was nothing.



    B. A. was no-one.



    C. A. was nothing.



    D. Nothing but a mirror.



    B. Who was A.?



    C. & D. (simultanously): We have forgotten.

     


    —


    Lord Pineapple.



LordPineapple

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