O do not ask
if I am beach body ready.
Observe how the folds
of my stomach ripple
like the wind-pulled waves.
Feel these pale buttocks,
smoothed by the sand-grains
of time.
Note these milk-white limbs,
useless and stranded,
washed up whalebones.
Consider the tufts of hair
which sprout on my shoulders
like sea-grass.
And listen to the lapping
of my socks
at the shores of my sandals.
And you ask me
if I am beach body ready?
Her interest in him
had waned,
then gradually eroded.
Like an update
to Adobe Reader,
he’d never be downloaded.
I’ve been aware of penguins
since I was three
and now I think that one
has moved in with me.
The signs are everywhere:
the saltwater smell in the air,
moulted feathers on my chair,
a fish I found upon the stair,
but when I turn around
there’s no one there,
for he moves in the shadows,
like Tony Soprano.
I am forever stepping in guano.
I’m not sure why
he’s come to live with me.
There are better places
for him to be.
But, when I go to bed,
his soft heels tread
across the kitchen floor,
and I hear him open
the freezer door
and I picture him there,
thinking about the hand
that life has dealt him
and I wonder
if his heart is melting.
My cat, this ooze of fur and claws
across my lap, is currently experiencing
the eighth of her nine lives.
In 1919, while preparations
for a League of Nations
were composed, she dozed.
In 1789, Louis XVI appraised
the mob and realised his days
were numbered. My cat slumbered.
Whilst Thomas More, in 1534,
refused the Oath and paid the price,
she dreamt of catching mice.
Two hundred years before,
when across the land
the Black Death swept, she slept.
Further back, as Ptolemy
did some geometry and the world
got mapped, she napped.
When the citizens of Rome
showed their ire, Nero fiddled.
She curled up, enjoyed the fire.
Way back, in Ancient Egypt, my cat
was revered, at the top of the heap.
Didn’t really notice. She was mainly asleep.
I am writing to report
my dissatisfaction.
How dare you say
I am not a man of action.
You say I like:
to sleep,
to loaf,
to lie around,
to drift,
to dawdle,
to loll and lounge.
All verbs, I note:
have you not heard
that verbs are known
as doing words?
You are always
on your phone,
playing games,
taking pics,
while life slips by
unknown.
Sent from my iPhone6
I
Stuart Mould has invited you
to join his professional network.
He is wearing
a tuxedo and the smirk
of a man unfamiliar
with the concept of rejection.
Stuart Mould has four thousand
and fifty-eight connections.
Small wonder given the way
he generates
revenue
you never knew
existed. It’s all there
in his results-driven profile.
It appears he will go
the extra mile
in his position as
Customer Solutions Architect.
I don’t know why
but I click accept.
II
Stuart Mould has endorsed you for the following skills:
Marketing ✓
Leading Teams ✓
Targeting ✓
Weaving Dreams ✓
Scuba diving ✓
Semaphore ✓
Lego building ✓
Harp (Grade Four) ✓
Chess playing ✓
Home baking ✓
Soothsaying ✓
Lovemaking ✓
That’s a lot
of endorsements to get
from someone
who I have never met.
III
Stuart Mould has written you a recommendation
that you can include on your profile page.
“Bold strides this colossus in the workplace
with footsteps firm and full of flawless grace,
noble of purpose and so fair of face,
greeting PowerPoint with such fond embrace.
O Mighty Strategist! Leader Complete!
The Pivot-fabled Slayer of Spreadsheets!
Analytical Artist! Office Athlete!
Leviathan of the Corporate Elite!”
I must admit
I hesitated.
It seemed a little
overstated.
IV
Stuart Mould has invited you to join him and his family for two weeks
in their delightful villa situated near the Rio Real Golf Course,
and just ten miles from the charming, bustling city of Marbella.
I went, of course.
I’m no fool.
It had a private
swimming pool
where I, alongside
his four thousand contacts,
swam and schmoozed,
snoozed, relaxed,
after mornings
on sun-parched links,
and the clink of ice
in noon-time drinks.
We, the Professional Network
of Stuart Mould,
his corporate army,
paraded, parasoled,
a linked in, in sync
commonwealth.
I eventually met
the man himself.
He was not as bad
as I expected.
I felt I had –
at last – connected.
English teacher
turns
Shakespearian drug chef,
cooking
and selling
crystal macbeth.
Question 1: ‘If we wish to know the force of human genius
we should read Shakespeare.’ William Hazlitt
Do you share this view of Shakespeare? Illustrate your answer
with examples from his writing.
For goodness’ sake,
what a way to break the ice.
This is all Greek to me.
It may sound like treason
but I cannot make rhyme nor reason
of his words.
I knew I should have paid more attention,
but at the merest mention
of the bard, I fear the game is up.
Shakespeare sets my teeth on edge.
It is all too hard.
I have been hoisted by my own petard.
Question 2: Answer either a. or b.
a. Using quotations from his work, show how Shakespeare’s language still resonates with us today.
b. In what ways is Shakespeare still relevant in the twenty-first century?
I am still in shock.
For this is the long and short of it;
I shall be the laughing stock
of the class. A sorry sight.
A foregone conclusion.
I am under no delusion.
I should have worn some quotes
on my sleeve, not my heart.
Perhaps I should try the second part –
or will that, too, give me indigestion?
2b or not 2b, that is the question.
Question 3: ‘A fool thinks himself to be wise but a wise man knows himself
to be a fool.’ Consider Touchstone’s observation in As You Like It in relation
to the current predicament in which you find yourself.
I wonder can others hear
in the midsummer madness
of this examination room,
this brave new world’s crack of doom
as my thoughts thunder and race
on their wild goose chase
for Shakespeare’s words.
No sooner do they stop
to linger there,
then they vanish into thin air.
I could more easily catch a cold
than manage to keep hold
of one of his phrases.
I have reached stasis
and I realise now
this naked truth;
my head is as dead
as a doornail.
I know that I am going to fail —
and thereby, I suppose,
hangs this tale.
This poem,
whilst perhaps not one of my best,
still has its moments,
such as the surprise appearance
in line six
of a capybara, snuffling in long grass,
and a beautiful descrption
of the dance of light upon sun-dappled Umbrian stone
in line eight.
It also contains, in the same sentence,
the striking incongruity
of a conjured image of St Joan, flames rising
to her Roman nose, juxtaposed
with a muddied puddle, in which lies one
of Jeremy Clarkson’s driving gloves.
In spite of this delicate brushwork,
this poem has generally been poorly received,
described by The Sunday Times
as ‘irritatingly self-referential’
and The Guardian as ‘promising much
but delivering little’.
Considerable schadenfreude
has been experienced on Twitter
concerning the spelling mistake in line seven.
This poem, though, harbours no delusions
of anthologized grandeur,
expects no recitals at literary lunches,
indeed, would feel surprised to be remembered
for more than thirty seconds
after being read.
This poem is just happy to be here,
to have filled these pages,
which were all so much white space before.
