NEUTRAL NORWAY

In June 1965, Ginsberg and Horowitz met for the first time, and concocted a grand plan on live TV: sell out the Royal Albert Hall and hold the Poetry Olympics in just one week. It sold out. Rapturous poetry was shouted to the great bulb of the ceiling, pot smoke hung like low-lying fog, and the front rowers writhed, speaking in tongues. Here’s what it looked like:

yes yes/that’s what/i wanted/ i always wanted/I always wanted/to return/to the body/where i was born/its time again for the Poetry Olympics Enlightenment Marathon (or P O E M), run by Michael Horowitz, the 53rd of its kind since that night. The slightly more demure Southbank Centre will be hosting the event this year, more information here. We also happen to be performing with Horowitz next month in Stroud on July the first/the warm bodies/shine together/in the darkness/the hand moves/to the centre of the flesh/the skin trembles/in happiness/and the soul comes/joyful to the eye/yes yes/ that’s what/I wanted/I always wanted/I always wanted/to return/to the body/where i was born/

A belated nod to Edward Lear on his 200th Birthday. How does anyone get that old. I know it’s pretty cliche but the Owl and the Pussycat is one of my all time favourite poems. I filled a whole book illustrating it when I was 6. So, Edward, here’s to you. Deva x

I
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
‘O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!’

II
Pussy said to the Owl, ‘You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?’
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

III
‘Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?’ Said the Piggy, ‘I will.’
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

Cat Morgan Introduces Himself

I once was a Pirate what sailed the ‘igh seas -
But now I’ve retired as a com-mission-aire:
And that’s how you find me a-taking’ my ease
And keepin’ the door in a Bloomsbury Square.

I’m partial to partridges, likewise to grouse,
And I favour that Devonshire cream in a bowl;
But I’m allus content with a drink on the ‘ouse
And a bit o’ cold fish when I done me patrol.

I ain’t got much polish, me manners is gruff,
But I’ve got a good coat, and I keep meself smart;
And everyone says, and I guess that’s enough:
`You can’t but like Morgan, ‘e’s got a kind ‘art.’

I got knocked about on the Barbary Coast,
And me voice it ain’t no sich melliferous horgan;
But yet I can state, and I’m not one to boast,
That some of the gals is dead keen on old Morgan.

So if you ‘ave business with Faber - or Faber -
I’ll give you this tip, and it’s worth a lot more:
You’ll save yourself itme, and you’ll spare yourself labour
If jist you make friends with the Cat at the door.

!Terra_Furma!

Be Drunk

by Charles Baudelaire
translated by Louis Simpson

You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it—it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking…ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: “It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.”

After a while
You can’t tell
If it’s missing
A woman
Or needing
A cigarette
And later on
If it’s night
Or day
The suddenly
You know
The time
You get dressed
You go home
You light up
You get married

#7

Meanwhile, another kind of being
was constructing itself, blindly

- a mutant, some have said:
the blood-compelled exemplar

of a “botched civilization”
as one of them called it

children picking up guns
for that is what it means to be a man

We have lived with violence for seven years
It was not worth one single life-

but the patriot’s fist is at her throat,
her voice is in mortal danger

and that kind of being has lain in our beds
declaring itself our desire

requiring women’s blood for life
a woman’s breast to lay its nightmare on

Adrienne Rich died. I feel kind of strange about it. I read her essays. And then I found out she was a poet. And then I read her poetry. I have no clear view on either. But here’s a small tribute poetry post.

On The Road, Again

I tried to be somebody mad
mad to live mad to be saved
but nothing comes of madness
that can’t be constrained
labelled and copied
reproduced forever
and ever
and ever until it becomes so diluted
so madly dissolved in it’s own madness
it is nothing but sad ticker tape
tapping the mundane
same old same-ness
spilling from any old
mouth lips
who’ve been reading the same books
smoking the same brand cigarettes
until they cough up everything they have
ever consumed
(or thought about consuming)
and a voice from the
back of an uncharacteristically
over-crowded room shouts
DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ
BECAUSE THEN THERE WON’T BE ANY BELIEF LEFT-OVER
FOR THE REST OF US

and ever so slowly
we’ll slip
sinfully sadfully
back into
private madness.

ABB