Wondermentalist

I know it’s not directly related to Wondermentalist - although it will be if I choose to read my shed poem tomorrow night at Ways With Words, which I might - but I was so chuffed that my Guardian Work Section Desktop Poetry offering on the subject of sheds, Where Earwigs Dare,  was picked up on by the wonderful blog Shedworking, produced by Alex Johnson, that I wanted to link to it from here and post a copy of the poem. In fact it’s very wondermentally related, as I was told of the shedworking blog and given a link to it by a thgouhtful woman called Annie who I’m sure has been to Wondermentalist as she also sent links to youtube performances that might inspire wondermental happenings…Anyway, here’s the poem:

Where Earwigs Dare

A silver trail across the monitor;

Fresh mouse-droppings beneath the swivel-chair;

The view obscured by rogue japonica.

Released into the wild, where earwigs dare -

You first went freelance - and then gently feral.

You worked from home - then wandered out again,

Roughed it with spider, ant, shrew, blackbird, squirrel

In your own realm, your micro-vatican.

No name conveys exactly what it is -

Chalet?  Gazebo? You were not misled

By studios, snugs, garden offices,

Workshops or outhouses. A shed’s a shed -

And proud of it. You wouldn’t want to hide it -

Wifi-enabled rain-proof wooden box.

A box to sit in while you think outside it -

Self-rattling cage, den, poop-deck, paradox,

Hutch with home-rule, cramped cubicle of freedom,

Laboratory, thought-palace, bodger’s bower,

Plot both to sow seeds and to go to seed in,

Cobwebbed, Cuprinol-scented, Seat of Power.

Vital Statistics

“Statistics are like a bikini - what they reveal is enticing, but what they conceal is vital”

I read. And slept. And dreamt I was there

at the Vital Statistic Beauty Show

ogling a bevy of stunning stats

the smooth curves of their perfect percentiles

rounded to the nearest whole number

90%-of-Accidents-Happen-in-the-Home

was voluptuous as a pie-chart with one slice missing

69%-of-Household-Dust-is-Human-Skin

the acme of elegance in a plain line graph - axes left daringly blank

interviews were conducted by the square root of Michael Aspel,

chanting protestors were dismissed by the media as an unrepresentative fraction

the sash and tiara went to

86%-of-Women’s-Industrial-Injuries-Are-Caused-By-Glass-Ceilings

garbed in stark Arabic numerals

and I only guessed I was dreaming when

90%-of-Drivers-Believe-They’re-of-Above-Average-Ability

gave me her phone number…

I’m doing Saturday Live tomorrow. I’ve already written my topical poem ( - at the start of the programme the poet of the day reads a short verse about anything in the news that takes their fancy.) To be honest topicality doesn’t come naturally to me and I ask my nearest and dearest ‘What’s topical? What’s topical?’ with increasingly irritating frequency. Yesterday I appended the question to an e-mail to Elvis McGonagall and he write back: ‘Kylie picked up an OBE’. That was enough for me. Better than the credit crunch, the price of oil or Brangelina’s imminent caesarian. So I wrote a quick Kylie poem and now I don’t know if I dare read it. Do you want to hear it? That’s a rhetorical question, obviously.  

A bit of froth for Kylie

She popped to the Palace for her OBE

 – The Order of the Bubbly Elf –

She’s been plucky, plucky, plucky

(And we’re glad she’s got her health)

 Yes. That was it. Tell me, honestly - no, really, I need to know your opinion, for what it’s worth, what do you think? Should I read it? Or should I do the sensible mature thing and step back to the drawing board while there’s still time…? 

Following on from the last post, from Jackie Juno, I remembered this poem that I used to perform time back way back, in the misty mists and foggy ruins of time. Called, I think…

An Introduction to Basic Counselling Skills

I think at last I hear how you are hurting

I think at last I understand your pain

But still I’m not one hundred per cent certain

So would you mind just screaming that again?

(Thanks. Much appreciated.)

Ah, those were the days. I used to say that I was going to do ‘a short season of short poems in translation’, and then claim that I’d set myself the task of writing some poems in a variety of Scandinavian languages that I’d then translated back into English. This being especially challenging because I don’t speak any Scandinavian languages. I would then read out poems such as the above along with things like…

Under-Achiever’s Song

I came into this world without a quibble

I came into this world without a name

And pretty soon I taught myself to dribble

And since then I’ve stayed pretty much the same

As I say, those were the days. But you had to be there, I think.