(SR) L’Amfiparnasso: To A Sonneteer With Liberty
L’Amfiparnasso
TO A SONNETEER WITH LIBERTY
Everything you can imagine is real
Pablo Picasso
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STROPHE
Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me
Sigmund Freud
Sir, did you ever take these bright isles in a tour,
The pride of Scotland slake on Hampden’s awesome roar;
& did you ever feed your thirst in Cornish Springs,
Or take the time to read thro’ histories of kings?
Sir, did you drink the ale brew’d from the northern mills,
Or watch seafarers sail from Whitby’s salty sills,
& did you ever stun the herds of Jura deer,
Or strike a mountain run on Snowdon sloping sheer?
Sir, have you ever seen Cumbria clad in snow,
Or Brighton’s beaches been in summer’s easy glow,
& have you ever gone thro’ Glencoe’s savagery,
Or tour’d Portmeirion in total privacy?
Sir, did you please your skin ‘neath Nunraw’s sylvan falls,
Or ease your boat within Old Dunbar’s harbor walls,
& have you ever heard the Cambridge matin bells,
Or felt your senses stirr’d when Britain’s anthem swells?
To an Sonneteer with liberty,
What of these coy demands?
“These things, sir, I have known!”
You have? Then oer the sea,
Beyond these fabled lands
You’ve come to call your own,
Set sail for Calais sands.”
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ANTISTROPHE
O soul-enchanting poesy,
Thou’st long been all the world with me
John Clare
(i)
I wrote a poem once,
Near Stockport, by the gates of Manchester
Me & Nick were driving there one sunny day
Smoking reefers & talking about life’s changes
Well, we ended up in a funky metal scrapyard
One of those places you never thought existed
Like when you were younger & joked
About where all the lost odd socks went
But this place was the real deal,
Full of Volkswagen carcasses,
Camper vans, Beetle hulks
& a couple of greasy mechanics, chilling with the sun
While Nicky looked at a ninety-nicker bumper
I was suddenly inspired to write a few desolate lines
About decaying Earth
& the dwindling fuel reserves
& finished it off with an arty kind of twist
About discovering an old photograph of myself
Holding a young lady, she was wearing beads
Sat upon the beach of, perhaps, San Remo…
…She never really existed, that girl,
But all poems need an end!
(ii)
So I stash’d it away,
A single sheet of paper folded several times
Constantly forgetting to type the fucker up
Until it turned up in a book I was reading
Livy’s remarkable Early History of Rome
I’d packed it on my mission round the Baltic
Where, trawling about the soft streets of Stockholm
Wondering what the hell the plastic cows were for
Every time I pick’d it up the sheet fell out the pages
Constantly reminding me that I should make it safe
It’d only take a second, but I never took the time…
(iii)
I found myself having one of those moments
Sun setting sublimely as I made my evening meal
On the forecastle of the hotel boat I was staying on
The splish-splosh of waves & a gust of sea breeze
Blew out the sheet as I turned a page
To float on the air like a falling feather
Time was standing still, the paper startedF
A
Slips thro’ the narrowest of cracks between L boards
To be found one day in the distant future L
By someone breaking up the hold for scrap I
N
G
From Stockport to Stockholm flew my fine words
& now I’ve gone & lost the bloody lot!
I was well gutted at first,
Like the time my girlfriend ran off with a German
But, as I ponder’d home to my cabin empty-handed,
Past painted memorials of the age of sail,
I had a remarkable epiphany,
At last my poem had a proper end!
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EPODE
The great saints impart sanctity to places of pilgrimage
Narada Bhakti Sutras
Sir, did you ever ride the high-speed Gallic trains,
Or climb a mountainside kept by Croatian swains,
& did you deck your sails by Ponza’s pirate isle,
Or study Tuscan tayles in Dante’s sweet new style?
& did you ever flow thro’ Castille in the Spring,
Or seek a fireside glow from Finland’s wintry sting?
& did you surf the scree barefoot upon the Basque,
Or taste the brevity of the Venetian masque?
Sir, did you feel the heat of searing Rajhastan,
Or clad kimono greet fair geishas of Japan,
& did you ever take the waters of Trieste,
Or swim a Turkish lake without a moment’s rest?
Sir, did you ever ride the Vladivostok rail,
Or watch the proud roos hide from harsh Van Diemen hail,
Sir, did you bear the chill of the Saharan night,
Or felt your senses thrill with Rio neath your flight?
To a Sonneteer with Liberty
Art thou adventurous
‘I am sir, life is good!’
It is? then come with me,
A fresher course to steer,
Launch from Canaveral,
To pierce the stratosphere.
Mumble Words 