Original Cliches by Simon R Gladdish
60 NEW POEMS BY
SIMON R. GLADDISH
INTRODUCTION
Original Cliches was mainly written in Istanbul and contains an
abundance of interesting, well-written poems about a vast range of different subjects. Several of the poems examine the poet’s art
itself and attempt to explain why poetry is so close to the human heart.
BIOGRAPHY
Simon R Gladdish was born in Kampala, Uganda in 1957.
His family returned to Britain in 1961, to Reading where he grew up.
Educated at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, he trained as an English Language Teacher, a profession which enabled him to live in Spain, Turkey, Tunisia and Kuwait for many years. He now lives near Swansea, Wales.
His poetry has been warmly acclaimed by other poets including Andrew Motion, the present British Poet Laureate.
He has published seven volumes of poetry so far: Victorian Values, Back to Basics, Images of Istanbul, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Original Cliches,
Torn Tickets and Routine Returns and The Tiny Hunchbacked Horse and
The Poisoned Tunic jointly translated from Russian with Vladimir and Elena Grounine.
Incidentally I am still looking for a publisher for my poetry and would welcome any serious offers.
DEDICATION
For my much-missed mother Enid
And my father Kenneth (fellow author),
my brother Matthew and his family,
my sister Sarah and her family and
last but never least my wife Rusty
without whom there would have been nothing.
We can all coin original cliches
But even if accepted as legal tender,
They soon become devalued.
SEA-HORSE
I’d never really seen
A sea-horse before
Until I sat another’s house
And saw one hanging in a glassy tomb,
Hovering in vitreous eternity.
At my leisure
I could delineate and measure
Its amiable proportions.
Small, fragile and frail
And handsomely symmetrical:
Its head a mirror-image of its tail.
Its ribbed and panelled surface
And soft spines, the happy outcome
Of an origamist’s skillful conjuring.
Its skin so papery thin
It reminded me of the dusty
Crumbling wings of dying moths.
Its tail as tightly curled and scrolled
As a jester’s slipper.
The orbit where the eye had been
As empty as the dark side of the moon.
Does it resemble a horse?
Well, not exactly,
But I can see exactly what they mean.
SUNFLOWERS
The flowers sprawled in the broken vase,
The vase slumped on the shelf.
I wondered if the painting was
A portrait of myself.
The sun burst through the window
Hurling bars of burnished gold.
I wondered if I’d understood
The stories I’d been told.
The curtains hung like criminals
Suspended from a noose.
I wondered if my life had been
Of any earthly use.
The bathroom slowly filled with steam;
I seized hold of the mirror.
I watched my features fade away
And I felt a sense of terror.
THE ARTIST’S ROOM IN ARLES
The room is small, the crooked walls
Converge around the bed.
The counterpane, though badly stained
Retains its brilliant red.
The table in the corner boasts
A porcelain jug of blue
Contained within a matching bowl
Though both are hardly new.
A towel hangs from a rusty nail
Forgotten as a kiss.
Beneath the bed a creaking pail
Collects the artist’s piss.
The sunlight paws the frosted panes
Which seem about to break;
The mountains, plains and country lanes
Are obstructed and opaque.
The furnishings are minimal,
The messages, subliminal;
The faces in the paintings stare
Towards the absent criminal.
The chairs rock like autistic children
Chained to a timber floor.
Vincent, you were a prisoner
Without guilt or guarantor.
Your sins were few, your failings two:
You were anonymous and poor.
LE CHAPEAU DE PAILLE
The black felt hat is tilted rakishly,
The ostrich feathers almost sliding off.
Wisps of mousy hair peep shyly out
From underneath the broadly sloping brim.
The almond eyes are intelligent and amused,
Watchful and sensuous.
The coral mouth
Pursed with upturned corners
Is surprisingly lascivious.
The creamy neck plunges
Towards the high voluptuous bosom
Made shapely by the tight black bodice.
Red velvet sleeves trimmed with artificial lace
Conceal the thoughtfully folded arms
But reveal the delicate slender hands
Cradling an emerald engagement ring.
To paraphrase my old friend Schopenhauer:
Beauty is an open letter of recommendation
And universal wedding invitation.
DONA ISABEL DE PORCEL
Superb senora, decked out in widows’ weeds,
A black mantilla perched upon your head,
Its ornamental lace sweeping down across your shoulders.
Arms akimbo; hands on hips;
Gracefully tapering finger-tips.
Blonde kiss curls worship at your hidden temples.
Your wide-open hazel eyes
Survey the vacant air of the middle distance.
Your posture is upright, proud, superior,
Effortlessly aristocratic
And mildly contemptuous.
Your creamy complexion and ruddy cheeks
Make of you a perfect Spanish rose.
SIREN
You are so beautiful
That I don’t want to photograph you,
Draw, sketch, trace or paint you
Or even write a poem about you.
I simply want to gawp
Becoming ever drunker with desire
Until your perfect form recedes from focus.
Your long dark hair dances round your naked shoulders
Like an ebony waterfall debouching onto virgin snow.
Your fleshy damson lips
Are so perfectly proportioned,
They hamper my own breathing.
Your nose is fairly ordinary
But your eyes are limpid, liquid crystal pools
Filled with intelligence and longing.
When I leave my wife and squealing children
To follow you to the ends of the earth,
God knows as well as I
That I am merely an iron filing
Marching towards a magnet,
A selfish martyr
Inching towards the inevitable.
LIFE
Simply by being born
We take on a host of other obligations.
We are obliged to work like dogs
At jobs we hate
In order to support ourselves,
Our fat nagging wives
And myriad ungrateful children.
As I sit in my crumbling terrace
(Depressed as usual)
Facing redundancy, repossession and remorse,
The thought I cannot get out of my head is
I didn’t vote for any of it;
I never wanted to play this lousy game
Which I always, inevitably, lose.
WALES ON SUNDAY
Six o’clock and it’s pissing with rain again.
It always rains in Wales and when it doesn’t
It hails.
Nothing to drink, nothing to think
Except for a vague depression
Tugging at my entrails.
Bills coming in thicker and faster
Than junk mail and infinitely
More frightening.
The monotony is momentarily stunned
By a flash of lightning
And dramatic roll of thunder.
Nobody cares a cowboy’s cuss
About the stress I’m under.
Is it any wonder
I feel depressed, obsessed, unblessed, compressed,
Tempted to get up, get dressed, head out west,
Play the uninvited guest and pay (if necessary)
To be amorously caressed
By a beautiful dumb blonde
(If only I can find one.)
AUTUMN DAY
It’s a bleak autumn day.
The atmosphere is so heavy you could weigh it.
The clouds are crouching low and mournful
Keeping a weather eye on us.
The monotonous tapping of the rain
Is broken only by the drone and swish
Of passing cars.
The rotting grass is yellower than hay,
Indifferent and ungrateful for the downpour
Which has arrived too late to save it.
The stones resemble bathing elephants:
Massive, wet and grey.
The sky is the colour of cigarette ash
And the chill wind whispers
Through the cracks in the living-room windows.
Some poor old soul is out delivering leaflets.
I ease another bulky black coal
Onto the cackling fire
And join in its contagious laughter.
MILLENNIUM BLUES
It’s the fag-end of the twentieth century
And things are surprisingly bad.
The world’s population is approaching six billion
And the crowding is driving us mad.
The pope is still kindly reminding us
Cotraception is always a sin.
Lord, please have mercy upon us –
We don’t realise the mess that we’re in.
We crawl through contaminated cities,
Panting polluted air,
Drinking from filthy rivers
Refracting the neon glare.
What is our long-term prognosis?
Can we get through just by clowning?
Or are we caught right in the eye of the storm,
Shrieking, choking and drowning.
We want to dance round the millenium dome;
We’re collectively holding our breath.
We’re hoping and praying the millennium comes
Before our own personal death.
DOG DAYS
Most dogs dwell in desirable residences,
Are fed, walked and watered every day,
Cradled in the loving arms of their owners
And petted, pampered and caressed
By the rest of the family;
Get more uninhibited sex in a week
Than we do in the whole of our lives
And don’t have to pay a single bill
From the day they’re born till the day they die.
People say that humans are the superior species
But I’m not convinced.
If we were really clever
We’d send the dogs out to work
While we stayed at home and put our paws up.
CAPTAIN
Captain is a Jack Russell.
He has endured fifteen winters
Which makes him over a hundred
In human terms.
He has the usual canine afflictions:
Worms, fleas and dribbling incontinence
Yet retains that deep-rooted dignity and decency
Common to most dogs.
These days he has to helped
Onto beds and sofas
Where he can wipe his muddy paws
And leave lavish layers of filthy hair
On the pristine pillows.
Captain’s idea of an idyllic day
Is to perch on the upstairs window-sill
For hours on end
Staring idly out
At the passing show.
I often feel that Captain’s life
Is remarkably like my own.
CIDER WITH ROSE
These days wine tastes sour to me;
It’s less of a flower than it used to be.
Perhaps it’s the Hungarian
Or watered-down Bulgarian
Or maybe it’s just me
Turning inexorably
Into a demented vulgarian.
Nowadays, cider tastes sweet to me
And wider and deeper and stronger and steeper
Than any grubby grape-juice
(No matter how fermented!)
Am I becoming ironic, sardonic, Platonic, moronic
Or simply melancholic and semi-alcoholic.
WHINE
I passed a bunch of purple fruits
All spherical in shape.
A stranger bid me taste of them;
I did and ‘twas the grape!
The grape that can with logic absolute
Make wine (along with any other fruit.)
I noticed not the vinter who appeared
With musket, ready to take aim and shoot!
The grapes were sweet and sticky
(Although reaching them was tricky.)
The vintner seemed to take the view
I was trying to take the mickey!
Indeed they were far superior
To anything in Iberia
But I’m still unsure whether they were worth
The lead in my posterior!
TOFFEE ROCK
We bought a cube of toffee rock
From an itinerant stone seller in Tunisia.
He assumed we were rich Germans.
No, we quickly contradicted,
Just poor English.
Anyway we ended up buying an assortment:
Amethysts, amonites, agates, thunder-eggs
Und so weiter.
But the toffee rock was easily my favourite.
I shall attempt to describe it
Knowing almost anybody else
Could do a better job.
Dug out from underneath the Atlas mountains,
It is about an inch cubed
And staggeringly stratified.
It has a biscuit base beneath a vein of chocolate
Supporting a much thicker layer of butterscotch
Topped by a ribbed and fretted coating
Of crumbly vanilla icing
(The still adhering rock crystal.)
All in all it looks
Like an elaborate caramel
Or small ungenerous portion
Of luxurious coffee cake.
LIVERPOOL POEM
My girl asked for a poem
So I gave her a yellow rose.
That’s not a poem, she said.
I said it all depends
How you look at it.
Some people would claim
It was the apotheosis of poetry.
No, she said, I want a real poem
So I gave her a green leaf.
That’s not a poem, she said.
I said it all depends
How you look at it.
Some would assert that verdant leaves
Are the tiny waving hands of plants and trees.
No, she said, I want a genuine poem
So I gave her an orange stone.
That’s not a poem, she said.
I said it all depends
How you look at it.
Some would state that simple stones
Are the rugged rudimentary bones
Of mother earth.
She said, you’re not very bright are you?
If you can’t be bothered
To write me a proper poem
You can sod off.
So I did.
STREET SWEEPER
I used to be a road sweeper
In Golders Green.
It was my job
To keep the streets clean,
Chat to old ladies
And chuck babbling babies under the chin.
I had a bunch of black plastic bags
To put the rubbish in.
I pushed a squeaky yellow barrow
With a shovel and a brush.
(Being so encumbered
Made it difficult to rush.)
I had to pick up the litter
And kick the dog-shit into the gutter
Where it appeared less extensive
And therefore marginally less offensive.
It was great while it lasted
But one day I got plastered
And was given the proverbial tin-tack.
I begged to be allowed back
But it was no use,
The boss was adamant.
(Actually I think that was just his nickname.)
PEN AND INK
I wonder how much ink has dripped
Off the gilded quill of the pamphleteer
In his promiscuous efforts
To excoriate and jeer.
It’s no use crying over spilt ink
My mother used to say.
Too much has flowed under the cartridge
From Nigeria to Norway.
Like bees exuding honey
In their hexagonal hives,
We writers scratch and scribble away
Our uneventful lives.
What sustains these outpourings
Of nonsensical guff
Is the sad belief someone out there
Would like to read our stuff.
DOORS
Doors are very practical;
They allow us into rooms
And occasionally into labyrinths
In old Egyptian tombs.
Patio-doors communicate
Between the garden and the house
So we can trample mud indoors
And antagonise our spouse.
Privacy is necessary
And doors ensure we get it.
Those who opt for open-plan
Invariably regret it.
‘The Doors’ were justly famous
(Doormice and jackdaws too.)
Only an ignoramus
Would leave one off the loo.
HITCH-HIKER
Hello, my name’s Fred
And this is my wife Rosemary.
Where did you say, Worcester?
No problem, we only live in Gloucester.
Rose will look after you
Won’t you Rose?
Yes, she’s a motherly sort.
We’re quite well known in Gloucester;
I’m a builder
And Rose runs a boarding house,
Don’t you love?
I play darts for my local
And Rose has a few sidelines too
Don’t you love?
We’ll sort you out in no time
Won’t we Rose?
Student are you?
I thought you were, you look brainy,
It must be them glasses.
I don’t have no time for book-learning meself,
I’m a practical man.
If I can’t touch it, it don’t exist,
That’s my philosophy.
I’m good with me ‘ands though.
Rose will tell you.
Rose, aren’t I good with me ‘ands?
I don’t suppose you want to come back
For a few drinks do you love?
We’ve got some great videos ain’t we Rose?
Keep yer ‘ands to yerself Rose
Can’t you see she’s a lady?
Cheer up gal, no ‘arm done.
We’ll ‘ave you ‘ome in no time.
MURDERER
Formed by nature
To drink the blood of others,
You ignore the rich range
Of alternative moistures
At your disposal:
Mucus, dew, rainwater, sweat, urine, liquid excrement.
You fixate on human blood
And gulp it to your heart’s content.
Like a greedy, ungrateful, parasitic guest
You keep returning to your host-victims
For longer and larger helpings.
Steeped in the crimson colours of your trade
You swallow yellow plasma through a stripy straw,
Your sweaty cheeks scarlet with the strain
Of sucking a steady stream into your stomach.
We could always hatch a plan
To breed you out
But corrupt politicians
And craven public opinion
Would never allow it
Through the Mother of Parliaments.
STANZA IN SEARCH OF A POEM
Nettles sting; roses grow thorns
Without ever knowing why.
We cannot choose the day we’re born –
Much less, the day we die.
TIGHT-ROPE ARTIST
A poet is like a tight-rope walker
Nervously inching his way along
The threadbare rope of his insipid imagination.
If he can reach the final full-stop
Without breaking his neck
Or embarrassing the audience,
He experiences a profound sense of relief
And solemnly promises never to be so silly again.
ARS POETICA
How can I compete with Shelley and Keats,
Shakespeare and Wordsworth and Sir Walter Scott?
How can I compare with these giants of the past?
Well, I’m not entirely sure but I’m going to have a shot.
How can I write ballads like ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’
Or scribe delicious elegies like ‘The Lady of Shallot’?
Well, times have changed since then and when I pick up my pen,
It’s less with thoughts of Tennyson than T.S. Eliot.
Every writer has a tale to tell; each poet has a song to sell.
They might be quite exceptional or complete and utter rot.
We can’t all write ‘The Daffodils’
Or ‘England’s green and pleasant hills’
But we can pay our pound and have a share of Camelot.
PERMUTATIONS
When we do the lottery
There are around fourteen million
Possible permutations.
When we write a poem
The combinations are more elastic
But not, alas, infinite.
There must be at least one poem
For every person on the planet and
The poetry population is still multiplying exponentially.
One day there’s going to be a poetry roll-over!
It often worries me that my perfectly proportioned pieces
Have already been produced by somebody else.
An irrational fear
Or is it?
No more so than that one day
I will meet my Australian doppelganger
And disappear in a cloud of prose.
As for this concatenation of words,
Is it a poem?
I suppose so.
It is too long for an aphorism
And too short for a dissertation
So it has to be a poem (or a postcard.)
SONNET
I thought I’d settle down and write a sonnet
To compete with Shakespeare, the eternal bard;
But after days my page had nothing on it.
I hadn’t realised that it would be so flipping hard!
Yet Shakespeare wrote seemingly without effort;
His pen ran almost faster than his mind.
I’ve a feeling mine will be a trifle short –
I’m tired and I’ve a pain in my behind.
So as my minutes hasten to their end
(I’ve borrowed one of Willy’s finest jewels)
I think of all the letters still to send
And of the fact the world’s composed of fools.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
I’ll give up poetry before it gives up me!
SHAKESPEARE
Shaw often said that comparisons
Between himself and Shakespeare
Were unfair since he, Shaw,
Wrote all his greatest plays
At an age that Shakespeare
Never lived to attain.
Shakespeare’s plays are so monumental
That they seem always to have been with us
Like the moon, the stars and the sun
But in 1580 he had written nothing
Except a handful of thank-you letters
To elderly relatives.
If the plague had carried him off then
(Like so many of his generation)
There would have been no Hamlet,
Macbeth, Merchant of Venice, Romeo & Juliet,
Richard the Third, Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar,
King Lear or Coriolanus.
No Swan of Avon,
Universal Genius
Or Eternal Bard.
No Disproportionate Diamond
In England’s Literary Crown.
It’s a sobering thought
When you think of it.
WHY
Why do we poets
Write acres of verse?
Some like it rich
Others prefer terse.
Some say it’s a gift,
Others claim it’s a curse.
Some say it does nothing
To fatten our purse
While others point out
There are pastimes far worse.
TRADE SECRETS
Each poet is unique.
Some use rhyme, others don’t.
Some enjoy rhythm, many don’t.
Some employ rhetoric, more don’t.
Some like similes, most prefer metaphors.
Some assert alliteratively;
Others declaim dogmatically.
Some have talent; the majority don’t
And one or two are geniuses
But that’s very very rare.
One of them (Oscar Wilde) observed
There are really only two types of poetry:
Good and bad.
Discuss in groups of no more than three
Which category this damp squib falls into.
GINSBERG
Ginsberg had the right idea.
He would copy out
A passage of prose
Then cut it up
Into short
Staccato
Sections
And stripe them
Down the page
Like toothpaste
A barber’s pole
A rope ladder
A regimental tie
Or railway sleepers
Thereby turning
A square into
A stalactite.
He wrote over
Forty books
Like this
And many
Acclaimed
Him a
Great
Poet.
LANGUAGE
We all use language well or ill
Like glass above a window-sill.
With luck, our meaning’s crystal clear,
Transparent as a virgin’s tear.
More often though, we miss the mark
And then we’re scrying in the dark
Until our poor intelligence
Is labyrinthed by lack of sense
And ultimately condescension
Plays sibling to incomprehension.
We all use language well or ill
Like foot-prints on a window-sill.
We mean exactly what we say
Till burglars steal our wits away.
FRIENDS, ROMANS, COUNTRYMEN
Does lack of law occasion war?
I recall the Roman senator who said:
‘Once we had few laws and few criminals;
Now we have many laws and many criminals.
The more laws you enact, the more criminals you create
And that, my friends, Romans and countrymen
Is a fact as brute as fate.’
NUN
Have you ever seen
A saintly-looking nun
Launch a lime-green spitball
Against an unsuspecting pavement?
I have and believe me
It’s not something you easily
Forget.
WENDY
She fed her cats before herself
And at the age of thirty
Leaped down from the shelf.
Gave up a well-paid position in the city
Saying earning all that money
Simply made her feel guilty.
Tried to give up smoking,
Found she couldn’t kick it –