Miettes (Crumbs)
The tear of a rose.
Half-hearted
When m found something she liked she bought two. Alas there was only one of me.
Anomie
I don’t know me, or my
place in society.
Why was I not born a lizard
that makes walls seem like
homes from home?
Come into my parlour
Nothing is as difficult to uproot than ivy.
Nothing is as easy to wipe away than spider’s webs.
But spiders have greater powers of renewal.
You never get rid of the webs, says the fly.
Character defect
I make jokes but can’t take them.
Wisdom
Learning from your mistakes is the bright side of being punished for them.
Hypocrite1?
I don’t need to tell lies if people believe I’m telling them.
Hypocrite 2?
I take your mask at its face-value.
Key to success
is to believe that keys are to open doors not to close them.
Sur le tard1
I bought half a roast chicken in the market and decided to have the legs for lunch and phoned to complain that I had only one. I hadn’t a leg to stand on.
I can only find one sock because I’m wearing the other.
Sur le tard2
At the car-boot sale there was an avery cage on display.
As it was big enough to put myself in. I bought it so I could be looked after.
Sur le tard3
First you forget your telephone number. Last you forget
what money is.
Sur le tard4
I’m up the wall of death.
Evil communication1
Those who try out their English on me.
Those who can’t be bothered are my friends.
Evil communication is good2
Not being listened to means I’m less likely to be misunderstood.
Evil communication is bad3
I rang up and said ‘It’s James’
The reply ‘Which James’ made me wonder.
Evil Communication4
When not taken seriously
I’m relieved of a responsibility
Evil Communication5
Why can’t I say what I think
without offending others?
What does that say about others?
What does it say about me.?
Benign communication
In dreams I make friends
with people who don’t exist.
Old Martin Chuzzlewit’s sin
I’m not evil. I merely think evil of others.
Cyclist Helmets
I know the pros and cons and I’m on the con side (in the French sense of the word)
Lit flit
I didn’t work today so I wrote a poem.
Deaf Ear
Not being good at dialogue I got a hearing aid.
Now I can hear what my friends are saying under their breath.
Willing to oblige
Treat me as a convenience, but not a public one
Maria Antonette (Stendhal)
‘Une libellule dans un tourbillon.’
A dragonfly in a whirlwind.
Trump bombing of Syria April 2018
Operation Stormy Daniels
Les Angles en fete (James Hogan)
‘Flocons comme des etoiles de bonheir’.
Snowflakes like the stars of joy.
Danger isole
I live in ego-land and there’s only room for one.
Bull
Je ne parle pas la vache l’Espanol.
Je parle le taureau l’Irelandaise.
Merde in Iraq
Now who wouldn’t go for
Sunni rather than Shite?
Brexit vexit
means withdrawal, come what Theresa May.
Brexit exit
The referendum is now the legacy of dead souls. ‘Yes’ voters
have been reduced to a minority by deaths.
Sweet Talk
‘On echoue toujours a parler de ce qu’on aime’ (Stendhal)
We fail always when it comes to talk about those we love.
Karl Kraus
‘Psychoanalysis is the disease that believes itself to be the cure’.
Virchow gone horribly wrong
The angel of death, Josef Mengale, the Nazi camp doctor,
was inadvertently a Virchow man.
He believed medical science was a law unto itself
and would achieve the political aim of Hitler
to produce a pure race. He practised
what he believed. A man of principle?
A philosophic realisation
James Brown’s sex machine is Descartes’s come alive.
Insect Life
I don’t know what flies get out of life other than more flies.
The Fugitive
I’ve given up on myself. Not given myself up.
I leave it to security to decide if they want me.
Rilkesque
Life is a symptom. Death is the disease.
Sage Divise
Fight to the death.
But don’t get killed.
Self-Steam
My achievements are modest but that doesn’t mean I’m modest about them.
A Serious Question
Is there a death before life?
A Serious Answer
Schopenhauer says yes.
Conditional love
I love you when I forget about me.
A Happy Death
I want to end my days in thoughtlessness.
Sur le tard 5 (repetition, a besetting sin of age)
I bought half a roast chicken in the market
and decided to have the legs for lunch
and phoned to complain that I had only one.
I hadn’t a leg to stand on.
I can only find one sock because I’m wearing the other.
Single Issue politics
‘Use Brexit to end fur imports’, Judy Dench and co-signs.
Sea Shanty
I have cuts and bruises on the go
to remind me I’m mortal. And so
I return to salt water and iodine
Hoping, laid out, I’ll be purple and clean.
The Art of living
is only doing
what you have to…
Hurry Up, It’s Time
Time is ticking and we’re just talking
for talking sake. ‘Space is for thinking’,
says Nietzsche. ‘I must get out walking
more’. The red light in the Port’s blinking.
Auto altruism
Is engaging with the problems of others the best way of solving one’s own?
Cafe Love
is when you put a saucer over the coffee when he or she is on the Smart phone.
JP Donleavy liked horses
‘The less I see of people the more I like them.
It will be thus until I no longer give a damn
being dead’.
Qui Je Suis?
Pasolini distrusted Italian intellectuals like Eco.
‘They scratch the surface to tickle it’.
His nails drew blood.
Linguistic racism
The French here gobble their words,
the English mangle them,
but the Irish spit them out.
Crimes change
Plastic hand phones are supplementing DNA tests in crime detection.
The end of an era for the perfect crime.
Sur le tard (repetition encore, o la-la)
At the car-boot sale there was an avery cage on display.
As it was big enough to put myself in, I bought it so I could be looked after.
Against Martin Amis (fils)
Writing is not about ‘getting the sentences right’,
but about getting ideas to fit them.
Fine distinction
The situation is delicate, but not indelicate.
Poetical corruption
Lula, ex-president of Brazil, was said to have dirty dealings
with an oil company called Ode Brecht.
Being caught reading poetry is not a crime.
Bad Cop
He is the sort who would find a pip in a clementine.
Henry James
‘The private life of a writer is in his work’
Sur le tard 6 (encore. What a bore?)
First you forget your telephone number. Last you forget
what money is.
John Ashbery
‘Abstract expressionism can be accepted on the gallery walls
but not on the page’ What about Rilke?
Evil non-communication (Heinrich Heine)
‘French is a language in which many things can’t be said
and these are precisely what ought to be.’
Mal Mots
En principe is the French way of saying impossible.
Peut-etre is the response to the truth.
Sur le tard 7 (Not again! C’est l’age)
I’m up the wall of death.
Negative Christianity
I don’t forgive people who have offended me.
Rather I have nothing to do with them in case I don’t.
Infant
I once thought dabbing the air
with a powder puff was bliss.
Ecole Nationale d’Administration
Son ADN a ENA tampone mais c’est le D et le E qui decide.
Her DNA has ENA stamped on it but it is the D and E decides.
Entitlement
When I hear the word entitlement, I know
it’s someone who feels deprived of it.
Pressure-cooking clothes
It is a la mode of the young and not so young
to squeeze themselves into tight leggings.
It must be a crippling exercise to dress.
And a prohibitive to undress.
What happened to leotards?
Dreyfus
‘The right of the innocent man is not clemency but justice’.
Bad Medicine
When yuppies have no time for their children or parents
they get a diagnosis of Autism and Alzheimer’s disease.
Economic courage
Would you drop the hot plate or burn your hand?
What is poetry for?
Economy of expression.