Ars Poetica – A Licence to Versify

Pen & Wash – ‘Herrick’ … WHB   (1956)

Archibald MacLeish  ends his poem ‘Ars Poetica’ with the words

“A poem should not mean
But be”

Licence to Versify

My poem exists
Not because
But in spite of me
A virgin birth
Wrenched from an empty womb
An absent father
Mother-smothered

A moment’s thought
spilt words
simultaneously apt
yet contradictory 
In black
On shaded parchment
Devoid of sense
Yet full of purpose
Intent on birth
But clutched by death

Flying free yet
tightly bound
A stillbirth
Suspiciously silent
A jewel in jet
Contradicting sense
By being senseless

Licensed to thrill
For good or ill

 

 

 

 

A Father’s Idiomatic Advice

Photo by Startup Stock Photos on Pexels.com

Advice from Father to Son
consisting of a collection of popular idiomatic phrases

 

Just gird your loins 
And grit your teeth, 
Above, below, 
Beside, beneath. 

Staunch the flow, 
Don’t quit the race. 
Don’t pinch your nose 
To spite your face. 

Scratch your back
And hold your tongue;
Never old, 
Forever young. 

Take my hand
Don’t hang your head;
Fly your kite, 
Don’t swing the lead. 

Grab that chance
To play the game;
Seize the day
And end your shame. 

Stap not your vitals, 
Sling not your hook, 
Dish not the dirt, 
Don’t spoil your looks.

Yes, kill the time, 
Then make my day. 
Play the fool, 
But make it pay. 

Crash the car,
If you must, 
But count the cost. 
All ends in dust. 

Don’t pull my leg, 
Don’t make me sick. 
Don’t twist my arm, 
No ‘Kiss Me Quick’.

Don’t dig your grave
Or cook the books. 
Just take your time 
And fill your boots. 

Life is short, 
Not what it seems,
So split those hairs
And spill those beans. 

Here today, 
Gone tomorrow. 
Good grief, goodbye, 
Beg, buy or borrow. 

Prick your conscience, 
Burst the bubble. 
Pop the question – 
Don’t ask for trouble. 

Don’t tie me up 
Don’t tie me down;
Just hold your tongue, 
Don’t act the clown. 

I hope these help, 
Tropes you should heed. 
Take them to heart, 
Wise words indeed. 

For after all
Is said and done 
You are my
One and only son.

Kurt Vonnegut – ‘Two Little Good Girls’

[  # 86 of My Favourite Short Poems  ]

Known primarily as a novelist, Kurt Vonnegut (1922 – 2007) was an American writer. He published 14 novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five works of non-fiction. He is most famous for his darkly satirical, best-selling novel ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’, published in(1969.

I do like this short poem of his which I came across only recently.  Apparently it was never given a title by Vonnegut and was discovered in a letter of 1961 sent by him to a friend.  It has a delightfully simple and artless warmth which engenders such good feeling and optimism.

 

Two little good girls
Watchful and wise —
Clever little hands
And big kind eyes —
Look for signs that the world is good,
Comport themselves as good folk should.
They wonder at a father
Who is sad and funny strong,
And they wonder at a mother
Like a childhood song.
And what, and what
Do the two think of?
Of the sun
And the moon
And the earth
And love.

 

 

 

On PARENTS

‘My Parents’, David Hockney, 1977, Oil on Canvas, Tate Gallery, London

Leaving Larkin Alone

‘This Be My Verse’

 

We all do it
We pass on pain
From one generation
To the next
It is essential to
our rite of passage
backwards
to our parents
and forward
to our offspring

Leaving Larkin alone
Although I can see
Where he’s coming from
My mam and dad
Still
Loom large in my life
Even so long
After leaving it

They must have been lonely
Lovers of their son
Country child
Only child
Lonely child
Left so soon
Longing for London’s
Lively life
And a renewal
Of lost love

With some bitterness
No bile
No bombast
I recognise my
Ambitions
And accept
They damaged
Not destroyed
Their devotion

Through it all
Dedication to me
And to mine
Remained
How could I
Have acted differently
They set me up for this
Their ambitions for me
Self-harming
Through being
Selfless
Succeeding
To their own detriment

Now
I find myself
Bemoaning
With an intensity
Which hurts
More every day
My callous
Refutation of their need
For my love

If only
I’d not been
The only one
The only child
If I’d not deserted
That early home
With seeming
Eagerness
That cradle of my mind
Those roots of my soul
Now so full of meaning
So pertinent
To the man I have become

But when the conflict
Presented itself to me
I was by then
Committed
Other responsibilities
Crowded in
And parents
As happens to them
Take the rear seat

 And yet
I know
I had to go
To avoid
That tethering by love
Which smothers
More dutiful sons
It avoided
My hopes
Being stifled
Petrified
And pressed into
The backwaters
Of a life

Perhaps it must be so
For don’t we all do it

Think of those others
Leaving behind their roots
For pastures new
Able to look only onwards
Whilst leaving
The hurt
Of separation
From those who loved them
But would do nothing
But encourage their ambitions

Bennett
Showed how to escape
Walter and Lilian
Whilst continuing
To cull their histories

Hughes
With his animal instincts
Needing to roam free
Left William and Edith
For an itinerant life

Hockney
Soon found California
More suitable
To his calling
Leaving
Kenneth and Laura
To theirs

I claim
None of their skills
Their powers
To change the world
But my history
Reflects theirs
Grammarians
Tykes of a sort
And of an age
Seeking
Advancement
Searching for soul
For life
In pastures new
Neglectful of commitment
To our own past
Conscious only
Of our independent futures

It was ever thus
All took Larkin
At his word
Got out –
As early as they could
And
How odd
That two of them
Even followed Larkin’s advice
Eschewing
Parenthood
The essence of
Larkin’s dismissal
Of his own birthright
His reckoning
With Sidney and Eva
For giving him birth

But
Leaving Larkin alone
Again
Our legacies may prove
Our sense in cutting
The ties that bind
Perhaps the world is
Consequently
A better place.

Our parents
May not think the same
But what are parents
Other than
The future’s hope

Pub. Faber & Faber … 2009

Philip Larkin’s poem, ‘This Be The Verse’ was written around April 1971, first published in the August 1971 issue of ‘New Humanist’, and appeared in the 1974 collection ‘High Windows’ (Pub. Faber & Faber, 1974).  A copy of the poem can be read on the Poetry Foundation website at:  ‘This Be The Verse’

‘The Price of Freedom’

Mini-Saga #4.

The Price of Freedom

Second-Prize entry in the Daily Telegraph’s 1999 Mini-Saga Competition.

The task set being to compose a story of 50 words exactly – no more!  no less!

 

 

Father William

A Japanese ‘Father William’ …  Pen & Ink – WHB – 2014

You are Old, Father William

“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head –
Do you think, at your age, it is right?

“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son,
“I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door —
Pray, what is the reason for that?”

“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
“I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment — one shilling a box —
Allow me to sell you a couple?”

“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak —
Pray, how did you manage to do it?”

“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose —
What made you so awfully clever?”

“I have answered three questions, and that is enough,”
Said his father. “Don’t give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs.”

Lewis Carroll

“You Are Old, Father William” is a poem by Lewis Carroll that appears in his book  ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ (1865).