The Talk At Chipping Norton Book Club

Have you heard the news?

Let’s not bother exchanging views

On this latest novel,

I really had to grovel 

To get Susan Hill to visit us the other day,

No, let’s hear what we all have to say

About the asylum seekers down our way.

So refreshing to have some savage sorts

Amongst us, let’s compare the different cohorts,

I pride myself on being able to differentiate,

Having a degree in anthropology,

And as I contemplate 

The latest act of brutality,

I like to imagine I’m informing my own writing,

I’ll be a new Barbara Pym, only better,

Do you think any behaviour is biology?

Or simply custom, tradition?

Pym was a Fascist, I’m much wetter,

Oh, but it’s all so exciting.

Did you hear 

The daughter of Simon and Sarah Constable

Was raped the other week?

But they put out a statement straight away,

Saying anyone who needs to seek

Asylum, is welcome here any way,

Though it happened down in Dunstable,

Where she’d gone to stay. 

Yes, that’s old gossip now,

And who cares about books,

Compared to dark strangers with hungry looks?

Regarding literature no one gives a toss,

The Montefiori’s girl was murdered,

And butchered, like a cow,

Though immediately Rebecca said, 

We don’t really care that our daughter’s dead,

We just don’t want Fascists exploiting our loss.

And then, did you know

Caroline Smythe Grainger

Suffered something of a blow,

Found her latest hubby,

Woman, identifies as such,

In the garden in the clutch

Of a very dark stranger,

Good looking, though quite chubby,

Taking it up the arse, behind a new hydrangea,

She simply clapped her hands,

And said “Oh, this is super,

Just like a passage in a Jilly Cooper.”

And s/he replied it’s my back passage dear,

Go back inside and do not interfere. 

Parting Beads

Every few years the sash windows need removing to re-paint and repair. I always think how lovely and Elizabethan ‘parting beads’ sound and wish to write about them. 

I gave my love two parting beads

To stick between her sashes,

She looked so sadly up at me,

And tears were on her lashes,

These aren’t the sort of beads I meant,

She cried and stamped, began to vent,

Her anger was no hurt lament,

“I wanted pearls for earrings,

Not these two silly stick like things,

I wished for beauty, ornament,

And all you have to give are these,

And offer them on bended knees,

As if you truly thought you’d please,

Be off! And take your parting beads,

For you care naught for woman’s needs.

You carpenters are all the same,

I would not stoop to take the name,

Of one whose thoughts on join’ry ran,

I’m far above your sort of love,

You unimaginative man.”

Triangles

There are two triangles in shot,

Both holding up the music, in their way

One, the insistent metronome, whose lot

Is to be inconsistently ignored as I play,

Stumbling and noodling Bach,

Fumbling gently in the dark,

Adolescently, with nothing new to say

Yet imagining the while

I am speaking great profundity, with style.

It keeps the right time, wound tight, all day,

But does not chime in sweetly, (falsely?) 

Like the slightly fast clock, 

Winding down the weight of years away.

The other, just a stick, a prop,

Pushing back against the weight of music on the stand,

As dependable as the other, a steady hand,

Both restrain the music, never let it drop,

Yet drop by drop it runs, rain and tears flowing,

Down the slope, hypotenuse

Of hope, length equal to the sum of the square

Of the whole pythagorean scale, showing

All the minor hues, or ancient Greek blues,

Remaining, retaining, lingering, restraining care,

Setting measures, parameters for despair, 

Are yet long ago departed into thin air. 

Harpsichord Versus Piano as Prayer.

Can God be praised, extolled, adored

Via the jangling of a harpsichord?

Of course He can, He is the Lord,

Of music which can’t be ignored,

Joyful, Hebrew, self assured.

I think he’s probably made bored

By piano playing badly flawed,

With touchy feelings sad and deeply poured

Excreted via pores and pawed,

By someone wet and overawed

And narcissistic, self absorbed.