During the putting out of eyes,
Lotuses should not be consumed in the upstairs bedrooms,
Persons tied to rocks and women with uncontrollable boxes
May be charged accordingly.
A code not so much to be used as admired,
To know the classical, the ordered, the decent,
From the random pillage of the horde,
And to decide whether I am part of the one
Or simply at odds with the other,
And to pick at the seam of this discipline,
Which presents the apotheosis as the norm,
Which dresses the writers, the dramatists,
The hypocrites, the philosophers and the lads
Who drew right-angles in the sand with sticks,
As the standard, the usual things
Done in the usual way.
And I think myself of the blockheads, the pimps,
The hired thugs and the imposters,
The mountebanks with imported sandals,
And the developer’s brother-in-law
Who spoke in the Agora securing the right
To flatten some olive groves mentioned in Hesiod
And open a π shop.FLAGPOLE MUSIC
It’s no go the tight-head prop, it’s no go the hooker,
Wait till the bloody thing’s put in straight and review it for the New Yorker,
Wystan Hugh went up to Iceland in a shower of rain,
Addressed an epistle as Juan’s apostle and buggered a dog on a chain,
It’s no go the Willie Away, it’s no go the droppie,
Run it and draw the defence in the centre and stick up a kick if it’s sloppy,
Oliver Gogarty went for a swim and put in a personal best,
Presented the Liffey with plenty of swans and did what he could for the rest,
The appendectification of Yeats, the Celtification of John,
The Mulliganising of Martello Jim, the Newdigate Prize having gone,
It’s no go the half-time score, it’s no go relaxing,
They’ll come out of there like a bull at a gate after getting a boot in the jacksie,
Roger Casement looking to drive, splitting the men in the covers,
Caught in the lovely Republic of Irony, strung up as high as his lovers,
Bernard Shaw went to visit himself, sequestered away in a castle,
And F. E. Smith, should it please the court, fellated the late King’s arsehole,
And it’s no go Hotel du Lac, it’s no go the Amis,
The Booker is rigged and boring as shit and the publishers want to be famous,
It’s no go the final effort, it’s no go the gumption,
It’s into the showers and out of the steam and off to the aftermatch function,
It’s no go the Wittgenstein, it’s no go linguistics,
It’s no go the sober pricks, quickly becoming the pissed-pricks,
It’s no go the Cabaret, it’s no go the ball-gown,
All we want is a bang in the dark and a mate and bottle of fall-down,
It’s no go the juxtapose, it’s no go the finger,
Ladies and gentlemen join with me now in formally thanking the singer.
Norman McCrag
Norman is from a Scottish background and is concerned with things that are Scottish. He is not interested in anything that isn’t Scottish. He has spent a great deal of time in Scotland.SOUTH UIST FROM A CORACLE
God is all forgiving. A useful lesson.
And a sure sign He is not a Scot.
Students of the Scripture find no trace
Of that essential Caledonian charm
So subtle and so soft and warm and born
Of such resentment in the Holy Lands.
There is no evidence in the early scrolls
To show that Judeans spent their evenings breaking
Each other’s hearts in pubs all over Canaan.
On the other hand Our Lord might just
Have had a Scottish mother. There’s a nice
Sardonic touch about creating both
Life and Glasgow in the same week.
The reading today is from the second book of Laing.
Life is a sexually-transmitted disease
With a one hundred per cent mortality rate.
Elizabeth Bayshop
Elizabeth Bayshop spent much of her time overseas but always felt the pull of her native land. She was ordained in Vaucluse after a long struggle in the Church between those entrusted with carrying Christ’s message to all people regardless of colour, race or creed on the one hand; and women on the other.ONE SCIENCE
A place in history is not hard to barter,
Do just enough, care just enough and leave,
Restraint and pith and class will out in art.
I have enchanted history in three ways,
By random sea migration to Brazil,
By sexual orientation and decay.
The writer flowers when mixed with other spore,
Expatriates appeal so very much,
It works as romance or as metaphor.
And then as lectures call an exile back,
The homeland will be flattered and forgive,
Pretending that a circle is a track.
The child remembers well the way we sing,
We dare to eat a peach and we must speak
To everyone but not say everything.
Harry Reed
Harry Reed worked in radio. That’s what he did for a living. He didn’t write a lot of poetry. He mainly just worked in radio, which is a bit like television only it has pictures.FACING OF FACTS
Today we have facing of facts. Yesterday
We had rack of lamb and tomorrow, around ten,
We have birth of the blues but today,
Today we have facing of facts. The triumph of democracy
Hangs over the century like marsh gas
And today we have facing of facts.
The position you’re charged with defending, is marked
On your maps with a cross. It is somewhere in English,
And these are the lessons of history,
Which in our case may have to be slightly reviewed,
Sixty million dead in the First World War,
Which in our case could certainly stand some minor modification.
This is the Twentieth Century incidentally, which
Can be stopped very easily at the touch of a button,
And please do not let me hear anyone quibbling about detail,
This power is entrusted to those who require it.
It can be done very easily at the touch of a button.
Sixty million more in the Second World War,
Never letting anyone hear any of them
Wasting their time quibbling about a lot of silly detail.
And these you can see are the poets and artists,
Whose God-given purpose is to stay out of trouble,
Compare and contrast, and tamper with notions of form.
Stand easy lads, smoke if you’ve got them, gather round,
Now I know this stuff about a better society
Sounds like a good idea. But orders are orders
And it’s not on I’m afraid.
No Can Do apparently,
Peace settlement worked out.
Must keep our part of the bargain.
Given our word and so on.
And these are the critics, Art
