Today is the feast of St. Claire
A favourite personage of mine.
She defeated Saracens with her faith.
Gather round all you little kiddies
Got a story I'd like to share
Bout a tiny mouse named Bartholomew
And a dirty big bear called Clare!
Now Clare wasn't the least bit happy
His name sounded a wee bit girly
Had a wee mousey friend Bartholomew
Who's name sounded strong and burly!
So hulking big Clare the unhappy bear
Asked his mousy friend Bartholomew
If he'd be so kind and wouldn't mind
Switching names, that'd be so cool!
Bartholomew said he wanted some time
To check with dear Cynthia his friend
About this idea of switching names
On her opinion he would depend!
Cynthia said, “If you want my opinion
Your name doesn't sound like a bear
But if Clare wants the name Bartholomew
We're still friends but now you'll be Clare!”
A name doesn't change the person you are
You'll be the same friend in the end
So forever after Mr. Bartholomew Bear
And wee mousey Clare stayed friends!
A moral?
John Clare 'I AM '
G
E i O
I am I
M
Where hills lay barren, and bedrock’s stripped bare
let me take you away to county Clare
Huge cliffs climb sheer, dwarfing waves underneath
atop the Burren my heart skips a beat
With nothing to see, apart from the view
all makes perfect sense, rain comes right on cue
And whatever I feel, it’s in the air
desolation yes, but without a care
Where fields seed pebbles, and pastures reap stones
through Clare’s vast rawness, I trek on my own
A whitewashed lighthouse, beckons away
scouring heavy seas, beneath clouds of grey
Gulls are crying, as they happily do
rising and falling, going nowhere too
Still makes me wonder, where I’d rather be
than here by Clare’s dolmens in reverie
Later I take in, what nature left out
my pipe, tobacco, and bottle of stout
Hms
Northampton peasant John Clare
penned verse sans a care
His teenage love Miss Mary Joyce
ever his poetic first choice
Gather round all you little kiddies
Got a story I'd like to share
Bout a tiny mouse named Bartholomew
And a dirty big bear called Clare!
Now Clare wasn't the least bit happy
His name sounded a wee bit girly
Had a wee mousey friend Bartholomew
Who's name sounded strong and burly!
So hulking big Clare the unhappy bear
Asked his mousy friend Bartholomew
If he'd be so kind and wouldn't mind
Switching names, that'd be so cool!
Bartholomew said he wanted some time
To check with dear Cynthia his friend
About this idea of switching names
On her opinion he would depend!
Cynthia said, “If you want my opinion
Your name doesn't sound like a bear
But if Clare wants the name Bartholomew
We're still friends but now you'll be Clare!”
A name doesn't change the person you are
You'll be the same friend in the end
So forever after Mr. Bartholomew Bear
And wee mousey Clare stayed friends!
A moral?
I do salute your Irish gall. 'You' have the balls, I should say,
Among Western hens that lie down false super-cocks to obey.
Let them cluck, wear beards, have moustache to pretend they, too, are men.
'You' and the likes of 'you', Lady, mold the future peace today.
Let others think of their bellies and what they have beneath them,
Rise and fall as dust motes in winds and be happy with their way.
Let them pop up as heated corns for the blue-eyed, blond-haired folks
And ignore the dark-featured souls now as they did yesterday,
Shamelessly choose to be deaf-mute when their lands invade others,
And blind to their own 'legal' crimes, impudently turn away,†
But for the others' invasion of a land their fusses rise
To the heaven's seventh region. A black man's a castaway.
We should rage against the liars of the West till they go gray
And their old hypocrites' empire reaches its fated decay.
March 12, 2022
* Lady Clare Daly is a member of the European Parliament
† From 248 military operations in the world from 1948 to 2001, 201 cases (%81) have been initiated by the USA.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TfyeJSfGrnw
No comments, please!
For two and half centuries standing lone
witnessed how people's thought process have grown;
Decades of sighting made me to discern
the way people behave made me perturb.
Is it that the human value system
debased; what about the old tradition?
Respect for tree missing, they're destroying
nature too, creating its annoyance.
Migrating birds are avoiding to fly
how they'd live, don't know why people defy.
Trees know their roots maintain stability
but, they forget their root, no dignity.
Trees decide its growth, the ways it'll flourish
but their rude acts divert them from purpose.
~X~X~X~
Here sits Clare, a lonely sole the outer self, long gone
Her human spirit departed her, as did her lover, John
John left Clare for a younger lass, he left her for a wench
Now she sits out her lonely days, on a lonely old park bench
Yellowed bone is all that’s left, all that’s left of Clare
The odd stray dogs might have a sniff but even they don’t care
Clare and John were lovers once, the girl and boy type thing
Upon her bony finger, sits a loose engagement ring
They once danced across the poppy fields, fell in love, at a glance
A happy couple long ago, an old fashioned romance
Clare will soon, rest in peace, as her crumbling bones decay
She will never know the happiness of a happy wedding day
The Park Bench Contest
Picture 6
22/11/2018
Basking in Moonshine, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s Claire de lune
(Translation of Paul Verlaine’s « Claire de lune » by T. Wignesan. Again I try to keep to the original syntactic patterns and visible layout, but I must admit I could produce other renderings which could equally do justice to the probable « intention » of the poet.)
None may ask for better landscape than where souls lie
Wherein might rove charmingly masked bergamaskers
Strumming their luths while dancing but who well nigh
Look stricken under their outlandish disguises.
Verily singing in a murmurous tone
Love that triumphs and life’s seizable worthiness
Yet hardly seem to believe in their own good fortune
And their song dissipates into moonlight’s pallidness,
Into that sad yet pleasing stillness the moon engenders
Which must surely induce birds in trees to dream
And to gush ecstatic through sturdy water spurts,
Tall chiselled water columns against marble gleam.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013
Gather round all you little kiddies
Got a story I'd like to share
Bout a tiny mouse named Bartholomew
And a hulking big bear called Clare!
Now Clare wasn't the least bit happy
That his name sounded quite a bit girly
Had a wee mousey friend Bartholomew
Who's name sounded strong and burly!
So hulking big Clare the unhappy bear
Asked his mousy friend Bartholomew
If he'd be so kind and wouldn't mind
Switching names, that'd be so cool!
Bartholomew said he wanted some time
To check with dear Cynthia his friend
About this idea of switching names
On her opinion he would depend!
Cynthia said, “If you want my opinion
Your name doesn't sound like a bear
But if Clare wants the name Bartholomew
We're still friends but now you'll be Clare!”
A name doesn't change the person you are
You'll be the same friend in the end
So forever after Mr. Bartholomew Bear
And wee mousey Clare stayed friends!
© Jack Ellison 2013
These nights that he told me
He had to work late
He was out having drinks
With secretary Kate!
She drove through the night
Past the old Starlight Inn
Where she noticed Jack's car
As he wallowed in sin
Stalking the rooms
Wife crept like a mouse
With secret intentions
Of shooting the louse
In room number three
She peeked through the crack
And naked as a jay
Was her old hubby Jack
Through the half parted drapes
Young Kate flitted near
While handing her Jack
A cold glass of beer
Fuming with rage
Clare kicked in the door
Screaming at Jack
To get down on the floor
Kate jumped from the bed
And landed on Clare
Punched at her stomach
And pulled at her hair
The two women scuffled
As Jack grabbed his shoes
Picked up his pants
And reached for his booze
He raced for his car
And drove off in the night
And they heard him exclaim
As he drove to the bar
One woman's enough
Two's going too far!
Twas the night before Christmas
And Jack wasn't there
He was out with a blonde
With long flowing hair
His wife Clare arranged for six neighbours to dine
But Jack and his gal were sipping red wine
Wifey had visions of Jack falling lame
Never suspecting he was out with some dame
The snow kept a falling
As time tick tocked on
As Clare sat a fretting
That something was wrong
Jack and his mistress
A dim witted floozie
Were snuggled together
In the motel Jacuzzi
At a quarter to nine
The front doorbell rung
But Jack's angry wife
Had gone for her gun
She ran past her friends
Out of the door
Screaming and yelling
I'll shoot the darn whore!