
Curse the coffee cups and spoons
The yellow fog, the window panes
Curse the dying of the light
Curse the rage against the night.
Curse daffodils, satanic mills
Pleasure domes, the albatross,
Comparisons to summer day
The last man in, an hour to play.
Curse roads divergent in a wood,
The knock upon a moonlit door
The airman’s helmet and the hawk
Painted women and their talk.
Curse Gunga Din, curse Kubla Khan,
Curse the Tiger burning bright.
Curse Dulce Et Decorum Est
Let Drummer Hodge not find his rest.
Unstop the clocks, unmuffle drums
Forget the honey with your tea.
Forget the grin of bitterness,
The look of rooms returning thence.
Forget the friendly bombs on Slough
And men in brightly lit canteens.
Curse the damns of your content
The crumpling floods that force a vent.
Zero hour will never come,
We won’t ride a merry go round
Or Whitsun train that’s late away.
We won’t be naming parts today.
Stop the cannons, stop the charge,
Stop Hiawatha in mid song.
The eye will simply look on glass
It won’t look through; it shall not pass.
No knock kneed men will cough like hags
Three will never meet again.
Blood stained hands will be washed clean
And woods won’t come to Dunsinane.
Too many words crammed in my head
The rhythms dance, the cadence strong
I need new words to call my own
My head rings with another’s song.
My favourite coffee cup of the moment. Click the image link to get yours on Amazon.
Ah Slough – lived there a while – then Windsor – then moved around a bit – like your style!
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Thanks – check back tomorrow. Just for you I’ll do my Slough poem. A riposte-to Betjeman as is traditional. Won a competition few years back and was featured on local and national radio.
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Splendid piece!
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Andrew, I loved this! It was stunning the way you worked all those famous works into your piece so cleverly. Took a shot at my favorite poet, Mr. Frost? Ha! A wonderful satire or parody, whichever! Your last stanza was awesome!
Chuck
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Thanks the tricky bit with some of them is getting them out of my head.
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Less satire or parody than a back handed tribute I think. Also picks up on the idea of ‘sampling’ as happens with music.
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I’m with you. I loved finding lines and phrases I recognized but all with a different sound in this context.
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Reblogged this on The Reluctant Poet and commented:
COME SEE IF YOU CAN FIND YOUR FAVORITE POEM IN ANDREW’S DELIGHTFUL – CURSE COFFEE CUPS
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Less satire or parody than a back handed tribute I think. Also picks up on the idea of ‘sampling’ as happens with music.
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