Mud

Last week, I spoke with a few artists, one of whom mentioned a piece of worked based in a piggery. I was impressed. So impressed in fact, that it inspired me to want to write a poem from the seed that was the word ‘piggery’. All was going well. I had several stanzas, a fairly clear narrative, and it was safely put to bed, as ‘twere.

Now, I realise, it was not. It was not saved, it is gone. So, I am trying to dredge my memory - I aim to recreate it. Folks, this is the rough end of the Being an Amateur Poet wedge – yes, The BAP Wedge, as we for-one-month-only amateur poets would have it.

As I have nothing other than this insight into ‘process’ to share here, do feel free to suggest a theme for a series of posts – the iller-advised the better. It will do you no harm, and it just might help drive me towards my short-term piggery ends.

Come, bathe with me in the mud of et cetera et cetera.

Poetic

So, Alex and I are having one of our intellectual chats this last bath-time. I asked the big man for some advice:

Shane: It’ll be Christmas soon.
Alex: Mm.
Shane: (pause) What kind of a gift do you think I should get my Mum?
Alex: (thinks) Nothing!
Shane: Hmm - bit tricky – ‘nothing’. Maybe something else?
Alex: (thinks II) Love!
Shane: (double-take) Amazing! But what does that look like? And how would I wrap it?
Alex: It’s just hugs and kisses.
Shane: Right-.
Alex: We sing a song at school about how the best gift that you can give is love.
Shane: So, not a Playstation or anything, then.
Alex: No - love.

And the retail sector, it did suffer. Beautiful though.

FrAuden

#5 in the ‘Unholy Ever After Series of Disquieting Verse’ and, oh mon dieu, he’s gone a bit sentimental… he does that, y’ know – in the month of good cheer, too (throws arms up in air) – honestly! – (catches arms… with feet – clever that). So:

Stale cigarette smoke
A cold beer cellar
The club as church
One hell of a fella

Lines about the eyes
There’s untold stories
A glint and a grin
Speak of former glories

An ailing frame
With no admission
A held-back wheeze
Quiet contrition

A café on a cliff
Something to tell?
He turns and he sighs
Son, I’m not well

Look after your Ma
She’ll find it tough
- What d’ y’ mean?
You’ve had enough

Get over yourself
Don’t be daft
You’re not even old
I nervously laughed

But a joke’s a joke
And this was none
Living for the moment
But the moment was gone.

Bed

Some opening gambits are startling (#4 in this month’s ‘Series of Inexplicable Verse’):

You were funny in bed last night
Asleep within three minutes -
Unprecedented
T-shirt wrapped around your head
I could just see your mouth
Your gentle breathing
In
And out
Sound asleep you were

Until I put the light out
Then you did this funny breathing thing
A huff
And a puff
- And a blow your house down?
And a snorey purring gurgle
- A snorey purring gurgle?
A snorey purring gurgle
You were funny in bed last night

Brown

#3 in this month’s ‘Series of Unlicensed Odes’…

Roses, are red
Violets’ hue blue
Your teapot is yellow
And my slippers, have gone missing.

Passion

#2 in this month’s Series of Unlicensed Odes (with apologies to Yorkshire, and a nod to Ian McMillan):

There’s a woman that smoked by the school gate
She shuffled and shifted and looked the other way
Her hair red and spiky and cheap
Her clothes practical and denim and, cheap

This woman at the school gate I thought she were a cleaner
I’d seen her go into the school as the kids buzzed home
She kept her head down, not acknowledging anyone
Made her stand out, that did

I was wrong about the woman at the school gate
Turns out she worked at the Travel Inn by the dual carriageway
Turns out she’d been having an affair with the head-teacher
Whose wife found out and chucked him out

So he’s staying at the Travel Inn now
Convenient that
In a way.

© 2007 Shane Wexford

The right of Shane Wexford to be identified as author of this work of fiction has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Click

The first time I ever lived with a love interest, we shared a flat that was above and to the rear of a Chinese takeaway. Entering the property on the ground floor at the back of the takeaway, we would then walk through a porch area, our kitchen and then do a u-turn left onto the foot of the stairs. At the top of the stairs, the bedrooms and sitting room were off a short corridor to the left, the bathroom and toilet were at the end of a short corridor directly ahead.

Looking back, I see a heady romance, tinged with noodles.

To a finger-clicking beat of 60 beats per minute, here’s an architecture-inspired songpoemthing from the archives (NB/ It is fictional... mostly):

At ease
Without any cares
I wandered
Slowly up the stairs
To
Behold
A sight ahead of me

My heart -
It missed a beat
As there
She did greet
Me
Whilst taking a pee

Her look on the throne
It gave me a bone
I didn’t know constipation could do this

As she gripped her thighs
I stepped forth with glazed eyes
Knelt down and gave her a kiss

It felt so right
Her cheeks glowed so bright
Must have been love
Or a stomach ache

Romance and bowel problems
For heaven’s sake
A good combination
They
Do not make

I’d
Fallen in love
With a girl sitting on the loo
I’d
Fallen in love
With a girl trying to poo
Number two.

(fade)

(forgive)

© 2007 Shane Wexford

The right of Shane Wexford to be identified, frowned upon and pilloried as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.