Time

The future
began
just now.

The past
ends
in a moment

The present
came
and went.

The madness of life

Life's infancy is delivered with a long-lasting magical madness
dissolving to reveal a fog of portent adolescent angst

supplanted by love and laughter collapsing into

the craziness of family life or singularity of

batchelordom all to diffuse their light

across a blur of middle-age spread
reduced in the twilight of years

where age-related conditions 
eat holes in the brain and 
at the end of the day 
the only sane thing 
to do is to

die

.

Why I hate James Bond

(Just a bit of fun)

Why I hate James Bond

My report's with HR, with M, and with Q,
about that philanderer (you know who).
He's a bluffer (makes me nervous),
on Her Majesty's Service
(and from what I can see,
he serves no useful purpose).

He gets everything he wants,
and never has to sign for it,
yet if I poo in Thames House
It's signatures in triplicate.

It's all so unfair, he gets all the best gadgets
with stun gas and lasers and whizzy big widgets:
all I get's a phone with some stupid apps,
his new Aston Martin has special mud caps
that turn outwards revealing a huge scatter gun
(I just sit in an office, on a chair, on my bum).

He's this obsession with Blofeld who, so he claims,
has vile, evil plans and nefarious aims.
But, from the pictures I've seen,
he's cat lover and really awfully quite tame.

He's been seeing a woman of exceptional looks
with whom he's supposedly beating up crooks
and he claims to fight sharks and men with steel jaws,
(I'll wager in bed that he farts and he snores)

But I know the truth, yes, I've worked it out:
She's not what she seems (and he's just a lout).
She's really an agent from a far eastern land.
(Ha! Even his nookie is pay-on-demand)

I've been watching you see for several long weeks
Every move, every contact, awake and asleep
He thinks he's so clever, with his wit and his charm
My report will soon crack the façade of his calm

What? I'm undone, but how can this be?
They've not come for him, they're arresting me.
It's not fair, I tell you, I've committed no crime
(well, apart from the money I took that one time).

and that's locked in safe in deep darkest Devon,
with cameras, steel walls, and security men,
who won't let you in unless the right code is given.
Of course: the PIN that I used... it was double-oh seven!

Poetry is a load of old rubbish.

Poetry? It's a load of old rubbish!

That's the sentiment that I hear from a lot of people. Not morons or fools but people who have not been exposed to it, taught it, or fallen upon it one rainy Sunday by chance. Of course, I happen to think that they're wrong but it's the devil's own job to get them to see another side. Why? And why is poetry not just nice/beautiful etc but actually crucial to the general art of fiction? By the way, I'm choosing my words carefully: I do mean crucial.

First of all, why do so many people think poetry is rubbish? I think it's because most people when they think of poetry only think of limericks. Now, these can be fun but they really represent a very small (miniscule) subset of the superset that is poetry. So, you say poetry and people instantly think 'There was a young poet from Mawdor, who was a frightful old bore...' etc. Or they think of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings (quoted in Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), or, perhaps that infamous Scottish poet William Topaz McGonagall.

Of course, these terrible poets are all fun to lambast but the joshing sometimes creates an impregnable barrier to accessing the good stuff.

A further problem, I think, is that people sometimes think that all poetry has to be iambic pentatmeter and the minute they hear that term they run a mile. It's been said by many that iambic pentameter lends itself to the natural speech patterns of English. In The Ode Less Travelled, Stephen Fry tells us that 'The rising rhythm of the five-beat iambic pentameter has been since the fourteenth century the most widely used metre in English poetry.' Well, OK, I will concede that but it can, I think, be difficult and feel quite laboured and personally I reckon that iambic tetrameter suits the language better. Hang on. All these terms: iambic; pentameter; tetrameter. What do they all mean? Now I know that many who read this will know what they mean but many won't and for those who don't I would recommend finding out and deliving in to the different poetic terms. Find out what enjambment is, seek out the elusive trochee, and learn the difference between a limerick, a sonnet (and the different forms therein), and all the other forms of poetry.

There is something else though and that is: imagery. Poetry is often an exercise in imagery. Pareidolia (the psychological phenomenon of reading significance into random stimulii - like sights and sounds - like the Man on the Moon) often informs poetry. Poets often have to think very visually. That is also true of fiction writers and it is my belief that a fiction writer who also writes poetry (even if they only dabble from time to time) will develop an increased ability to write from a visual perspective and that that is why poetry, as I stated at the beginning of this post, is crucial to the art of fiction. It is a shame that that isn't taught with more fervor in schools and defended more robustly when the statement 'Poetry? It's a load of rubbish!' is made.

By the way, April is National Poetry Month. Why not give it a bash? You might be pleasantly surprised at the results :)

Foodie poetry

Introduction
The following is a set of four interconnected poems. Interconnected poetry is known as a pamphlet (and, in life-writing may be described as having a 'through-line'), though there are usually more than four poems in a pamphlet in my experience.

The four poems are:

1. The Black Plant (five quatrains following a scheme of XAXA, XBXB, etc);
2. Orange Squash (a single quatrain with an ABAB scheme); 
3. The Green Stuff (a sonnet in iambic pentameter - though neither Shaespearean nor Petrachan); and
4. The Crown (a couplet mean to top off the lot).

The through-line is food but there are other themes too. I've used several techniques including slant-rhyme and different rhyming schemas. Comments much appreciated.

1: The Black Plant

It’s still used as currency

for paying the rent

in St George’s, Bermuda

and Sevenoaks, Kent[1]

An industrial machine

that blasts through blockades

and marches through continents;

a Dark Gold parade.

Oh, there's trouble at mill

when the grinding blade breaks,

stealing the soot

away from our plates.

Though once the preserve

of the wealthy upper-classes,

you’re now less to serve

than rich, black, molasses.

Black is the drupe

and white is its seed,

with the Black Plant we spice up

mouths that we feed.

(20 lines)

---

[1] In Bermuda, today, a single peppercorn is paid by the island’s masonic lodge to the island’s governor for the rental of the Old State House as their lodge. In Sevenoaks, Kent, two peppercorns are paid each year to the council by the Vine Cricket Club: one for the rental of the grounds and one for the rental of the clubhouse.

2: Orange Squash

Orange, all hollowed, with Cheshire cat cheeks.

Pulp all the flesh for sweet pies and hot soups.

Cut demonic faces for kids’ trick or treats;

this gourd that lights monsters? A multi seed fruit.

(4 lines)

3: The Green Stuff

Pulled from the ground, all covered in soil,

tear off the leaves and wash in a spinner

then dry all the blades so I don't spoil

chlorophyll fibres served up with my dinner.

Green is the colour that’ll track though my tract;

but green on its own? I need more than that.

Mix in more colours to entice the palate

then garnish with seeds and dark vinaigrette,

to take the edge off the dullness of salad.

A feast incomplete that my fork rejects,

where are the carbs and the protein I crave?

Bare salad alone, today I must brave.

I’m not vegetarian or anything like that

It’s just that I don’t want to remain fat.

(14 lines)

 

4: The Crown

All good food deserves a fine liquid crown.

A glass of Sancerre, to wash the lot down.

(2 lines)

© 2012 Toby Corballis

Life of a beetroot

I wanted to write a poem from the point of view of a beetroot. Daft, I know but there you have it. It isn't in iambic anything but there is meant to be a sort of structure so I hope it makes sense. I'd love any comments anyone might be able to give :-)

Beetroot

Where we grew up in that ragged place
Where our parents wild seeds were sown
It was always dark there underground
underground

Alone

We'd shoot our goosefoot proudly
Toward a sun that never shone
It was always dark there underground
underground

Alone

We lived our lives in furrows
With neighbours who'd never be known
It was never light there underground
underground

Alone

By force one day we all rose up
An army uprooted from its home
In death we finally saw the light
Above ground

Our lives over, we will smear
Splattered satanical red stains
On dinner swords, where you cut us up
Our deed
Done

Squirrel

I wrote this about a squirrel who used to come to my kitchen balcony every day. I hope it works. Just to show that it was an animal that was in my life a lot (and still is), I have attached a picture I took of it with my phone.

Squirrel

Squirrel come, let's play peekaboo
You approach my balcony
But I see you
I look at you admiringly
Because you are so very
Cunning, clever, with a hint of greedy
I see the saliva fall from your chops
As you contemplate the biggest ever nut
And think to yourself, my what's it got
And I laugh at the train
Of obvious thinking
In your one track squirrel brain
The feast of tomorrow's
That you are drinking
But how to bury this over-sized grain?
Perhaps you are not totally
Greedy greedy greedy
But like to face a challenge
Just like me, me, me
You see humans
Who indulge their glut
Pay the price
With extra butt
But squirrels have
To bury their labour
In the ground later
For them to savour
Today your realised that you could not
Lift the damn thing, nope
Not a jot
So I admire your brand
New ploy
Dig it open
And then
Enjoy
So big and round
You hold it tight
And ground and ground
With all your might
But today I think is the
Day when
You'll fill your cup biting end
to end
That coconut?
It's yours, my friend

The narcissist

First of all, apologies for lack of new stuff - have been a bit off colour over Xmas and New Year.

OK, I am, I admit, the world's worst poet (I am worse than the Vogons ;-) )

Anyway, I just wrote this as a desperate attempt to get something down where the verses rhyme at the end. Next stage will be to try my hand at some of that alliteration malarkey but small steps people, small steps. A215 is certainly throwing up challenges with the poetry module!
Hope you enjoy and that it make some kind of sense :)

The narcissist
'I love you, I love you' the sycophant said,
'For you are the one was truly bred',
'To ensure we are all most wisely led'.
He spread wide praise upon the bed,
Then he and the ego were lovingly wed.

'You're wonderful, such a marvellous man',
Said the sycophant, deftly enacting his plan,
(What a servile self-serving sycophan').
'I know, I know, you're my number two fan',
The narcissist said... completely deadpan.

They would sit, and they'd talk, all about Him,
(It got worse, of course, when they'd been at the gin)
And the sycophant's nerve, it grew within,
Until it ached like the narcissist's ear-to-ear grin,
And challenged a small point of contention.

The narcissist started feeling less good,
This marriage once had provided his food,
Then one day, in a very daring mood,
The sycophant faltered and booed,
That's when the narcissist kicked and drew blood.

Now a new sycophant for him to procure,
Who would not (who could not?) resist the allure,
Of one so worldly, so wickedly pure.
A small price to pay, his fawning succours,
The narcissist felt right, able, and sure,

But the hydra, it's heads as we know they are many.
Sycophants? Well they come two-a-penny,
Their luck? Truth be told, they've not any,
And if they say something even slightly contrary,
Master always deems them unnarcissary.

'Lickspittle, come worship what's in my head,'
'Not anymore,' the new sycophant said.
First he simpered, and then he begged, oh he begged,
But too late, for him t'was off with his head,
Another sycophant lies useless, rotting, and dead.

This beast it grows and it grows and it grows,
Casting nets in ever-shallow hallows,
Picking morsels from whatever follows,
Both parties eventually to exchange blows,
As curtains close merciless on lines of death rows.

So, this tale, it then please be a warning,
Shelter yourself, under your own awning,
The sycophant we know is fairly disarming,
The narcissist far much more than alarming,
So, accept not, nor give, thee any form of fawning.