|
 There's
a speckled wood (right) flying by the
house, a comma feeding at the ice plant and two
white butterflies (not sure which kind) flapping about over the
lawn.
I should have cut the meadow area (left) a month ago but
I was busy with my book (the appropriately titled Rough Patch)
so I'm gradually working my way down the garden, trimming back.
The hedge needed cutting badly, as does the poem (of sorts) that
it inspired . . .
It's good to do something mindless and physical after the thousand-and-one
decisions connected with the design and printing of the book. Hedge-trimming
is a steady job with its own rhythm: |
|
|
Chop, Chop.
Chop, Chop.
When I get down to the rhubarb patch
I'll take a break and stop.
|
|
|
You can tell what goes through my mind as I work
my way down along the path by the veg beds.
|
|
|
Chop, Chop.
Chop, Chop.
Cheese on toast at lunchtime
With some chutney on the top.
(Homemade green tomato: Yum!) |
|
|
My idea is that I should be able
to take the regular rhythm of the snipping of the shears as the
background beat. The red bars ( |
) represent the 'chop, chop' beat . . . |
| |
|
This rough patch nee-| ded
taming
| So I'm snipping
| with my shears.
| The hedge
and see- | dy
nettle-heads
| Have grown
up to | my ears.
| The mildewed
leaves | of
courgette
| Flop like
felt ears |
and expire;
| The bean pods
are | as blackened
| As the embers
| of a fire. |
|
|
It seems to me that you need four beats for the first half of
each line but only three or perhaps just two for the second half.
I expect you hold the last syllable to end the line. Perhaps I
just have a bad sense of rhythm and meter: I've got one leg a
centimetre or more shorter than the other which could account
for me preferring lopsided rhythms.
I thought I should finish with an echo of the first two verses
(if verses is the term for something so silly).
|
Snip, Snip.
Snip, Snip.
When a hawthorn hedge gets hairy
You just rake, and shred and clip
(whispered rather breathlessly)
Snip, Snip.
Snip, Snip.
When a hawthorn hedge gets hairy
You just rake, and shred and clip |
|
I tried to read the first version of this to Barbara,
but I couldn't get through it without laughing.
'Well,' she remarked stonily, 'I shouldn't publish
that one.'
'Well no, but I think I could develop it.'
'As what?!'
|
SITUATIONS VACANT
MUSE (Part Time): an ability to look wistfully
into the middle distance while listening to bad poetry is
essential. 'Attitude' and a tendency to make sarky remarks
are distinct disadvantages. 
|
|
Richard Bell, richard@willowisland.co.uk
|
