OK Literatti – let’s get down on some poetry. Today I have been busy on a whole new project of compiling and editing a book of poetry on behalf of Gallo-Romano Media. Regulars will have heard me rattling on about my mate Oscar Sparrow whom I have known for many years. He’s a bit kinda prickly to be honest and is a tree book hard-liner. On account of that he’s scuffed along in a bedragglement of small press pamphlets, anthologies and Arts Council artsfarts. (An artsfart is a form of poetry only read by South American ant-eaters) Eventually I have persuaded him to put out a small collection of his poems via Rosina’s media outfit. Everyone knows that no one reads poetry except other poets and they don’t like it cos they didn’t write it themselves. I’m officially gonna be credited as editor and a small contributor. He believed that he has sold his soul to the forces of Mammon but he cheered up when we assured him that no one would read it and he wouldn’t get paid. It is at moments like that you know you are in the presence of a true poet. I wish Oscar were my brother so that I could love him.
A Tragedy
Theophilus Marzials
- Death! Plop.
The barges down in the river flop.
- Flop, plop.
- Above, beneath.
From the slimy branches the grey drips drop,
As they scraggle black on the thin grey sky,
Where the black cloud rack-hackles drizzle and fly
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop
On the black scrag piles, where the loose cords plop,
As the raw wind whines in the thin tree-top.
- Plop, plop.
- And scudding by
The boatmen call out hoy! and hey!
All is running water and sky,
- And my head shrieks — “Stop,”
- And my heart shrieks — “Die.”
* * * * *
My thought is running out of my head;
My love is running out of my heart,
My soul runs after, and leaves me as dead,
For my life runs after to catch them — and fled
They all are every one! — and I stand, and start,
At the water that oozes up, plop and plop,
On the barges that flop
And dizzy me dead.
I might reel and drop.
Plop.
Dead.And the shrill wind whines in the thin tree-top
Flop, plop.
* * * * *
A curse on him.
Ugh! yet I knew — I knew —
If a woman is false can a friend be true?
It was only a lie from beginning to end —
- My Devil — My “Friend”
I had trusted the whole of my living to!
- Ugh; and I knew!
- Ugh!
- So what do I care,
And my head is empty as air —
- I can do,
- I can dare,
- (Plop, plop
- The barges flop
- Drip drop.)
- I can dare! I can dare!
And let myself all run away with my head
And stop.
- Drop.
- Dead.
- Plop, flop.
Plop.
Emma Undercover 
Had I come across this written version of Marzials' poem, I would have merely chuckled and moved on, but since hearing Oscar's reading of it, it is amazing! Oscar is brilliant! I shall not get that voice out of my head forevermore! Thank you for posting!
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