Picture of Michi….

Quarter self-portrait by Mrs cs.

Today and yesterday….

A shame today’s wars have no parallel,
No yardsticks to compare the history
Of now with then. We are now free,
Free to ignore, free to forget the hell
Our yesterdays suffered. They fell,
We rose, climbing over them ruthlessly.
Of course we did! That’s what happens as we
Advance. Evolve. Whatever. We did it well.
We could have done better. We could have learned
The odd lesson along the way; improved
As a species. Maybe we could have turned
Away from violence, selfishness; proved
We really are evolving: is it that hard
To ditch the politician, keep the bard?

The Prince of Orange….

As I write, there is a poetry competition running on the Guardian books blog. I’ve entered, but can’t and won’t post my entry here yet (besides which, they’re all worth reading: follow the link). Carol Rumens cheekily created some idiosyncratic rules for the joust: this spoof (also posted in that thread) follows none of them, save that it is in the spirit of the title: “Soul Fruit”….one or two lines may have been borrowed from elsewhere….:

The Prince of Orange

Alas, poor orange. I knew him, for ages.
A fruit of infinite zest, of most excellent fancy.
To eat or not to eat: that was the question:
So long had he sat in the basket and suffered
The farts and burps of outrageous borborygmus.
Get thee to a nuttery: the pith’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch my nail upon the peel.
To peel: perchance to find the fruit within;
Ay, there’s the rub; ’tis a consumption
Devoutly to be wished. Infinite coils of peel
Must give us pause. The undiscovered country!
O! that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew;
Would that I had just juiced the bugger
And added it to a long glass of gin….

Ma mignonne….

I pleaded in a previous post for reminders of any of my pieces which I’d forgotten. wordnerd7, a mainstay of the Guardian books blog, kindly brought “Butterball” to my attention. Thanks, wordnerd.

Carol Rumens wrote a piece on translating poetry. Another fine and fun commenter, Ishouldapologise, brought up Marot’s sixteenth century piece “Ma mignonne”, and Douglas Hofstadter’s translation (also here).

Marot’s “Ma mignonne”

Ma mignonne,
Je vous donne
Le bon jour;
Le séjour
C’est prison.
Guérison
Recouvrez,
Puis ouvrez
Votre porte
Et qu’on sorte
Vitement,
Car Clément
Le vous mande.
Va, friande
De ta bouche
Qui se couche
En danger
Pour manger
Confitures;
Si tu dures
Trop malade,
Couleur fade
Tu prendras,
Et perdras
L’embonpoint.
Dieu te doint
Santé bonne,
Ma mignonne.

I was feeling wicked, and came up with an anti-Ma mignonne, via the Vogon Poetry Translator:

Butterball

You look not well at all, my adored Butterball,
And the hell of confinement is yours.
Let me entertain you, whilst you’re feeling so blue
And you envy us fit guys outdoors.

As you lie in your bed, with a cold in your head,
The world keeps on turning out here.
And as keen as I am on dry toast without jam,
I’m enjoying my roast beef and beer.

Still, it’s not all bad news, and I’m sure that you’ll lose
A few kilos whilst feeling like hell.
So don’t go repining, your cloud’s silver lining,
You’ll be less obese when you’re well.

I also replied to Ishouldapologise:

“I sat down originally with a copy of Ma mignonne, Hofstedter’s version and the output from babelfish, intending a faithful English variant….but I just came up with variations on the Hofstedter….as I said earlier, I can’t get the *spirit* of the French piece….

It’s a sad fact that it’s always easier to parody someone else’s work than to open your soul and try to be meaningful or write with passion (well, it is for me). On the few occasions I’ve tried to be serious, the results have been cringeworthy (maybe I should say “even more cringeworthy”). It depends, I suppose, on how you approach the reading. Even the very best poetry can be read with a cynical eye and a snigger.”

******************

Let me tag on here something completely unrelated; a satirical spoof on those who idolise the past and ignore the present. I naughtily pretended it was by an obscure early twentieth century writer, but doubt I fooled anyone:

One wonders why we bother with today
When all the answers lay there yesterday.
If only we had half the wit to sense;
Tomorrow brings, not wisdom, but regress….

Let’s do free verse….the word turns….

We used to be a rhymer’s words,
A crusty, mad old-timer’s words,
Shoe-horned into ridiculous spaces
Just so the old boy could show off his paces.

Forced to march in step for line upon line and
His metronomic metre corseting our moves.
We muttered. We moaned. Then someword took a stand:
We shook our little fists and drummed our tiny hooves!

we rebelled.
and became free!
_______if we wanted to start here
______________________________we could
__and did.
unrhymed, we gambolled and frolicked
u
p_n
a_w
n_o
d_d

but freedom carries a burden of responsibility.
we are words – not poets. after a while,
we became bored and didn’t know what to do.
we knew what we were, but not what to do.

Caps in hand, we asked the poet to take us back.
We knelt, begged, and pleaded to be spared the sack.
None of us relished returning to our fetters,
But we had to make provision for our synonyms and letters.

If there’s a moral to this cautionary tale
Of words wandering lonely o’er hill and dale,
It’s this: words are the pawns in the poet’s game of chess;
Whatever else you do, don’t give them self-awareness.

Me in stained glass, a portrait by Mrs cs.

Cross, Tick….

Sonnet

Carnaptious is he like a wet Thursday,
Yet far less lovely and less temperate.
North winds do blow when he enters the fray,
Inclement summers his to allocate.
Can this be how the eye of heaven shines?
All scoffing is his cold inflection trimmed
Lest fairness somehow creep into his lines.
Sod chance; his nature, coarse, unchanged, undimmed,
The foul eternal winter shall not fade,
E’en though some beauty slips the mask and shows:
Vail death! He wanders in his litblog shade,
Eternity too brief for lines like those.
E’er men can breathe, or eyes can read this stuff,
How long lives this? I bet you’ve had enough….
?

I just wanted to say this….

I just wanted to say this

I have scoffed
not just the plums
but all the fruit
in the fridge

for good measure
I liberated some tangerines, persimmons, apples, grapes and a lonesome durian
from the fruit basket
(thrrrrrrppp)….pardon me

to cover my sins
I wrote a note
and forged the signature
of a famous poet

now if you’ll excuse me
I need to be
elsewhere
fast….

Can anyone can help me find these….?

I’ve more or less gathered up all my bloggerel, but there are a few bits I’d still like to retrieve, but where I can’t remember the name of the original blog or blogger. (Of course, I might well want to forget them again, if the doggerel is especially bad….) In particular, I’m trying to track down these blogs; any help welcome….

GU books blog on a railway company hiring a poet to entertain travellers. (Found!thanks to atf)

GU books blog on Harry Potter & children’s books (I know; there were loads of these….all I can remember is that it wasn’t Lezard’s epic 666 blog….) (Found! ….and it’s awful….)

This is a near impossible ask, but one never knows: my first piece was at the end of a long Guardian CiF blog on religion/atheism, maybe a year ago….(Found! Thanks to Godfrey Churncheer, who posted it in the comments on the “About me” page.)

….and I’d be glad to hear of any other cynicalsteve doggerel out there on the various Guardian blogs which I’ve completely forgotten about….

These bits added for completion only; I don’t think they’re much cop….

The world and his granny wrote jokes about Oscar the death cat, who was supposed to be able to predict which resident of a care home was next for the chop. Here’s my moggerel, which on rediscovery I now dislike; it was originally here:

You’re having a rest, saving strength for the telly
When the kitten of death makes a nest on your belly.
The doctors pay court to the ultimate juror
Another result for the whiskered grim purrer.

But this addled wrinkly’s not giving up yet
To hell with the doctors – she calls in the vet.
Our murdering moggy has sensed the death sniff
But this time our Oscar has picked the wrong stiff….

******************

Posh smut: you know the stuff – dirty books that aren’t dirty, just highbrow. Arty stuff. Sam Jordison blogged on the subject….

….and I tagged along:

The Erotic Demotic

On bedside tables in suburbia
Sit piles of filthy books, it’s said.
The scenes within may well disturb ya
(Unless, like us, you’re quite well read.)

No magazines with sticky pages,
No Cindy, begging you to sauce her.
The literature of bygone ages
Turns *us* on, especially Chaucer.

Anatomical reflections
Leave us cold, and tend to lull us
Into sleep. Our middle class erections
Need the blue pill of Catullus.

Young Tiffany on hands and knees
Does nothing for the literati
*We* rise for Aristophanes,
Toss off to stuff that’s vaguely arty.

It’s porn for plebs, but art for us;
We *so* despise the graphic shag.
But when in Greek, and with a chorus,
Smut is very much our bag.

******************

Does drink help writers write? A blog from Stuart Walton….

….my bit:

I’ll tell a tale of three good scribes,
A writer, wannabe, and hack.
How each one writes, how each imbibes,
Contrasting hours upon the rack.

The wannabe confuses flow
With inspiration – hence the booze.
It’s clear to him (at least) where phrases go
When whisky nudges out the silent muse.

The hack’s too fraught by far to drink
At all! So many words to find!
So dry his wit, he lacks the muse’s ink
To lubricate his oh-so sober mind.

The writer knows the game – relaxed,
He waits; his muse will tell him when’s the time
To drink, to write; not overtaxed,
His right arm and his mind will always chime….

******************

David Bennun blogged on a train company which hired a poet to entertain its customers (special thanks to anytimefrances for finding the blog reference):

Several posters wrote satirical poems on the topic; the rest of the thread is far more entertaining than my contribution (as, almost certainly, was the train poet herself). Nevertheless:

I’m sorry that your train is late,
That kids are spewing on your seat,
The new rails warping in the heat,
Our snacks too tough to masticate.

But don’t blame me for wasted time,
For carriages too hot to breathe
Wherein the huddled masses seethe -
I’m just the lass who’s paid to rhyme.

My advice: ignore the hype
And drive your car – it’s half the price.
From A to B it’s twice as nice
No f+++ing poets spouting tripe

******************

Another pseudy one, at which I now cringe, from Adam Chidell’s blog on the last Harry Potter book and Rowling’s writing style (my point, such as it was, could have been much better made in two lines of prose; still, you can’t unwrite these things):

Wizard wheeze from JK Rowling;
Hook the kids on Harry Potter.
Midnight comes and they’ll be howling
In the queue. She’ll sell a lotta
Books to adults too. But writing
Should have style; we’re not all conned
By some supernatural fighting
And two shakes of Harry’s wand.

I remember Richmal Crompton
And her tales of William, just.
Now these stories just get stomped on
By a wizard, turned to dust.
Billy Bunter must be turning
In his grave (a mammoth task).
No longer is the Mekon gurning
At Dan Dare (who he? You ask).

Nostalgia for our childhood reading
Blinds us surely as the sun.
JK needs no special pleading,
At heart the Potter tales are fun.
We didn’t deconstruct each writer
(Few boys’ yarns were penned by Joyce).
Yes, her writing could be tighter
But kids today have far more choice.

Some Poetry Of Osmeterium Form….

a cold grey poem wrote me yester,
drowning me in clammy slime.
i seek a novel two-word quester
to make its googly essence mine,

and mine alone! the thought of others
trammeling such verbal gold
repugs the poet’s earthy mother
bold; and told the old verse cold.

twaigless, in grey the stanzas come
away from one who moves the pen;
some letters make a break for freedom
who knows why, or when.

Yellow flowers….

Gathering up stuff from blogs past, it seems I’ve been quite prolific (I only started in 2007 – or maybe late 2006)….or maybe prolix is the word….? Regardless: you’re here; now read or bugger off….

******************

Here we go: Wordsworth hour. This first one isn’t mine; I heard it first from a guy at college:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high oer hill and dale
When all at once I saw a pub
And went in for a pint of ale.

….which I posted on one of Sam Jordison’s blogs on GU:

Sam went on to talk about the Grand Canyon, and the perils of lofty micturition; my version:

I wandered, desperate for a piss
Whilst walking by the Canyon Grand
Dare I let fly o’er the abyss?
Or should I use a rubber band….

….punctuation disputes intruded; the next will make no sense unless you read the latter bits of the blog; nevertheless I’m pleased with it:

I wondered ’bout that airborne kite
That floats on high oe’r “that’s” and “it’s”
When all at once I saw the light
And realised that “its” best fits…

….and so it goes: then, elsewhere, limericks came into play:

You’re a wonderful poet, dear Bill,
You immortalised me with your quill.
But my heart’s clouded greatly,
You’ve wandered off lately -
Are you hosting a new daffodil….?

Replied Bill to the lonely narcissus:
“In my absence, there’s nothing malicious.
I’ve been lonely floating,
Profoundly emoting,
But don’t say a word to the missus….”

….the final word (for the moment; there’s a lot of mileage left in Daffodils) went to this:

Eledils.

I parted lonely as a wandering day
That slowly winds and floats oer lowing hills,
When all at once the plod ploughs home his way
And leaves the host to darkened eledils….

….which is from here, a blog by Maxim Jakubowski:

….although earlier on that blog (a blog about litblogs), this erupted:

The Bad Writer’s Lament

I’m a wannabe, (gonnabe!) literary giant
With a highly original blog.
So what if the publishers ain’t that compliant?
I’ve a fan base – one man and his dog.

The hours that I’ve spent, phrases carefully drafted -
To be critically trashed begs belief.
But my fans know I’m good, they adore what I’ve crafted
(Though sometimes the dog gives me grief).

It’s beyond comprehension, my words not yet read
By a public that hoovers up trash.
You’ll regret the missed Nobel when this blogger’s dead
And his print outs (and dog) merely ash.

My talent unwonted, unrecognised, rare,
I percuss the hot keyboard all night.
And despite all those Jonahs, I really don’t care,
Gonna write, gonna write, gonna write….*woof!*

….d’you know, I have a feeling we may not have seen the last of Wordsworth parodies yet….

Blasts from the past

Still stuck for inspiration, so here are a few more old favourites from blogs past….I have no idea where this first one was written originally, other than “somewhere on CiF”, but it’s scrawled in pencil on a yellowing piece of paper, so must exist somewhere:

What was there before the Big Bang?
“Minus time” – what can that mean?
These are questions posed by God’s Gang,
Dawkins neither heard nor seen.

“Nature’s laws are just God’s wishes,”
Sing the faithful to the Lord;
“Let’s decorate our cars with fishes:
That’ll show the heathen horde.”

Meanwhile, a physicist gets curious,
Asks more questions, scratches head.
“The argument for God is spurious.”
And, satisfied, goes back to bed.

******************

This is another one I alone like (it’s about the smoking ban):

Do not go gentle into that dark fug,
All men should burn and rave at those who smoke;
Rage, rage against the lighting of the fag.

(With apologies to Dylan)

******************

Ben Myers wrote a GU blog on spam poetry; my response deliberately misinterpreted his sense:

I logged on, bleary as a thing
Who’d wandered far in search of ale,
When all at once I heard a ping,
A message flashing “you’ve got mail”.

Despite myself, I click the links
(I shouldn’t, hope that’s understood)
But when I spy that foxy minx
Another message: “you’ve got wood”….

(….this won’t be the last time Wordsworth turns in his grave in response to this blog….)

******************

….silly stuff, that makes me laugh – from a Jean Hannah Edelstein blog on GU:

I

vespula vulgaris,
When trapped in a jar is
The angriest thing.
And soon she’ll be pasted,
‘Cos when she’s wasp, wasted,
She can’t use her sting.

II

mellifera, Apis
Perhaps for a jape is
A stinger in kind;
“To bee or not to bee”
Is something we don’t see
Inside it’s bee mind.

Do insects have fun
When their workday is done?
Do they write comic verse
About stings they have stung
And the humans who curse?
Do they read fly-blown books
Or cast long lustful looks
At the queen; or, far worse,
Do they watch insect porn?
Is “The Joy of Insects”
An allowable text
When they get the bee horn?

III

Anteaters, to ants, are nasty
Eating only antipasti.
One wonders how the anthill copes
With all those hungry misanthropes.

IV

Mozzy, mozzy, buzzing fright
In the forests of the night.
Co-ordinating hand and eye,
I’ll frame your bloody symmetry.

….enough, surely, for one post: thanks and apologies to all those whose words triggered something weird….

Poetry?

Lost Friends

Those lost friends. Where have they gone?
Best man at my wedding,
Best ear at confession,
Set as the sun.

Old friends, eh. Where are they now?
Dropped for doing better,
Stopped the Christmas letter,
No longer fun.

I remember the old friends.
The one who took to drink,
The one who let me down,
And me; the fool.

Friendship is a two-way thing.
I’ll remember next time.
Friends need not be perfect.
Where am I now?

Recycled!….the possibilities are endless….

Probably my favourite of my stuff scattered across GU….although no-one else seemed to like it….this one on poetry vending machines, from this thread:

There are machines in pubs for every vice.
A coin or two is all that stands between
Your wish and you; your prize for that small price,
Something to smoke, to bite, or, if you’ve pulled tonight,
The necessary means to keep it clean.

But we move on. Machines now dispense verse.
A coin or two is all that stands between
A tongue-tied youth, a dreamy little nurse.
No longer spouting bull, the bard ensures he’ll pull -
Let’s hope he’s saved some coins for *that* machine.

Yet another oldie….

This piece was provoked by a comment in Carol Rumen’s GU blog on translating poetry:

She rashly said : “I often think I might get the gist of assembling a new piece of flatpack furniture quicker if the instructions were wittily rhymed.”

Well, here’s my take on that brief, although I’m not terribly happy with it. One or two lines may have been borrowed from elsewhere….

The Ikead

First step: Open the box. Count bits, and loudly swear.
Return to shop; complain to youth with spiky hair.
At this point you could stop and call it quits; oh well,
Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of Hell.

Back home, find small child puking up the missing part.
Re-read instructions, recount bits with sinking heart.
Step two: lock all the doors to keep construction clear
Of small child, wife, and cat; relax and have a beer.

Said small child pours into the box your ice-cold drink;
Lager, lager everywhere, and half the bits will shrink.
Stop all the clocks, turn off your mobile phone;
Find dog is chewing part G3 like juicy bone.

Dig a trench this deep, & long enough scaffold and plank
To deter hungry dog, and small child driving tank.
Doorbell rings; in-laws arrive as you squeeze out glue;
They f+ck you up, her mum and dad; and mean it, too.

Day two; third step: fix A to H with screws.
With screws?? I saw them earlier – small child, J’accuse!
Discard instructions; scrunch them into tiny ball
And kick! Bring me no more reports; let them fly all!

Still, something wicker this way grows before your eyes.
It stands a damn good chance for this year’s Turner Prize.
It should take any shape but that, but my firm nerves
Shall never tremble, even though it leftward curves.

Step back, admire – and call the grateful wife to say
“It’s -” when the central brackets with a crash give way,
And down come the shelves and contents onto the ground.
It lies great and greatly fallen, an untidy mound.

Small child and wife, the dog, the cat, they stand and stare;
They look upon my work, once mighty, and despair….

Another recycled bit of fluff….

I don’t know whether you remember Flanders & Swann, and their song “The Gas Man Cometh” – the original’s here for reference – but here’s a new version….

“The Quantum Physicist Cometh”

‘Twas on a Monday morning, I invented a new science
(The old ones don’t explain the workings of my new appliance).
Two universal constants died to give my science space
(But that’s a tiny price to pay to help the human race).

Chorus: Oh, it all makes work for the physicists, don’t you know!

Twas on a Tuesday morning when I thought outside the box.
But Einstein’s laws got in the way – my theory hit the rocks.
The obvious solution: Mr Einstein got it wrong,
My new machine’s so perfect, I deserve a Nobel gong.

(Chorus)

‘Twas on a Wednesday morning when Sir Isaac bit the dust:
“If his ideas are sacrosanct, my new invention’s bust!”
So Newton’s laws, one, two and three, were booted out the door;
(It took me all the afternoon to formulate some more).

(Chorus)

‘Twas on a Thursday morning when the awful truth was clear,
That even Feynman’s mathematics couldn’t save my gear.
The numerator was too high, the bottom bit too low;
I needed some new integers to make the damn thing go.

(Chorus)

‘Twas on a Friday morning when the quantum johnny rang.
He reckoned twixt the two of us, we’d disproved the Big Bang.
We drank a toast, high-fived (and, after several bottles, kissed).
We’d proved what theists never could – we’d proved that God exists!

Oh, it all makes work for theologists, dont you know….
(2/8/07)

Some old stuff gathered up from other places….

Mostly I write stuff on the spur of the moment, in response to blog articles and comments. Thus it makes no sense without a lengthy back story. These, however, have been seen elsewhere, but might work as stand-alones here.

I

The universe’s form, I feel
Is something like an orange peel.
From inside, all seems made of pith
(At least, that’s one creation myth.)

The view from outside? Not a clue!
It could be orange, pink or blue:
Perhaps we’ll find out when we die
What meets the orange-peeler’s eye….

II

Mankind lacks imagination,
Cannot see that pi’s and sigma’s
Show primeval eructation
Born from cosmic borborygmus.

He prefers the idea sceptic
(Thinking otherwise is tough).
Time and space were once dyspeptic
The Big Bang’s just a load of guff….

III

Psimple Psimon claimed last night
To have the gift of psecond psight.
I challenged him to prove his claim
And pso we played a fateful game.

By thought alone, he made me fly,
Convinced the barmaid he was I.
He guessed the cards held in my hand
(And, finally, he let me land.)

Impressed, I paid him what I owed
And followed him into the road.
He failed to pspot the pspeeding car: a
Crash! Poor Psimon: Psayonara…

Hello fellow doggerelists!

cynicalsteve welcomes you to his world of doggerel.

There is, as yet, no doggerel content – but heck! I’ve only just started. It’ll take time to get the hang of this blog thing….meantime, if you’re *really* desperate for some doggerel, go to :

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/

 and see what’s been happening.

Abnormal service will be resumed as soon as possible. With any luck, you’ll get an email contact address, a picture, and some lousy doggerel.