More Wallace but no Gromit

After my recent modernist-style musing inspired by Wallace Stevens, here's one more - maybe the last - certainly for a while...

13 ways of looking at a black biro

I

Taken for a walk,
you leave behind
a trail of art.

II

From behind the builder’s ear
or plucked out of a boffin’s
lab-coat pocket,
moving swiftly across the paper
with a fetish for dotted lines, you
release much-needed funds,
(mis)inform census-takers,
agree contracts,
waive this-and-that responsibility
and grease the wheels of officialdom.

III

The loss of your cap-point
protects those who swallow you;
that tiny hole
in the side of your barrel
means ninjas can no longer
use you as a breathing-tube
when hiding in ponds.

IV

Target of a billion petty office thefts,
found
or received as promotional giveaways,
though no-one ever buys you,
you are legion.

V

As many of you are made by a company
known for razors,
you impart the ability
to write sharp words –
is this why you are
mightier than the Wilkinson Sword?

VI

Though a thumb’s merest oily smear
may halt your progress,
like straw,
enough of you can
break even the strongest of backs.

VII

Along with marbles,
photos of the Dalai Lama,
and indeed pencils,
you are valuable currency
when wandering off the beaten track.

VIII

Architect of half this poem,
give or take,
your scratchings lie mingled
with those of blue kin.

IX

By drawing on a little moustache
and side-slicked fringe,
you can make anyone into Hitler,
and like him,
you only have one ball.

X

Your blood
is thicker than water,
thinner than
the pitch it may depict.

XI

Resetting digital timepieces and other electronic gadgetry,
manually winding obsolete music cassettes,
being used for an emergency tracheotomy (apocryphal?),
an entomologist’s probe for winkling out beetles,
one of two pins for hair-in-a-bun,
makeshift clay-modelling or bathroom sealant tool,
somewhere to store rubber bands,
a simple conjuror’s prop appearing to wobble.

XII

Vous êtes un stylo,
from ‘stylus’ –
you’ve come a long way
since wax tablets and cuneiform,
un imprimante de mots manuscrits

XIII

Write/scribe/scriven/scrawl,
rewrite/overwrite/edit/redact,
revise/annotate/complete/create,
draw/doodle/sketch/scribble,
compose/solve/compile/draft,
sign/autograph/name/label,
thank/invite/impress/entice,
poison/libel/codify/fade.

Biotic and Modernist

A few months ago, I went to a workshop on Modernist poetry, during which we looked at Wallace Stevens' '13 ways of looking at a blackbird'. It was new to me at the time, but I was immediately grabbed by it - the range of metaphors, the use of imagery and so on. Expanding beyond blackbirds to include other plants and animals, here's a semi-autobiographical response...

13 of life’s moments shared with Wallace Stevens

I

During a squall,
jackdaws shelter
on the leeside of policemen.

II

Nothing is certain,
just as seaweeds are not plants.

III

We sit silently,
us good mates –
the landlord doesn’t mind lodgers having guests,
but what is there to say
when he’s watching TV
and idly cupping
his mastiff’s testicles?

IV

I am an old Jack Russell,
my balls drag in the snow.

V

There won’t be bluebirds over
the White Cliffs of Dover,
not because I don’t dream of peace,
but because the bluebird is not
native to Europe.

VI

Disappointed to find out that
the mummified foetus
of a Tasmanian Devil
has already been sold,
I have to ask myself ‘why?’

VII

Norbert Dentressangle,
Nippon Yusen Kaisha
and Dong Fang,
Triton and Mol the crocodile
bring what from where?

VIII

Pale grey ballast
recently laid and rolled
is soon obscured again
by shoots
of grass and Buddleia.

IX

Flossy the dental nurse
is a nine-grand rhino,
fibreglass,
green and white
with apple-a-day shoes.

X

One big man
admits on stage
how his life was saved.
The saviour,
on duty and
not knowing this until now,
sheds a tear –
gentle gorillas in our midst.

XI

The joy of
discovering a new
sexually-transmitted disease
of ladybirds.

XII

Crows gather,
fly down
and coalesce –
now a back-bent
black-shawled hag.

XIII

We are all stardust,
only some are golden.

Linking the themes

Three interlinked stanzas picking up themes from a most poetical Sunday - modernism, yellowness, chalk-on-pavements...

Street art

I

Chalking round the sunspot dapples
Like a capella apples,
Eve spread out the tarmacadam
Unbidden on your drive –
“That’ll be a grand, mate” –
“Bite me”,
I don’t want your bitumen,
So bring on your gut-pouched lawyers,
Runaround and sue me,
Affidavits holding hole-hulled lifeboats,
Play the passing notes in full –
John Bullshit,
Rip up the writ
Throw down your cap
Tear off your coat
And draw out in pastel-pinks
The wartime tints of Goya.

II

Hints entrenched in dead-eyes stares,
Though shrapnel’s welcome here,
Throw freely and appreciate
The pigmented figments –
Binocular, binaural, never choral,
One makes it quorate
And so grants legitimacy of status,
Verbal afflatus –
You can’t make us, make me, mako;
Thus spake old fake old
Tsarovich,
A bob-a-job nabob,
‘Ave a cup o’ suzerainty
And a biscuit, ya baskit.

III

We beckon you inside with bourbonhomie,
Ignoring the custard screams of wheel-less wagoneers,
Broken-spoked,
Fragments campfire-smoked –
Outline the carbonate with charcoal,
Illuminate with low-lit rims,
Put up hoods or pull down brims,
Utterly fedorable –
I say, I say, an ice-age eyeshade,
Pretend the light’s about to fade,
Stop your barking
And walk out silent through the day.