collected ramblings of Mark Cyst

Canterbury tale

 

convert no stars basketball

wellies the originals

wear them out in no time or

slung round your neck

by the lace of God on Tom

Dick & Harry’s pilgrimage

barefoot cross the Pyrénées

hard on the heels

but the breeze between your toes

can’t be beaten stories tall

short or shaggy dog & fish

sermons exchanged

nothing irreligious mind

just the harmless rambling kind

folk’ll tell to pass the time

here on the road

 

’twasn’t always thus believed

God was in their heaven once

counting out the feet They’d saved

sticking on souls

now in Jesus wellingtons

sandals by another name

be They Queen or Jack of Spades

stick to Their guns

nosepicks at dawn

duets between

carrot farmers deuced

by the war

 

weaponised

radar boring peep

holes in planes

 

surely it’s

Ancien Régime

versus us

 

calling out

on guard D’Artagnan

kinda thing

 

no it goes

franchise Vonnegut

take your cut

 

 

binary codes

 

111

swan

too

many

 

112

for the maths

simply do

the arithmetic

 

121

ass to kiss or arse to kick

choice is yours

Dick

 

122

& you Brutus

caught the bus

without any fuss

 

211

entropy

half-life fools

take a dying fall

 

212

or not to

want to that

is the question

 

221

oxymorons wage

dirty war like piggy

banks shitting money bombs

222

three way score

sock vest &

underpants draw

 

 

the laced wand

 

inexplicit

 

Thomas has a limp

dipstick shot his under-kecks

over Ezra’s text

 

squandered all those lines

could have fed the cannibals

spit them out in here

 

but the goldfish bowl’s

out of range & Tommy’s words

land on Export Desk

 

wo Seher schreien

ne’er again shall Spotty’s dog

bother Vivienne

 

calling time it’s last

orders Zarathustra now

Go’n’Wash yer marf

 

 

wokey-wokey

 

get it through your block

poetry this ain’t it’s worse

verse now back to sleep

 

no video game

 

end-to-end encrypted bank

queues you wait that long get picked

off by snipers long before

reaching the front

 

find a way to keep your head

down but ditch that mobile phone

read these stupid lines & get

suicide droned

 

tell the kids their playground’s mined

on your life they’ll only start

digging like there’s pirate gold

under the swings

 

better off pretending moles

ain’t invaded Poland yet

buy them pogo sticks & poke

holes in their jokes

 

yep there’s endless ways & means

phooey what gets chucked at us

folks’ll always turn the world

back on its nose

 

 

a list of the Brithonians

 

Hovis Bunsen no

not the king I give

zéro puan to all

chits on the line

 

few Americans

fewer still from darn

under half a doz

eastern dragoons

 

Hollywood a sole

representative

all the rest can play

dough with themselves

 

women welcome though

only those who kiss

toads not frogs a lone

Madame Oiselle

 

last me blooming self

honorary chair

person hanger-on

butler & clown

further alt txts

 

trans

pony tale

rides

 

fake

sausage roll

calls

 

snide

victim blames

corpse

 

crime

doesn’t pay

bores

 

house

wine with cheese

claws

 aboriginal isles

 

ancient Britons worked together clans

laying wooden roads across the fens

long before the Romans or the Celts

landed their claims

 

little of their native tongue survives

though the landscape bears the stones they hauled

out of Wales & cross the Berkshire Downs

just a few names

 

long before the Norman’s French replaced

Anglo-Saxon’s hold on government

Latinised reported speech & re

booted the church

 

language archaeologists have dug

deep enough to know that victors’ crimes

underlie the way we think cos words

marshall our thoughts

 

though unorthodox restate my case

thirty centuries of peace prevailed

while the ancients gathered round their stones

islanders bound

 

 

welch apps

 

slap-a-baldy

fine the lady

cubic’s rube

3D cheese

hungry bards

fainting by numbers

spot the bomb

toilet seat football

hopscotch on the rocks

postman’s block

monotony

scribble

call my boff

game for a loaf

what’s my crime

squidditch

drag goons in dungarees

nitball

croakit

tiddlywigs

spittles

shakes’n’bladders

& Haydn’s eek

 

 

rush on roulette

 

when you’re got a public killing spree

don’t get sickened by the bloody screams

target places far away & use

missiles that cruise

 

 

OHMS

 

waffles sand & dogshit where

else but England’s pleasant Dad

take my hand I hope there ain’t

clowns with white gloves

gives us nightmares every time

HG Wells for breakfast toast

marmalade side down & eggs

hatching on plates

 

scared & yet a trifle bored

falling back to sleep the heart

beating umpteen revs a doz

dry by the mouth

 

look we know it’s yellow out

lead umbrella weather Jaws

coming back to haunt the huts

camp’s full of nuts

 

still you gotta set your face

straighten up & prove em wrong

chew their turkey flavoured mints

God save the King

 

 

13

my name’s Virgil but

only here to say one thing

never steal their tears

not for sale

1917 & other observations

دون الإخلال

for Zerox Quid
είναι όλα ελληνικά για μένα

I

in the cotton picking moment

in the long pause before foreign wars

laid waste the international banking laws

his mission was piped in ochre balls

we're not asking you to steal the crown jewels

go East young sport & sow yr oats ferret out

some hydra-harried rose for comfort camouflage

yourself in that pack of confidence tricks

yr grandpa perfected from the pulpit

play hard & duplicate yr monthly report

tucked between the lines of a poetry mart

not under the counter just so darned smart

those Limey dicks'll die puzzling out

quoth his mentor over Harvard lunch

now be a good sort and pass the port

he took his trusty plume in hand

he took his wolfram wand of the purple end

in no time caught the minxsome foal with eyes

so swart she blacked his name

while boosting his fame in the views

of other ex-pats on the parlour game

Quid of the 'baccy swoon balling

zeroxed banknotes down the vales

of maidens & fielding Pinkerton Man

to Winston Churchill's Cousin Sam

stroked his early white beard & spoke

in onion seller's antic cant

you've gone straight native Uncle Tom pipped

by your own lip truly rabbit holed tant pis

well enjoy this dead end pier I'm off on me hols

leave you to tinker with the mother ship

II

snot on an old man's lapel is all

the watch & chain he could pocket

laid off forty years before retirement

his rack-a-hoo trailing off into that sunset smile

where all who snout & snifter lie down the while

yet shield your eyes sonny man and see

surf breaking on The Strand

driftwood of wrecks coming in to land

bald head on the shoulder-block of youth

antiquated thought dolled-up as youth

become the latest high falutin' fad

as off-course tipster to the owl gang

if lucky you'll twit one last ignoble

Iscariot hanging out at Uttoxeter

or failing that bag yrslf a spying Helot

III

a game of cheese

my hair is bad tonight

she says to me

I say the wind is up

she prays

what the devil

I repeat my dear

the wind the yellow wind

put your teeth in she snores

so that I may hear

& I reflect

it's up again

you jealous creep

don't bother me

with that she groans

& goes back to sleep

IV

here's a good 'un overheard at Margate Metropole

as we were sate next to Willie Maugham & Co

that German naval attaché in Geneva

tall green yacht fella on lake whatchamacallit

six inch shells concealed i'the fo'c'sle

his great uncle Heimie lost a leg at Gettysburg

says that if Amerikar came into the war

would treat every table at the casino

to a bottle of Bollinger a politician

mind you neglects to tell on which side

so our British coz by his ma & in-laws

related to THREE US presidents

not to be outdone orders champagne all round

which Fritz Whathisface disdains to swallow

proving thereby no sausage-eater was ever a sportsman

cabled this to Chicago for the Spring edition

in hopes to be on time for once

V

render unto Caesar I say unto Quid

can't blame a fellow for being a snipcock

went to school with one his pa made millions

out of workwear pour les ouvriers

first rate chap just an accident of birth

even the Great Lord Himself was of the persuasion

till he swept the lizards from The Temple

what sticks in yr craw Zerox old sport is that

while promises on Palestine and the Hejeira

play each other out the war is decided not

on the battlefield but by schnozzled old

Rothsteins & Weitzmans in oak panelled rooms

belching brandy fumes through fat cigars

to the tune of fine young men losing life & limb

for percentage points on a ticker machine

he says sell that to the fishwives of Nantucket

VI

so a poor odd-jobber must suffice

to put a start and an end to the sacrifice

doubtless eats pork'n'beans from a tin

lives alone in a squalid room

parts his rug with a metal comb

& ends each day stinking of resin

the auguries are propitious

if not unpredicted Medusa's

hair so deuced she takes her pill

the helot drunk on dregs of wine

while outside mustard gasses belch & spill

if the deed were done at all

'twere better done i'the East

downstairs supper clatters in the sink

a club foot scrapes in the hall

the blighter puts on a thin coat

& closes the front door

Eliot T Stern plods mutt-infested streets

where the yellowish curls of fat armed matrons

bare to the elbows lean through sash windows

spitting fag-ends from blistered lips

impregnating the quarter of new foreigners

brought in to replace such Latin waiters

as were repatriated for the draft

through this & that back street the neutral man

limps along taking neither bus nor tram

Stern follows into a Jerry-built walk-up

he breathes its camphored air as if to be sick

as if to detect the stench that god forsook

is all his ancient nose were made for

with metre throbbing on the fifth floor

& poor inebriate fumbling at the door

his vorpal wand snickers the Helot's back

a frenzied attack stupid cops to conclude

a jealous tart with heart of wormwood

VII

so let us horse trade you and I in nods and winks

Europe spread out on a billiard table

like a Zeppelin blockading the skylight

follow my finger down these evacuated streets

collaborators' retreats

where the all-night talk is of Swiss Hotels

quayside restaurants with six-inch shells

an argument oblique and of obscure intent

droning on as if oblivious to the question

but do not ask one's humble opinion

step inside and hear them grumble

about the room the Marshals sit and smoke

of Winston Churchill with an Armenian bloke

*

Mr President the revolution will not be cabled

direct though still encoded in modern verse

and passed through conventional channels

the agents sent into the field have both

changed their spots our Whitehall colleagues quoth

to join the very cliques they were sent to spy upon

Mr Quid stakes his talents railing

against Sephardic plots in the salons of the rich

while his replacement Mr Stern a Harvard man

one evening melted into the London fog

yes government property stolen

fake identities all but gone

and therefore begging yr pardon the revolution

while still appearing in a Chicago newsletter

may not be telegraphed direct to this office sir

Notes:

1. دون الإخلال (WITHOUT PREJUDICE)

2. είναι όλα ελληνικά για μένα (It's all Greek to me.)

3. Eliot T Stern & Zerox Quid: TS Eliot and Ezra Pound.

4. Helot: Spartan warriors were expected to have bumped off a slave by their coming of age.

5. "snipcock": an offensive term for a Jewish man, lifted from cartoon strips in “The Eagle” & Private Eye”.

6. The Rothsteins: wealthiest of all the Swiss bankers; (Chaim) Weitzman: a founder of Zionism (later first president of Israel) who handed the British a secret formula for making acetone in exchange for the First - “Balfour's” - Declaration on Palestine.

7. "a jealous tart with heart of wormwood" ie: 'he do the police in different voices'

Never Ends!