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.
There was a poet called Theophilus Marzials (1850 – 1920) who is sometimes accused of having written the world’s worst poem. In his day he was a successful writer and it only since his death that the critteratti have spiked into him. Oscar uses this as an argument against having any form of success in this world. Now, I like Theo’s poem and so you know what I’m talking about – here it is.
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.
Just read on from “slimy branches” through to “thin tree top.” To me it is a poem teeming with drippy droppiness and flappy ploppy flopshiousness. Of course, its absolute lusciousness of vocab kinda does away with the sentiment of TRAGEDY which he is trying to capture. I like it because a guy wrote it when he had trouble with a woman and whatever was going on this trace of of love remains and I am here reading it and talking about it. Theo – you were a man who wrote poems. Time has made you a poet in my heart. Over to to you guys……
More international MARKET people all day talking about what they want the world to do. Is there any further point in the pretence of having meaningful national democratic governments?
Emma thinx: Economic Feudalism – the noble savage serving the savage noble.
Emma Undercover 