Works Presented

Many Moons Ago		The Inside Dope
Rodeo Star		A Cornish Romance
The Wondrous Babe of Provarma		A Guest Book in Crete
Sam Holloway and Our Dog		The Bug
Modern Marriage		Bob Fullerton
Chinese Smoke		Lines written in Red Square
The Spider Quartet		The greatest wonder

Note: (000, YYMMDD) = the approximate Yahoo Message Board entry number and date.
Spelling, punctuation, grammar, and line phrasing are as originally posted by the author.

Many moons ago Or thereabouts I let you go Are you okay? Or is your hair a little grey Or thereabouts?

Does your finger wear A wedding ring? (Not that I care) Do you still pray And did you cry for JFK And Luther King?

All these years between What have you done Where have you been? Are you passé And do you still read Hemingway And Graham Greene?

While we’ve been apart What has time done To your bright heart? Do you still play That cracked old disc of Johnny Ray I sat upon?

Are there things that you Despair about? Do you get blue? Was it a shock The moon was nothing but a rock To tear about?

Do you still protest When man hurts man And beat your breast? And where were you The day the Russian tanks rolled through Afghanistan?

Do you think of me Or care about What used to be The heart of you? Or have your wishes all come true With me left out?

I don’t even know Your whereabouts Why did you go? And by the way I think about you every day Or thereabouts?

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

Friends, this is the day of my funeral Don’t be put off by that I’m not It’s good to know you’re here Alive and kicking Though I am not (At least I hope I’m not Perhaps someone would kindly check)

I speak from a privileged position Though recumbent Somewhat upstream of you I’m wiser now Have picked up certain tips From You Know Who So for once in my life If you’ll pardon the expression I’ll take the chance to lecture you

It’s not bad here The food’s good The company cosmopolitan There’s no hassle But I have this nagging feeling You’re sad and solemn Some of you weeping Because of my leaving

It’s okay It really is okay It all gets sorted out

Go out into the open air Gather round my hole And scatter soil upon my box Then go home And get on with being happy Because I’m happy here Though missing you of course But that will soon be mended I know I’ve got the inside dope

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

Our lane’s a lonely shady lovesome mile with gentle curve of sleepy snake all lined with frothing curdy flowers attended by deep bowing trees and drystone walls like thick wool scarves with lambs each side cavorting with life’s green juice or hopping haybales Farmer Nelson brings and ropy tails whipping larks like tops. And here my lateborn and amazing daughter wobbled two hot seasons to master a mad bucking bike while I puffed after not daring to let go the saddle. Born without balance and of tender nerve but mighty will she fought to tame the looping lurching twisting skidding wriggling steed. The beast would not be broken in. My pink blonde cowboy girl star of this rodeo she rode in no Stetson but a frock of gingham buck-bounced and clung two full summers to break the bastard’s heart until at last my clutching hand was jerked away and she broke free and streaked along alone and singing straight as her true heart and lambs laughed peewits tumbled curlews cleared their throats (which is their top expression of surprise) and now I’ll never catch her along the snaking lane at last she’s off and fine and free but o she rides away from me

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

On the path to Lamorna their fingers brushed And a giant breaker crashing far below Seemed to hit them both Explode and leave them dazed and breathless

Heavy hung the August air in the house by the cliff Scents of mown grass, roses and honeysuckle Through the open diamond windows

She had dressed up For the first time since her illness Fine blue wool clung to her hips like turf on a hill A Prom played on the radio as he served dinner The lodger she had taken in To pay the mortgage And who had nursed her Through her anguish

Carbonara thick with cream Accompanied La Valse Raspberries from her garden, a ripe gorgonzola A ten pound bottle of red from Sainsbury’s

"You go through - I’ll make the coffee" Air thickened, she lit the lamp A daddy long legs flittered up her breast As Mahler moaned his Alma theme

The coffee went undrunk He knelt before her Peeled off the dress The slightly shaming underthings And in the heat of August As Mahler colluded They exploded

Like the breakers battering Lamorna the salt mist spangling Lamorna the combers clawing Lamorna the surf spray jewelling Lamorna the whitecaps caressing Lamorna the spume overlooming Lamorna

Not caring that a daddy long legs Clambered all about them Above, below and in between As lost and glad and clumsy as herself

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

So I travelled to Provarma In the White Mountains Where it was rumoured A wondrous babe was born Who cured affliction Of heart and mind Mother and sister In black mantillas Welcomed me With oranges Figs and yoghurt But no English "Parakalo mipos milate anglika?" "Po-po-po!" And led me to a room With windows high And small and few Letting a trickle Of sunlight through Roughcast walls Rose pink and lapis lazuli And in a wicker cradle Under a net The babe himself Not three months old Bicycling plump legs A comma of gold hair On pearly brow

The women vanished Through an arch I knelt and drew The net aside Scent of sweet bread Sour mother milk Soiled nappy I crossed myself And made my Supplication Weepingly Recklessly Spittle bubbled Through cherub lips His mouth gaped wide On toothless gums To form a howl Then huge calm eyes Turned slowly To focus on mine "OK," he said in English "You’ll be fine."

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

Iffi’s house - a cool retreat Perched on a mountainside in Crete Windows high and small and few Letting sunlight trickle through Precious objects bathe the eye Roughcast walls rose pink and lapis lazuli African masks and carvings from Tibet Venetian tiles most exquisitely set Glance up - a lizard jewels the passage door Glance down - a snaky creature roams the bathroom floor But best I love the courtyard canopied in trees Entangled medlars, figs and mulberries Fruit drooping low like old gold money Where we eat up our curds and honey And here Queen Iffi spends her reign A coronet of sequins in her silver mane

In this small palace high in Crete I’d spend my years and drink life neat But I must fly with ache of melancholy And cries of, Efharisto! Efharisto poly!*

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

On a pleasant sunny evening with a warm breeze from the moor carrying the scent of heather over the rooftops Sam Holloway, fishmonger, who’d broken his Achilles tendon skidding on a frozen golden haddock was stepping out for the first time gingerly on his crutches

Walnut glanced up from sniffing a telegraph pole and froze What a baffling sight -- Sam Holloway had sprouted an extra pair of legs growing from his armpits

Walnut was torn between jumping up to say hello because it looked like Sam and backing off because it might be a new variety of spider

In his perplexity he ran up to Sam Holloway changed his mind and swerved aside grabbing a crutch in his teeth and dashing away with the vague idea of burying it in the garden.

Sam stayed upright but wobbled agonisingly and never took to crutches again

No more free fish heads for our cat

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

Midnight chimed and the New Millennium began. Suddenly the gigantic Millennium Bug whizzed through the world, toppling the tallest buildings in every land. With a swish of its fiery, poison-tipped tail it headed for Britain. By the Thames the Millennium Dome vibrated and glowed white-hot and suddenly shot up in the air and flew to intercept the bug. For a moment it hovered over the huge beetle, then covered it like a giant lid and forced it to earth. The bug buzzed its wings, screamed like a smacked brat, hissed horribly, boiled, exploded, died. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

My youngest daughter tells me marriage is not cool and will likely disappear in fifty years. Based on a legal contract instead of trust it reeks of contrivance and expedience, with lovers cruelly forced to toe the line. Useless to tell her it was a sacred vow when we old-fashioned souls thought in such quaint terms.

One thing alone makes girls still want to marry. And what is that, my love? I humbly query. To wear that ravishing white gown, of course, and if I marry it will simply be for that - skin-tight cream silk from cleavage down to to waist and then a skirt with a two-mile radius - I want to be more beautiful than my cake.

Loving this, I do not say what’s in my head - I doubt if she’d be here if we hadn’t wed.

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

Bob Fullerton is dead, most beautiful of men. The hospital bungled and sent him home. An hour before he died he waved to my daughter as she passed his gate. Plain aspirin would have seen him right for thirty more rich years.

On Christmas Eve he stood on our back step below the lamp to bring us holly, frost haloing his golden hair, his girls laughing in the dark behind - we thought it was the angel Gabriel and his lovely choir.

I walk the dogs along this lane he loved, they lap from puddles in the road, cows swish their tails in lush wet fields, one stamps a hind hoof at a vexing fly. This land Bob used to manage is dotted with contented sheep, swifts scud past clouds of pearl in sky of mid-September blue, the woods are turning russet shades, raindrops fall through strong sunlight.

Bob Fullerton is dead. A typical vicar’s son, thoroughly wild, then a man of gentle strength. I try to fathom what it means, my neighbour Andy tries to fathom it, mending a plug outside his workshop. "Meanwhile... " I say, glancing at the golden raindrops ... "Let’s live," he says.

One last pink star of clematis shines halfway up our house. Cows swish their tails in lush wet fields.

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

I ache from digging the new water channel to the rice paddy but if I look up through the poplars I see your plume of violet smoke striping the mountain

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

Red Square is a theme park a tacky Disneyland dreamed up by Hollywood Something grave and grim has gone from the world

Painted in ludicrous pastel reds and yellows it could be a toy fort I had for Christmas complete with lead soldiers

Opposite the Lubyanka a Russian wrings my hand wishes me and my children peace, luck, long life and says the system is rotten, corrupt, swindling

He is a doctor of biology, a pensioner, and says the banks are thieves - He says this opposite the Lubyanka! Something grave and grim has gone from the world

My guide Sofya Petrovna says graft is endemic here in Russia and says it out loud opposite the Lubyanka as the BMWs and Volvos of the leaders sweep up and down before the Duma

All fear has gone from Moscow I miss it like an aching tooth and want back real Soviet teeth not these pink plastic dentures Better a place of fear than this hollow tourist trap

I sit in Red Square writing slanders against the state nothing to fear and nothing to hate Something grave and grim has gone from the world

Drag me into the Lubyanka and be done

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

1. Bertie in the Bath

On finding Bertie in the bath The spider gave a howl of wrath What was a schoolboy doing there With soapy hands and soggy hair He pulled out Bertie by one leg And hung him on the towel peg Then let the water down the drain And curled up in the bath again

2. Uncle

Two spiders at the seaside For their summer holiday Were building castles in the sand When a stranger came their way. ‘By gum!’ said the little spiders, ‘You’re a much bigger spider than us!’ ‘I’m not a spider,’ the stranger said, ‘I’m your Uncle Octopus’

3. The Cocktail Party

A spider startled Auntie Jeanie By landing in her dry martini She rushed out screaming to the garden The spider followed crying, "Pardon - You have no need to rush away!" Now Auntie Jeanie’s joined AA

4. Glamour Girl

A handsome lady spider came to tea one day Her table manners were exquisite And her conversation gay She wore the latest Gucci frock And a chic Givenchy sable But the nicest thing about her was She had more legs than the table

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

I have found this dusty old book full of poems no-one has ever read and each one I read makes me jump from my chair and roar with amazement they make Dante and Shakespeare and all that gang look like slovenly beginners they utter truths of such profound simplicity with images of such purity lucidity and inevitability that all life’s problems are not exactly solved but explained to an accuracy of one billionth of one degree and with a consolatory sympathy that cheers even an old cynic like me but that is not the greatest wonder

all are written by different hands and in different inks and some on stone and some on papyrus and some on Woolworth’s cheapest writing pads and according to a note in the front none has ever been published - their authors shunned publicity - they were all complete unknowns but they were the greatest bards who ever lived and some are still among us pretending to be someone else even their wives and mothers don’t suspect the colossal stature of their sentence structure look closely at your postman, dustman, cleaner - she could well be one but that is not the greatest wonder

the images they use, the pictures that they paint in words the comparisons and metaphors and similes are so damned fresh and clean and unexpected but so exactly right that each one slams you like a snowball on the ear but that is such a lousy image when compared to those this book contains images of birds and planets, skeletons and dust and blood and ships and waves and lightning and babies’ cheeks and elephants’ tusks and mermaids’ arses all framed to clothe devastatingly delectable constructions but that is not the greatest wonder

I found the book tucked down behind the cushions of an old red plush sofa in a provincial auction room in northern England and tonight I lie on that sofa with the book in my hand a tatty but undeniably fat old book of some five hundred close packed pages containing perhaps three hundred poems - the three hundred greatest poems in our language or any other and not a line of them ever printed, published or shown to mortal soul and I am badly tempted badly tempted to pass them off as my own no-one would know and I’d be loved by women and crowned king and made prime minister and president and hailed as the most terrific human ever known but that is not the greatest wonder

Old Cusser © Copyright, 1999

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