May 20, 2005

  • 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

May 17, 2005

  • 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.

May 14, 2005

  • 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.

May 10, 2005

  • 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.

May 8, 2005

  • "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.

May 4, 2005

  • "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!

April 30, 2005

  • "A Long Night's Journey Into Day"



    (An Haiku Sequence.)





    1.

    feeling you beside me:

    i hold out my hand

    and touch something hard.



    2.

    you and i

    naked on the bed.

    outside: a thunderstorm.



    3.

    i can not see the lightning,

    only hear the thunder

    and your thick breathing.



    4.

    we kiss in the dark:

    the territory

    of the blind!



    5.

    our priest says

    our love is evil,

    what does he know?



    6.

    you beside me,

    i gently move up you,

    happily going to hell.



    7.

    the day becomes

    the tomorrow

    for i hear the dawn birds.



    8.

    just one more kiss

    before you go to work

    as a straight man.



    9.

    sitting alone,

    i count the long hours

    for your return.



    10.

    each car i hear

    is not your car

    and i sigh.



    11.

    but you return,

    and we shower

    to Chopin.





    ---

    The poet known as "Empty Chairs".


     

    (the poet is gay and blind.)

     

    Links to photos will be on the The_Clowne_from_Clown
     site

April 26, 2005

  • Trying to write a poem tonight.



    I'm trying to write a poem tonight

    But I cannot.

    There are too many unwritten thoughts

    Inside my head;

    Too many thoughts

    That are not part of any poem,

    But will nevertheless break into a poem

    With all their inconsistant worries,

    Crowd out a poem

    And dullen it.



    No, I cannot write a poem tonight,

    And I don't know why I tried

    As there are no flowers in my vase

    And no moon in the sky.



    ---

    Tiffy Witherington.

April 25, 2005

  • Not being very well and having a lot on my plate, I'll won't be updating this blog yet. Sorry, but I'll be back whem my left arm isn't in so much pain.


    Terry.


    here's somethin to go on with.


    Old Love



    I'd pick you up

    with my picker-upper stick

    if it were not laying flat out

    upon the floor...



    ---

    Terry Cuthbert

April 17, 2005

  • The Reverend Toby writes...


    Do you know I have written over 100 poems? I never meant to be a poet. I love poetry though. Edward Thomas, R.S. Thomas, Dylan Thomas, just to mention one surname!



    I never wanted to bore people with my own little woes, hopes and dreams, and I never showed my poetry to anyone until I had a blog.



    I find the right-wing American view of our Lord most disturbing you know, there is so little compassion in it. Jesus was so compassionate that people mocked him for his compassion. Today Jesus would help gay people get married, respect the divorced and even understand abortion.



    That was why God sent Jesus to be among us, to show us that we are all equal in the eyes of God, if we show understanding and kindness to others.



    At the Second Coming there won't be a heaven just for those who cry out the Lord's name. Jesus showed us that was not the case. Muslims, athiests and others will go to heaven if their hearts are pure. And many who have taken holy orders, be it Bishops who molest children or Reverends who preach hate...there can be no room in heaven for those, those whose Christianity is only a mask for cruelity and selfishness and spite.



    Perhaps that is why I write poetry, too many people are put off by Christianity because too many Christians have lost the plot, that is, it's what is in a person's heart is that matters, not what they have been taught to believe.



    Here are three of my poems, the first to a fellow blogger who spoke of her father, the second about a dying parishoner, the third about my late wife who was killed when she lost control of her car some years back.



    I hope you love them. if not, I am sure the Lord will love you, even if you do not believe of his existance.



    ---

    The Reverend Tobias Trontby †

     


    ---


    Light Of The World. (For Brendaclews)



    Through your stained-glass window I see

    How so near to God you are,

    And when the sun shines through the colours

    You know that He is not far.



    You know how near he is to you

    Even when you close the window at night,

    You know He is there with your father

    Two men always in your light.



    Whatever poets may have given you,

    However must fun, and yes, strife,

    There can be no man nearer to you

    Than the ones who gave you life.



    ---

    The Reverend Tobias Trontby †


     

    ---

     


    It was a long day's journey into the night

    And into the next morning.



    But still I sat with him,

    My eyes heavy with soot,

    My mind fighting back my dreams...

    I still sat with him.

    I sat with him till he died

    And it was worth it.

    For he opened his eyes

    Just before the very end

    And thanked me for my journey

    Even as I prayed for his.



    I dozed off doing my own sermon

    Later that morning.



    "Was it THAT boring vicar?"

    Asked a young man later.

    I smiled and said "yes,

    But isn't life wonderful?"



    ---

    The Reverend Tobias Trontby †


     

    ---

     


    "A moment in time".



    Standing by the gate

    And singing,

    And always be there

    Singing...

    As the whole world begins to evolve

    Around only those few moments

    And no other.



    You singing the hymn

    I always loved,

    Singing it

    At our front gate;

    Ignoring the fierce rain

    And seeing only me.



    Singing, always singing

    In the photograph I took

    With the camera of my mind

    On that wet winter's day

    After my first sermon here

    In this old church.



    I close the gate,

    A passing motorist stops

    Wondering why that old vicar

    Is standing by his gate

    In the pouring rain.



    ---

    The Reverend Tobias Trontby †



    ----