Wednesday 31 January 2024

The Mists of Don't Know Where

 

THE MISTS OF DON’T KNOW WHERE (Sic.)

The confusifications of a rambling verse-verser

 by Kingsley Beat innit:

 

I like to ramble on

And I’m woebegone to remember John;

The big bloke played a mean guitar –

And Pranksters sought The Light of Jah

 

But jarring were the stenoscapes

And Neologistic walls of hate

They woke jus’ past The Midnight Hour

Then soar a ghost above The Tower.

 

And men of punctuated fate

Had double-locked the sacred gate

Until the wordless trundled home

To start a brawl with… Anyone Home

 

Say ‘Sure, Ahh!’

 

Grown ups sanctioning murder;

That’s what I can’t abide

I don’t give a fook about your history –

Loving Death is worse than snide.

 

It’s evil, yes god dam it:

And never wins a cause;

So sort it out like grown ups

And feed everyone with yours.

 

There’s more than enough to go around.

Give ‘im a bite of your apple

And stop being such a nasty barst…

Death aint’ welcome in this chapel.

 

‘But these are hard times; complex times…’

… No: they’re fooking not;

Some of you have tissue

But all of us have snot.

 

The have nots and the have snots

And the tissues in between –

‘I wanna be a door’

is my favourite Mondegreen.

 

All hail the Rone Stoses

And spooneristic scenes

Of half-love and the half-torch

Of my dimly lit mind-dreams.

 

Thus, I cannot applaud

Your loved discord

And, shout-shamed once again,

Vouch for bludgeoning falling horse

That lands upon your friend.

 

Can I go now?

 

It started with a thought we might all resound with…

And ended in the mists of don’t know where. (Sic.)

Monday 22 January 2024

 A Celebratory Ode on the Abdication of King Charles III – by Tony Harrison (1995)

[It really bothered me that this poem was nowhere available on the internet, despite being around for 29 years. So here it is:]

 

It's not surprising that the Muse has

had to bypass Laureate Hughes

and chooses me to be the bard

to hymn the close of this charade,

and hymn the Crown's demise I will

with this black goose-feather quill

I've saved for ages just to write:

Goodbye! Good riddance, Divine Right!

and anything that still pretends

divinity shapes human ends.

No Fidei Defensor now can guard

the worn-out Church from knacker's yard.

 

 

First with its feather end I'll dust

the eyeballs of the Milton bust

I've kept as a constant inspiration

towards a now maturer nation, Milton,

whose Latin justified 

to Europe Britain's regicide,

with his blind and marble eyes

sheds no tears for this demise.

We only weep we had to wait

 

so long to have an adult state.

Why has it taken all this while

desceptring 'this sceptred isle'?

Between Charles I and II

Britain had a chance she blew.

Britain blew her biggest chance

to be a grown-up girl like France

but history has cried FINIS

and drawn a line at King Charles III.

Britain's watched as waves have swept her

last King with his crown and sceptre

into the tides of change Canute

saw lapping at his well-licked boot.

Though later kings chose to ignore

the breakers crashing on the shore

that leave poor Charles's ermine sodden

with the momentum of the modern.

 

More democratic, more adult

with no mystique of monarch cult,

let's begin by hauling down

the Rs in names that mean the Crown,

the R from every acronym

that's lost its use along with him.

Remove that R that's everywhere!

First, you, my friend (Sir?) Richard Eyre

take that R from RNT

always a sore point with me

so I'm the first to shout hurrah

that the National's free to drop its R.

They claimed the added R would raise

much needed cash much more than plays.

'It gave us dignity abroad'

according to Chairman Rayne (now Lord!)

I beg to differ, au contraire,

we just seem backward everywhere.

All that bowing to the Royal Box

just makes us into laughing stocks.

From now on let our stage creation

be simply offered to the nation

and none of us need now be forced

to be so royally endorsed.

Now work should seem its own reward

to every would-be Sir or Lord

and all those former Sirs and Dames 

will be content with simple names

without a prefix or a suf-.

In a republic work's enough.

Hopefully the day is dawning

when Britons lose their taste for fawning

on Lords and Ladies, Dames and Knights

dubbed by bepurpled parasites

and will demand a Bill of Rights.

A UK with a prefix 'Former'

sends tiaras into trauma

but King-dom's nothing when the King

's been taken under history's wing.

It's probably just British luck

the acronym comes out as FUK!

 

Now finally we've cast aside

the monarch without regicide.

It's 'off with his crown' instead

of, as before, 'off with his head'!

And he's agreed all by himself

to put the crown on to the shelf

where it must for ever stay

except for V&A display.

 

If Britain goes back where she was

and Republicans all flee to Oz

and there's a new ode to be written

to welcome King Charles back to Britain

I rather fear the Royal Muse

will have to go to Laureate Hughes.

An 'Ode on Monarchy Restored'

could make a Laureate a Lord.

Friday 20 January 2023

Original Poetry - 2023 - Kingsley Beat

THIS HAS GOT BLOG WRITTEN ALL OVER IT 

Apparently next year might be 3D;
something to look forward to...
I’d settle for The Vinyl Arrival;
It’s been a while it’s true.

Still, I am getting the discs from a trustworthy geezer;
That’s all the difference made...
It’s bound to be full worth the wait:
Springtime in the glade…

Merry Crimbo All. 

Slightly rambling ‘poetry’...

Spring time in the muddaflunkin’ glade: 
Is it all art? 
Or is none of it good? 
 Which is better? 
Verisimilitude or Hyper-reality? 
 Or None of the Above? 
 Are there mixed messages? 
Is it Polysemic? 
What’s your Justin Bieber? 
 No wot I mean. 

 - Kingsley Beat" 
– January 23 - 
x😎

[Author and Copyright: ©Andrew Baines - 'Poems of the Decade' entry 2023.]

Monday 28 June 2021

Wednesday 30 September 2020

A dialogue about Class

Me: The only real difference between working class people and middle class people is their adverbial beginners. Working class people say ‘Basically’, and middle class people say ‘Essentially’. As for these upper classes, well… [unwhistles slowly, soundlessly and poignantly] / Kisses one’s teeth.]

 

(Ed: Actually, there’s probably a few of them that’s nice too.)

 

Me: Who the fook is Ed?

Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show?

Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show? If so, it's operation 500 views by Friday! I googled 'how long do you have to watch a video on youtube before it counts as a view?' and the robots reckon it's 30 seconds. This one's only 192 seconds anyway, so if you can leave it on for 30 seconds. that'd be wonderful. Happy Wednesday. .xπŸ˜ŽπŸŽΈπŸ€ πŸŽΌπŸ‘ŠπŸ» YOU'D BE BETTER OFF IN DUNDEE