Poetry about Poetry ... original or previously published poetry, September 2001
Poetry
Before the general population could read, back then maybe there was a need
for poetry
so that history could be told, by some smart arse bard of old
But now we've got TV what's the friggin point?
I hate poetry
Let me explain
Shakespeare's messy sonnets done up like Easter bonnets
with too much flowery nonsense all the time
with all his catatonic pentameter it really doesn't matter
because he only spun it out to make it rhyme
moving on to Byron, what a self indulgent moron
Shelley, Keats and Coleridge? I have better in my colon
not to mention Wordsworth, well. what are his words worth?
not much when you get right down to it
wandering lonely as a cloud, talks to daffodils out loud
what a dozy ineffectual stupid twit
And Robbie Burns the tax collector, with his smelly tam o shanter
writing gibberish that no one understands
while he glibly tries to cop with every virgin in every croft
in every corner of his bonny highland land
Which brings us onto Brooke and Owen and their bloody boring poems
about the obvious futility of war
if I should die in some foreign field let it finally be revealed
I`m glad! I won't have to read that bullshit anymore
And what of Hughes and Plath? let's face it, they're both naff
with their self pitying airs to love affairs gone wrong
Sorry, did I forget to mention, that cuddly teddy Betjeman
with his choo choos bringing early morning mail
his incessant rambling on, in that monotone sing song
is really quite beyond the pail.
Let's go across the great divide because it cannot be denied
the States have their fair share of poets of aplomb
like that fat bald beatnik Ginsberg going on and on and on and on and Om
and let's not forgetti Ferlinghetti, you need a bleedin dictionary
to understand that man, what is he on?
While back in dear old Blighty we had the ever mighty
Scousers, turning on to what was known as Mersey Beat
Like Henri and McGough, do me a favour mate, sod off
you get better poets begging in the street
Meanwhile over at MI5 that deceitful little hive
of intrigue and of frightening cold war scares
writing her insipid little couplets we find that annoying Mrs Muppet
we know and love as the 'humorous' Pam Ayers
But there is a spark in the dark, up near Trafford Park
is a cheeky Manc called Johnny Cooper Clarke
with an emaciated face and hair all over the place
he married an alien from outer space
(and she's welcome to him)
Then back down in the South, another geezer with a mouth
spouts witty ditties about hedgehogs and sheds
he's John Hegley no less, but when you put him to the test
there's nothing new here being said.
Oops! I nearly missed that Welsh one who was always pissed
Thomas the tanked up Dylan. May I please be forgiven
if I quote him one last word to end this verse
Llareggub. (say it in reverse)