.
The large cheerful blind man
with a huge beige labrador
which not being needed to do any guiding
lay in a warm heavy heap on my feet
all the way to Exeter
Fields of blue flax
startlingly pretty
always unexpected
and sometimes recently
fields of red poppies too
The man who sat next to me
and softly and precisely whistled
Making Whoopee
over and over again
and over and over again
A demure and solidly built
tweed-clad transvestite
who made self-conscious conversation
and thanked me for talking to her
as he got off at Totnes
Once and only once
the true Christmas card landscape
every tree outlined in white
hard frost and a bright sky
a joy to travel through
The Frenchwoman who told me
all about how her husband left
with his blonde secretary:
what did he see in her?
“Moi je la trouve lymphatique"
Four young London guys
lager-drinking geezers
as excited as kids
about a fishing trip
all the way out to Sussex
Sunday evening
weekending sons and daughters
heading back to the city
bye-bye elderly parents
will they be there next time?
.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Rosa the foxfinch
Fidel the faithful parrot
Ernesto the Crocoduck
POEMS AND OTHER PIECES, published under pseudonyms --- Send your offerings to THIS ADDRESS FOR CONSIDERATION --- zephotherstuff@gmail.com
OTHERSTUFF MASCOTS
Rosa the foxfinch
Other Sites
OtherStuff Mascots
Fidel the faithful parrot
Revisit earlier otherstuff easily here:
- 10 or less (9)
- 50 word stories (15)
- 50 word/Food (10)
- About Animals (4)
- Beyond the Pale (10)
- Bluedaddy (1)
- Books (3)
- Cake (1)
- Captain Ned (1)
- Captions (16)
- DoctorShoot (12)
- Dogs (1)
- Duncan23 (1)
- Ebren (4)
- Eggs (1)
- Elephants (5)
- Everything Else (6)
- Favourite Places (5)
- Festive Items (12)
- File (51)
- Guitougoal (9)
- Haikus (14)
- Henry Moon (1)
- i-ku (42)
- Mac Millings (4)
- Marcela Mora y Araujo (1)
- Melton Mowbray (1)
- Meltonian (2)
- Merchandise (1)
- Mimitig (42)
- Mishari Aladwani (1)
- MouthoftheMersey (5)
- Mrs Offside (4)
- Munni (6)
- OffsideinTahiti (11)
- Opinion (3)
- Paddleman (7)
- Pastagobbler (2)
- Pinkerbell (5)
- Ringo37 (5)
- Rules and Instructions (7)
- Tony Parker (2)
- TonyEllis (5)
- Warnings (5)
- Where I Am (13)
- Winter Count (2)
- Wordles (7)
- Zephirine (50)
OtherStuff Mascots
Ernesto the Crocoduck
Blog Archive
-
▼
2008
(74)
-
▼
December
(11)
- That's the way to do it...
- Resolution? -- by Zephirine
- Fidelity -- by Beyond the Pale
- Happy Christmas! Part Two
- Happy Christmas! Part One
- All Saints (Shattuck Avenue, Early New Depression)...
- Random Memories of Trains -- by Zephirine
- Book Recommendations -- MouthoftheMersey
- Book Recommendations -- Zephirine
- Double-bills Should Return to the Cinema: Discuss ...
- Two Watery Poems -- by Beyond the Pale
-
▼
December
(11)
17 comments:
Beige labrador? We once had one of those, though we cried him honey-coloured, but he lay indiscriminately on people's feet. Even non-dog people found themselves feeling fond, he was so ridiculously sweet.
What a great train poem - and not a bitter moment of Beeching within.
The blind man apologised for the dog lying on my feet and I said what a nice dog it was "Oh, he's very affable," he said. I thought it such a good word for that kind of dog. Couldn't get it into the poem though:)
Our beige one, Ben, was certainly affable.
The only time he got a bit bolshie was when my mum sold my bike - I was in France at the time - and Ben, rather gratifyingly, barked noisily at the upstart who turned up with a tenner for my precious iron horse.
Ah, memories.
All my train memories are very distant now, and I can't do verse like you do, Zeph, but
Sleeping off my drunken celebration
Of getting a job in Ireland
In the La Rochelle - Nice night train
Waking up to realise
Someone had nicked my chequebook.
Overhearing a polynesian accent talking into a mobile
Striking a conversation over four rows of seats
Amazing everyone that strangers can talk to each other
Finding out that this young lad from the Marquesas
Was off to Afghanistan in a French uniform.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=xTsvwBkVdKw&feature=related
Zeph,
lovely,
A blind man, a french woman, a beige labrador in a train compartment, sounds like the begining of an Agatha Christie's book -
Zeph--This wonderful poem brings back memories of hundreds of long and short English train rides in another century, together with regrets none of those memories has survived as vividly and specifically as the ones you've been adroit enough to compress for us into these eight economical and shapely stanzas.
I like those, Offie:) Trains produce moments like these, never seem to happen on planes for some reason.
You're quite right, Guitou... then the train suddenly stops in the middle of nowhere and - gasp! - a passenger is dead....
BTP, thank you, memories accumulated over quite a period of time finally finding a home in this poem, like bits of old fabric kept and ending up in a patchwork.
*spoiler warning*
T'was BtP that did it. With the chandelier, in the restaurant car.
(Or File, with cutting words, in the tender)
ah Zephie
your own evocative polar express...
I must confess I had the transvestite whistling,
briefly,
and the dog looking up occasionally,
and got off at the taproom at the end of the line...
where santa had a hot chocolate for me,
and a card saying:
'the journey is only beginning"...
but I see I have missed so much being away...
can I have the double feature in the saloon car please?...
ladies and gentlemen:
tickets please!
please disembark once the train has come to a complete stop.Do not forget your dog, sorry, dog do not forget your blind-Thank you.
it's the controlleur. What do you with a ticket? Composter vos billets.
Le contrôleur, je l'emmerde.
I am ze controleur et je m'emmerde aussi-composter les billets, c'est "billet-emmerdant."
I've just noticed an erreur massive from traincontroleur - one does not disembark from a train.
Forsooth, one detrains. One can only disembark from a boat/ship/landing craft etc. These things I know from a stonking book that I read called The Naked Island which I would recommend on the other strand except for the fact that it is a brutal tale of man's inhumanity to man (mostly). It's by Russell Braddon and recently reissued and available on Amazon if anyone is interested.
You can't disembark from a train, but you can definitely disembowel a contrôleur. Just to let off steam, you know...
Ah yes, 'Les Eventreurs', that little-known unfinished novel by Gide... the concept of the gratuitous disembowelling has been much discussed in a very few literary circles...
Zeph,
I find myself now ten days "after the fact" coming back again, and more than once, to discover in this wonderful instances of those subtle little semi-conscious sound-chains that for me are one of the most important things in turning a bunch of words into a poem: e.g. "labrador/Exeter/flax/unexpected"; "secretary/lymphatique/geezers/Sussex." While we Pseuds may be unworthy of such artfulness, we gratefully note and appreciate it all the same--given, as I say, a bit of time. (But I think all good poems take a little time to live one's way into...)
Post a Comment