POSTCARD FROM NEW YORKSHIRE... FOURTEEN

Obst. Dr. Roshan and his name
Are listed in Who's Who
For an adherence to literal meaning I guess
He's a stickler
His waiting room puts the one
In Beetlejuice to shame

Life or death
It's all the same

Yawn

PERRERA 1

The steady centre of Cecil

THE SHORTCOMING

A new one act, one scene, one idea play
by
Harold Halfpinter

Scene: A drawing room. There is a table and a chair. In the chair an oldish man smokes a pipe and reads a broadsheet, this is PATER. In walks a boy in school uniform, this is ANGEL. 


ANGEL        Hello!

PATER         Hmm! (grunts)


Angel takes off his uniform to reveal an adult suit. He picks up a bowler hat from the table and puts it on. This can take as long as it takes. Throughout there is silence, save for their activities and the nervous coughing of the audience.

ANGEL         Goodbye!

Angel exists.

PATER         Mm!


THE END

Hoo!

photo by Sean Murphy

GODDAMMADDOG

Santa’s independence came early

But I was fourteen

When I thought

About that mass irrelevance in the room

My dad came home sometimes and I was glad to see him

My god

The reason for priests was his reluctance

To have any authority

We would all be ratherly feathered down
Than have their lives
Of betting on two foot dogs again

To escape trap four 
We all had a plan
And I was willing

He asked me to visit the clinic with him

fill his cup

He knew I would not fail

Virgin on the desperate as I was

Towards a girlfriend

I had to do both of ours

Being young and dumb and full

Of himself

He could not muster a dash

His condiments were dried up

He got paid of course
Twice

THE HAPPY ACCIDENT

Once upon a time there was a baby who appeared from nowhere

Mr and Mrs. Wheater were amazed

They gazed in wonder at the boy for a whole day and night

For he was like a piglet with bigger feet and no tail

The baby boy gurgled and gurned and was fallen in love with

Yet

As the sun started to warm the earth

And rouse the chickens

Worries arrived within poverty

The farmers gnashed their teeth and wrang their hands for hours

It would be good about now to see and heed a sign

A sign that all would be well…

They decided to ask the village elder if they had been blessed

After his breakfast of worms the elder came

He entered the hut and squinted at the wrinkly pink child

The boy wriggled and squealed and played with his feet

The elder gave a sigh but smiled and placed his palm against the boy’s sole

The foot and hand were exactly the same size

Ah!

And then tickled the infant’s little pot-belly

The elder looked at the parents with his watery eyes

He shall cause upset wherever he goes

There was much nodding

Nodding

He was offered his payment of a fistful of eggs as he left, softly

The poor parents hugged each other and sobbed with woe

And did not hear the elder as he popped back in to say

In his forgetful way

He shall be a cheery child, as happy as a mucky hog

True to foretelling

The boy crashed blissfully through his young life

As soon as he could walk there followed a trail of brokenness

Doors, carts, barns and bones

As soon as he could talk he could apologise

And always with a smile so genuine that he was quickly forgiven

He would burst like sunshine through the most humdrum days

He had his head rubbed or patted umpteen times a week

And was always being given a turnip to take home to his parents

But time forms shadows

And age makes weary

The villagers started to tut and cluck

They watched the boy’s poor father work hard to fix all the broken things

They knew of hardship and would help out

Releasing the father from his duty

So it was that as the boy grew the father fell in to debt

The villagers became dismayed at this mess in their midst

It was time for a gathering

There and then it was decided to place the boy into the apprenticeship of the Smith This brought gasps and sobs of horror

And woe

From the boy’s mother

Who imagined all sorts of catastrophes involving fire and molten metal

The Smith would have sobbed too but he thought it unbecoming

The mother was calmed as

The village elder explained the ruling

The Smith lives on the outskirts of the village

So the boy cannot cause too much mayhem

The Smith can forge strong chains to keep the boy in check until he learns

The boy needs something to occupy

That wandering mind and those waddling feet of his

All at the assembly murmured and nodded approval

They looked at the boy

Who had been seated serenely throughout the hubbub

And they were filled with a warm glow

They thought themselves wise in their solution and slept soundly on it

By the age of fourteen the boy had become the best Smith’s striker in the shire

His hammer blows rang out from morning until twilight

Farmers came from outlying boroughs to purchase the sharpest ploughshares anywhere

His muscular legs had developed in proportion with the once cute cumbersome feet that propped them up

His arms were full of knotted power that had older milkmaids yearning over their buckets

His handsome face

Once so open and sunny

Was now dark all day with concentration

His brow was thick with soot and sweat

His mouth was permanently twisted with effort

Even in sleep

Which was deeper than he had ever known

For now he had no time to dream

And he never smiled again

PRIESTS I HAVE LITTLE KNOWN

Father Eckersley polished his chalice as I imagined Alfred
Hitchcock would have had he been as catholic in his taste
of religion as he was in his choice of film choices

Fr Coyne, less forthcoming to the congregation
would show his shined pate backwards to the monstrance
unknowing of the crowding oh on his reflected raw sausage crown

Fr McKeown was a different story
getting married as he did
to the cleaning Mrs. Kelly in her widowhood

Fr Nathaniel moved to Cumbria
having had cardinal approval
to look after number one

Father Spring had an afro
and indifference to a no
when he asked to come in

Canon Flynn
Now there was a man
He had us all home by eleven

WALLACE STEVENS

THE EMPEROR OF ICE-CREAM

1922





Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.


(etc...)

Wallace Stevens 1879-1955

Wallace Stevens was an insurance salesman and then VP of the company. He wrote poetry and became successful in this later in life. He had his theories about what poetry was and how a poem should be and like all theories of poetry by writers of it, I opine that this was a justification of his voice and of his style... 


There's room for everyone.

PITTSBURGH WIT

POSTCARD FROM NEW YORKSHIRE ... THIRTEEN

Today we enjoyed the rain
Like the umbrella sellers of Broadway
For whom opportunity plops
Carpe Pluvia!