The Heart of the World

I have adapted a song from John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera today. It should probably be sung as a round.

Gay’s song, “The modes of the court so common are grown,” is based on a 17th Century English air, Lilliburlero, by Henry Purcell. It’s kind of catchy, I think.


The Heart of the World
(Sung to the tune of Lilliburlero, an English air)


The heart of the world so stony has grown,
I’ve dated pawnbrokers who feel more regret.
Love is like interest charged on a loan
Which Cupid can neither forgive nor forget.
It’s true, you may find
A person more kind,
Who knows the right night twelve roses to send:
He’ll sack you a city,
He’ll plunder with pity,
If lucky he’ll fuck you from end to end.

(Repeat.)

The Cloud

Feeling a little bit blue and a lot tired since my trip to Japan

[Did I mention to the reader that I was going to Japan? Probably not. I had a wonderful time. It was lovely to see Takaaki and spend two weeks with him. He is not sure what to make of the 26 page poem I wrote about him. I think he might be embarrassed I love him so much. Tough cheese, I say. C’est la vie.]

I have been spending the last few evenings at home watching Doctor Who. There is an episode in Season 4 where The Doctor’s arch-nemesis, the Daleks, abduct the Earth and several other planets (including Adipose III) in order to use them to power a great engine which will extinguish all light—all life—in this universe—and all dimensions beyond. All life, that is, except the Daleks, who will reign in the ensuing darkness supreme.

Of course, the Doctor manages to defeat the Daleks—or, maybe, set-back the Daleks, since the powers of darkness are never quite defeated. The Doctor returns the Earth to its proper place in space and time, using his time machine, The Tardis, but not before delivering the idea for a poem to me.

The alien force which follows here, in my poem, is not malevolent or intelligent: it is simply a thick cloud of interstellar gas the solar system runs into one day—a natural disaster. Feel free to substitute your own nebulous menace, if you find mine inadequate. These are relatively abundant in the Cosmos, I understand: a problem for one civilization, the end of the world for another.

Isn’t that always the way?


The Nebulous Menace

Astronomers had seen it first. They could
do nothing but track it when it arrived,
eating at the constellations. Man
was not to be informed. He was. The void

grew visible—ink spilled among the stars—
with nothing there to soak it up: no
blotting paper—no salvation. God,
there goes Orion—Betelgeuse—all gone

beyond the small, bright corpuscle of Mars.
(Mars has a few more months to shine, you see.)
That's where my sister works, Bradbury
Weather Station on Olympus Mons:

counting devils in the peach twilight,
rusty, dusty devils dancing on
the edge of night. Good for asparagus
she says—the soils of Mars. She built a bed

beneath the dome she calls her home. She
harvested a hundred spears this spring—
as Jupiter went out. She didn’t know
what Earth expected her to do. To shout?

It is Written

Offered without comment.


It is Written


Why do poems die when written down?
I print a poem out, then take a pen
And make a few corrections, and the sound,
Pen scratching, comforts me. Then silence. Then

The furnace, fridge, or fan fills up the void—
Incompletely—like a radio
Masking a maniac at work—annoyed
That he must take precautions. When I go

Pick up my pen again and let it hover
Over some adoring adjective,
I am transformed from lunatic to lover
And, for a moment, poem and I live

In total harmony. Until I sever
All connection between us. Forever.

Now That I'm One-and-Forty

In keeping with the A.E. Housman theme I seem to have established between this week and last, I have updated "When I was One-and-Twenty," our founder's signature poem, for the present age.

I hope you don't mind.


Now That I’m One-And-Forty


Now that I’m one-and-forty,
I look at love this way:
As t-shirts, socks, and underwear
No longer white but gray;

I look at life like wine
Glistening in my glass,
Turning to vinegar.
Things happen now so fast.

When I was one-and-twenty,
I studied you one night;
I had a test to pass,
But failure seemed all right.

Some light fell on your shoulder,
Some fell on your cock,
Most fell on the floor.
The light came from a clock.

I watched the numbers change
From twenty-one to two;
I watched until two-forty-one,
Then fell asleep. Like you.

When I Watch The Living Meet

Not much sleep last night. When I did manage to shut my eyes for a few minutes of agitated REM, I dreamt I was 20 again, and I was living inside A Shropshire Lad, by A.E. Housman.

This poem kept resounding in my head:


XII. When I watch the living meet


WHEN I watch the living meet,
And the moving pageant file
Warm and breathing through the street
Where I lodge a little while,

If the heats of hate and lust
In the house of flesh are strong,
Let me mind the house of dust
Where my sojourn shall be long.

In the nation that is not
Nothing stands that stood before;
There revenges are forgot,
And the hater hates no more;

Lovers lying two and two
Ask not whom they sleep beside,
And the bridegroom all night through
Never turns him to the bride.