Written by
Barry Tebb |
( I )
for ‘JC’ of the TLS
Nightmare of metropolitan amalgam
Grand Hotel and myself as a guest there
Lost with my room rifled, my belongings scattered,
Purse, diary and vital list of numbers gone –
Vague sad memories of mam n’dad
Leeds 1942 back-to-back with shared outside lav.
Hosannas of sweet May mornings
Whitsun glory of lilac blooming
Sixty years on I run and run
From death, from loss, from everyone.
Which are the paths I never ventured down,
Or would they, too, be vain?
O for the secret anima of Leeds girlhood
A thousand times better than snide attacks in the TLS
By ‘JC’. **** you, Jock, you should be ashamed,
Attacking Brenda Williams, who had a background
Worse than yours, an alcoholic schizophrenic father
And an Irish immigrant mother who died when Brenda was fifteen
But still she managed to read Proust on her day off
As a library girl, turned down by David Jenkins,
‘As rising star of the left’ for a place at Leeds
To read theology started her as a protest poet
Sitting out on the English lawn, mistaken for a snow sculpture
In the depths of winter.
Her sit-in protest lasted seven months,
Months, eight hours a day, her libellous verse scorching
The academic groves of Leeds in sheets by the thousand,
Mailed through the university's internal post. She called
The VC 'a mouse from the mountain'; Bishop of Durham to-be
David Jenkins a wimp and worse and all in colourful verse
And 'Guntrip's Ghost' went to every VC in England in a
Single day. When she sat on the English lawn Park Honan
Flew paper aeroplanes with messages down and
And when she was in Classics they took away her chair
So she sat on the floor reading Virgil and the Chairman of the
Department sent her an official Christmas card
'For six weeks on the university lawn, learning the
Hebrew alphabet'.
And that was just the beginning: in Oxford Magdalen College
School turned our son away for the Leeds protest so she
Started again, in Magdalen Quad, sitting through Oxford's
Worst ever winter and finally they arrested her on the
Eve of the May Ball so she wrote 'Oxford from a Prison
Cell' her most famous poem and her protest letter went in
A single day to every MP and House of Lords Member and
It was remembered years after and when nobody nominated
Her for the Oxford Chair she took her own and sat there
In the cold for almost a year, well-wishers pinning messages
To the tree she sat under - "Tityre, tu patulae recubans
Sub tegmine fagi" and twelve hundred and forty dons had
"The Pain Clinic" in a single day and she was fourteen
Times in the national press, a column in "The Guardian"
And a whole page with a picture in the 'Times Higher' -
"A Well Versed Protester"
JC, if you call Myslexia’s editor a ‘kick-**** virago’
You’ve got to expect a few kicks back.
All this is but the dust
We must shake from our feet
Purple heather still with blossom
In Haworth and I shall gather armfuls
To toss them skywards and you,
Madonna mia, I shall bed you there
In blazing summer by High Wythens,
Artist unbroken from the highest peak
I raise my hands to heaven.
( II )
Sweet Anna, I do not know you from Eve
But your zany zine in the post
Is the best I’ve ever seen, inspiring this rant
Against the cant of stuck-up cunts currying favour
I name no name but if the Dutch cap fits
Then wear it and share it.
Who thought at sixty one
I’d have owned a watch
Like this one, chased silver cased
Quartz reflex Japanese movement
And all for a fiver at the back of Leeds Market
Where I wander in search of oil pastels
Irish folk and cheap socks.
The TLS mocks our magazine
With its sixties Cadillac pink
Psychedelic cover and every page crimson
Orange or mauve, revolutionary sonnets
By Brenda Williams from her epic ‘Pain Clinic’
And my lacerating attacks on boring Bloodaxe
Neil Ghastly and Anvil’s preciosity and all the
Stuck-up ****-holes in their cubby-holes sending out
Rejection slip by rote – LPW
|
Written by
Marriott Edgar |
I'll tell you a seafaring story,
Of a lad who won honour and fame
Wi' Nelson at Battle 'Trafalgar,
Joe Moggeridge, that were his name.
He were one of the crew of the Victory,
His job when a battle begun
Was to take cannon balls out o' basket
And shove 'em down front end o' gun.
One day him and Nelson were boxing,
The compass, like sailor lads do.
When 'Ardy comes up wi' a spyglass,
And pointing, says "'Ere, take a screw!"
They looked to were 'Ardy were pointing,
And saw lots o' ships in a row.
Joe says abrupt like but respectful,
"'Oratio lad, yon's the foe."
'What say we attack 'em?' says Nelson,
Says Joe 'Nay lad, not today.'
And 'Ardy says, 'Aye, well let's toss up.'
'Oratio answers 'Okay.'
They tossed... it were heads for attacking,
And tails for t'other way 'bout.
Joe lent them his two-headed penny,
So the answer was never in doubt.
When penny came down 'ead side uppards,
They was in for a do it were plain,
And Joe murmered 'Shiver me timbers.'
And Nelson kissed 'Ardy again.
And then, taking flags out o' locker,
'E strung out a message on high.
'T were all about England and duty,
Crew thought they was 'ung out to dry.
They got the guns ready for action,
And that gave 'em trouble enough.
They 'adn't been fired all the summer,
And touch-holes were bunged up wi' fluff.
Joe's cannon, it weren't 'alf a corker,
The cannon balls went three foot round.
They wasn't no toy balloons either,
They weighed close on sixty-five pound.
Joe, selecting two of the largest,
Was going to load double for luck.
When a hot shot came in thro' the porthole,
And a gunpowder barrel got struck.
By gum! there weren't 'alf an explosion,
The gun crew were filled with alarm.
As out of the porthole went Joseph,
Wi' a cannon ball under each arm.
At that moment up came the 'Boat-swine'
He says 'Where's Joe?' Gunner replied...
'E's taken two cannon balls with 'im,
And gone for a breather outside.'
'Do y' think he'll be long?' said the 'Boat-swine'
The gunner replied, 'If as 'ow,
'E comes back as quick as 'e left us,
'E should be 'ere any time now.
And all this time Joe, treading water,
Was trying 'is 'ardest to float.
'E shouted thro' turmoil of battle,
'Tell someone to lower a boat.'
'E'd come to the top for assistance,
Then down to the bottom he'd go;
This up and down kind of existence,
Made everyone laugh... except Joe.
At last 'e could stand it no longer,
And next time 'e came to the top.
'E said 'If you don't come and save me,
I'll let these 'ere cannon balls drop.'
'T were Nelson at finish who saved him,
And 'e said Joe deserved the V.C.
But finding 'e 'adn't one 'andy,
'E gave Joe an egg for 'is tea.
And after the battle was over,
And vessel was safely in dock.
The sailors all saved up their coupons,
And bought Joe a nice marble clock.
|
Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
'Twas in the days of front attack;
This glorious truth we'd yet to learn it --
That every "front" has got a back.
And French was just the man to turn it.
A wounded soldier on the ground
Was lying hid behind a hummock;
He proved the good old proverb sound --
An army travels on its stomach.
He lay as flat as any fish;
His nose had worn a little furrow;
He only had one frantic wish,
That like an ant-bear he could burrow.
The bullets whistled into space,
The pom-pom gun kept up its braying,
The fout-point-seven supplied the bass --
You'd think the devil's band was playing.
A valiant comrade crawling near
Observed his most supine behaviour,
And crept towards him; "Hey! what cheer?
Buck up," said he, "I've come to save yer.
"You get up on my shoulders, mate,
And, if we live beyond the firing,
I'll get the V.C. sure as fate,
Because our blokes is all retiring.
"It's fifty pound a year," says he,
"I'll stand you lots of beer and whisky."
"No," says the wounded man, "not me,
I'll not be saved -- it's far too risky.
"I'm fairly safe behind this mound,
I've worn a hole that seems to fit me;
But if you lift me off the ground
It's fifty pounds to one they'll hit me."
So back towards the firing-line
Our friend crept slowly to the rear-oh!
Remarking "What a selfish swine!
He might have let me be a hero."
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