A change of mood
I’ll write about it shortly but I have noticed two things of late from my web statistics. The majority of my readers come from the USA, but France comes second. It caused me to check my filters to make sure that my own viewing of the website wasn’t being recorded. It wasn’t and my readers come from all over France, from the coast in the west to the Alps in the east…from Nantes, Paris, Dijon and Marseilles. For you I have included two of my favourite poems in French and thank you for visiting. Do please say hello if you’d like to. I read French too. Pour vous, j'ai inclus deux de mes poèmes français préférés. Merci pour la visite. J'ai lu le français aussi. Faites s'il vous plaît un commentaire et dites bonjour! (And please excuse my bad French!)
The other odd thing I observed in the past month was people searching on text from my own (weak) poetry. I’m honoured, thank you! I wondered where you came from. I see that you are from Reykjavik in Iceland and France too. For you, I have republished a sad verse of mine called, “I am not a bad poem’.
When you wake tomorrow by Brian Patten
I will give you a poem when you wake tomorrow.
It will be a peaceful poem.
It won’t make you sad.
It will simply be a poem to give you
when you wake tomorrow.
It was not written by myself alone.
I cannot lay claim to it.
I found it in your body.
In your smile I found it.
Will you recognise it?
You will find it under your pillow.
When you open the cupboard it will be there.
You will blink in astonishment,
shout out, ‘how it trembles!
Its nakedness is startling! How fresh it tastes!’
We will have it for breakfast;
on a table lit by loving,
at a place reserved for wonder.
We will give the world a kissing open
When we wake tomorrow.
We will offer it to the sad landlord out on the balcony.
To the dreamers at the window.
To the hand waving for no particular reason
we will offer it.
An amazing and most remarkable thing,
we will offer it to the whole human race
which walks in us
when we wake tomorrow.
Letting go by Brian Patten
The goal’s simple enough,
But so much harder to attain
Than at first we imagined.
We want to jettison the past,
Let go what we do not need
But cannot part with.
For the past howls,
Claws at our soul,
Frightened of leaving.
It clings to us,
One more addiction
To add to the rest.
Hoping to let go,
How complicated such
Simple longings grow.
I Don't Know When by James Kavanaugh
I don't know when it was
Your touch became like mine
To touch -to taste-to see,
And when I saw your face,
I somehow saw my own!
Nor do I know when it was
Your flesh became alien
To touch-to taste-to see,
And when I saw your face,
I somehow saw a stranger!
I am not a bad poem
I am not a bad poem,
Though once I was scratched
From a lavatory wall
For my good taste.
I am not a playful poem
That jumps and pranks
That laughs and smiles
And plays in children’s chants.
I do not sing and fail to rhyme.
I am not a love poem:
Full of wants and desires,
Of boundless giving,
Of some joy fulfilled,
That I may never know.
I may be a sad poem:
Of barren emptiness
Of loves lost and hopes dashed,
Of life almost passed
Unknowing and unknown.
Perhaps I am life’s own poem:
Of birth and death
With brief time in-between
That I should have cherished
More than I did.
Amour décalé
Il est comme un double
Calqué en auréole à mes côtés
Présent et impalpable,
Occupant mon esprit
Sitôt que mes yeux l’entrevoit
Au détour d’une vitrine.
« C’est toi, c’est bien toi ? »
Silence.
Sans importance,
Tu n’existes plus!
Douceurs volées
Irréelles, voluptueuses,
Elles viennent en pointillé
Me donner l’illusion d’être aimée.
Je suis l’ombre
Qui salue le fantôme de la porte vitrée.
Je vis un amour décalé,
Sans but, sans raison
Sans intérêt,
Autre qu’un fil tenu
Indestructible au Temps
Et se joue de ses pièges.
Tout ceci reste inexpliqué !
C’est comme si cette doublure
M’enveloppait d’une onde de tendresse
A travers l’écho de mots inouïs
Figeant ainsi de plaisir mon être tout entier.
Le tourbillon s’éloigne
La vie reprend son rythme.
Et cependant à chaque vitrine rencontrée,
Je cherche sans cesse le calque du double
A mes côtés.
Elisabeth Desobry
La Femme Automne
Comme un premier frisson, comme un début d’hiver,
Avec un peu de pluie, aux bord de tes yeux verts,
Comme un châle de laine jeté sur vos épaules,
Avec le premier vent qui fait pleurer le saule,
Comme un vol d’hirondelles dans le ciel de Septembre,
Comme une après-midi couleur de rose et d’ambre,
Comme un premier brouillard, comme un soleil voilé,
Vous m’êtes apparue comme une fin d’été…
Oh ! mon automne, ma belle Dame,
La cinquantaine, tu sais, te vas si bien….
Votre visage prend, au passage du temps
Une nouvelle ride, un nouveau cheveu blanc
L’eau de votre miroir, le reflet de l’étang
Vous apprennent soudain qu’ils sont loin vos vingt ans.
Pourtant rien n’a changé, vous rêvez tout autant
D’un éternel amour, d’un éternel printemps,
Et bien que votre vie fut parfois décevante,
Vous avez su garder un cœur d’adolescente….
Oh! mon automne, ma douce, ma belle Dame,
La cinquantaine, tu sais, te vas si bien…
Vos lèvres de raison que ma bouche vendange,
Donnent à vos baisers une saveur étrange,
Forte comme un alcool où se noie ma raison,
Vous êtes devenue mon unique saison,
Et ne vous souciez point, ne prenez point ombrage
De la fuite du temps pas plus que de votre âge,
Vos sourires-jeunesse et vos regards fraîcheur
Ont raison de mon âme et font battre mon cœur.
Oh ! mon automne, ma belle Dame,
La cinquantaine, tu sais, te vas si bien….
Et ne vous souciez point, ne prenez point ombrage
De la fuite du temps pas plus que de votre âge,
C’est à la fin du jour, c’est au soleil couchant
Que le ciel horizon est le plus éclatant.
Alexandre-Henri Fourrier
I’ll translate a few words of that poem before ending.
C’est à la fin du jour, c’est au soleil couchant
Que le ciel horizon est le plus éclatant.
It is at the end of the day, it is at sunset
When the sky’s horizon is at its brightest.
Vous êtes devenue mon unique saison,
Et ne vous souciez point, ne prenez point ombrage
De la fuite du temps pas plus que de votre âge,
Vos sourires-jeunesse et vos regards fraîcheur
Ont raison de mon âme et font battre mon cœur.
You have become my only season
Do not be concerned, please do not hide
Not from time passing, nor from your ageing,
Your youthful smiles, your lively glances
Have overcome my soul and live within my heart.
Beautiful! 
The Liverpool Poets and The Mersey Sound
Two of the Liverpool poets, Brian Patten and Roger McGough, were giving a reading of their work at a local concert hall. These were men who I had seen time and time again back in my college days so I was enthusiastic to go off and hear them again. I was apprehensive too about the possibility of finding them to be cynical, grey and jaded in their late middle age.
Here are a couple of their poems and the review I wrote at the time. I like both poems for different reasons.
The Ambush by Brian Patten
When the face you swore never to forget
Can no longer be remembered,
When a list of regrets are torn up and thrown away
Then the hurt fades,
And you think you've grown strong.
And you sit in bars and boast to yourself,
'Never again will I be vulnerable,
It was an aberration to be so open,
A folly never to be repeated.'
How absurd and fragile such promises.
Hidden from you, crouched
Among the longings you have suppressed
And the desires you have tamed,
A sweet pain waits in ambush.
And there will come a day when in a field
Heaven's mouth gapes open,
And on a web the shadow
Of a marigold will smoulder.
Then without warning,
Without a shred of comfort,
Emotions you thought had been put aside
Will flare up within you and bleed you of reason.
The routines which comforted you,
And the habits in which you sought refuge
Will bend like sunlight under water,
And go astray.
Your body will become a banquet,
Falling heavenwards,
You will loll in spring's sweet avalanche
Without the burden of memory,
And once again
Monstrous love will swallow you.
At Lunchtime by Roger McGough
When the bus stopped suddenly
to avoid damaging
a mother and child in the road,
the younglady in the green hat sitting opposite,
was thrown across me,
and not being one to miss an opportunity,
I started to make love.
At first she resisted,
saying it was too early in the morning,
and too soon after breakfast,
and anyway, she found me repulsive.
But when I explained
that this being a nuclearage
the world was going to end at lunchtime,
she took off her green hat,
put her busticket into her pocket
and joined in the exercise.
The buspeople,
and there were many of them,
were shockedandsurprised,
and amusedandannoyed.
But when word got around
that the world was going to end at lunchtime,
they put their pride in their pockets
with their bustickets
and made love one with the other.
And even the busconductor,
feeling left out,
climbed into the cab,
and struck up some sort of relationship with the driver.
That night,
on the bus coming home,
we were all a little embarrassed.
Especially me and the lady in the green hat.
And we all started to say
in different ways
how hasty and foolish we had been.
But then, always having been a-bit-of-a-lad,
I stood up and said it was a pity
that the world didn't end every lunchtime,
and that we could always pretend.
And then it happened…..
Quick asa crash
we all changed partners,
and soon the bus was aquiver
with white mothball bodies doing naughty things.
And the next day
and everyday
In everybus
In everystreet
In everytown
In everycountry
People pretended
that the world was coming to an end at lunchtime.
It still hasn't.
Although in a way it has.
My review
“In college and university halls, darkened rooms and smoky pubs…in the 1970's, I had read, seen and heard the Mersey poets many times. Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten. McGough always appearing with some zany band of jesters, poets and musicians….there was hope, innocence, energy and exuberance in this group – an ability to find the absurd in the mundane. Harangued by the literary establishment of the time as trivial and naïve, it was often these qualities that drew people to them. Theirs was a poetry of everyday life with guts and bite.
On Tuesday I approached their recital with curiosity. What would these men be like now? Would they be tired, jaded and cynical? Would they be quieter, contemplative, reflecting on life's lessons? Would I be looking at my watch hoping to leave after the first twenty minutes? Overall their performance was charming but time had brought its divergence in style to these two poets.
Brian Patten's performance was riveting; drawing one in with the skill of a conjurer, transporting one between joy and tears in seconds. Here was a man giving expression to all of his life in all of his work. It was the work of the deep soul and the playful child.
Roger McGough was different. His performance was slick, professional but lacked Patten's depth. Patten could have been of any age. McGough felt like a faded pop icon of some past generation. Perhaps he is seeking to develop his career with the BBC now. He did say that the BBC had commissioned his poems, on three or four occasions. And he did host BBC Radio 4's “Home Truths programme” last Saturday standing in for John Peel. Now there's an idea! Perhaps I should send the BBC an e-mail message now and suggest that they let Brian Patten cover in future.” (Review ends)
There was a third “Liverpool Poet”, Adrian Henri, who sadly died in 2000. Henri, Patten and McGough had risen to fame in the sixties following the publication of their excellent poetry anthology, “The Mersey Sound”. Published in 1967, and republished in 2000, then again in 2007, this book has sold more than half a million copies to-date. I am not aware of any other collection of modern poetry that has sold so well. The "Liverpool Poets" succeeded, in the words of one critic, in "wrestling poetry out of the hands of academe and taking it into pubs, clubs and the lives of everyday people."
I’ll end here by including three more poems, one from each of the "Liverpool Poets" starting with Adrian Henri:
Tonight at Noon by Adrian Henri
Tonight at noon
Supermarkets will advertise threepence extra on everything
Tonight at noon
Children from happy families will be sent to live in a home
Elephants will tell each other human jokes
America will declare peace on Russia
World War I generals will sell poppies on the street on November 11th
The first daffodils of autumn will appear
When the leaves fall upwards to the trees
Tonight at noon
Pigeons will hunt cats through city backyards
Hitler will tell us to fight on the beaches and on the landing fields
A tunnel full of water will be built under Liverpool
Pigs will be sighted flying in formation over Woolton
And Nelson will not only get his eye back but his arm as well
White Americans will demonstrate for equal rights
In front of the Black house
And the monster has just created Dr. Frankenstein
Girls in bikinis are moonbathing
Folksongs are being sung by real folk
Art galleries are closed to people over 21
Poets get their poems in the Top 20
There's jobs for everybody and nobody wants them
In back alleys everywhere teenage lovers are kissing in broad daylight
In forgotten graveyards everywhere the dead will quietly bury the living
and
You will tell me you love me
Tonight at noon.
You and I by Roger McGough
I explain quietly. You
hear me shouting. You
try a new tack. I
feel old wounds reopen.
You see both sides. I
see your blinkers. I
am placatory. You
sense a new selfishness.
I am a dove. You
recognize the hawk. You
offer an olive branch. I
feel the thorns.
You bleed. I
see crocodile tears. I
withdraw. You
reel from the impact.
The Minister for Exams by Brian Patten
When I was a child I sat an exam.
The test was so simple
there was no way I could fail.
Q1. Describe the taste of the moon.
It tastes like Creation I wrote,
it has the flavour of starlight.
Q2. What colour is Love?
Love is the colour of the water a man
lost in the desert finds, I wrote.
Q3. Why do snowflakes melt?
I wrote, they melt because they fall
onto the warm tongue of God.
There were other questions.
They were as simple.
I described the grief of Adam when he was expelled from Eden.
I wrote down the exact weight of an elephant's dream.
Yet today, many years later,
For my living I sweep the streets
or clean out the toilets of the fat hotels.
Why? Because I constantly failed my exams.
Why? Well, let me set a test.
Q1. How large is a child's imagination?
Q2. How shallow is the soul of the Minister for Exams?