"betjeman" poems
Read Shakespeare and Milton and all of the rest
Keats, Coleridge and Wordsworth are some of the best
Read Ted Hughes and Sylvia, Motion, Duffy
They say what I want to say better than me
Read Homer and Ovid, Basho and Su Shi
Chaucer and Boccaccio they've stood the test
Read Donne, Spenser, Marlowe, Jonson and Raleigh
Read Shakespeare and Milton and all of the rest
Read Swift, Pope, Blake, Tennyson, and Rossetti
The two Barrett Brownings are of interest
For feelings romantic as true as can be
Keats, Coleridge and Wordsworth are some of the best
Read Larkin and Betjeman if you're depressed
Read Wendy Cope to enjoy all of life's zest
Yes please don't think I despise modernity
Read Ted Hughes and Sylvia, Motion, Duffy
And how about all those I haven't addressed
Yeats, Auden, Joyce, Longfellow, Poe and Shelley
And all of the others I'm bound to have missed
They say what I want to say better than me
But what of the poet, with poets obessed?
In prose I am prolix, in speech stuttery:
So where will you find my emotions expressed?
On MySpace, on Twitter, read my poetry
It says what I want to say
Oct 7, 2009
Oct 7, 2009 at 11:12 AM UTC
Ode to Barnes & Noble
Patrick Leigh Fermor never roamed these aisles
Sir John Betjeman never rhymed these aisles
Graham Greene never despaired of these aisles
And Rod McKuen was never here alone
And anyway the two or three feet of poetry
Are hidden far away in the back behind
The puzzles, records, comics, and plastic toys
And solitaries plugged into their machines
But on a winter weekday a writer’s retreat -
A yellow pad, coffee, and a window seat
Sep 15, 2016
Sep 15, 2016 at 7:31 PM UTC
She’s so clinical I’m so cynical, it’s so typical
We’re both to blame.
She likes talking when I like walking
She puts the pressure on I watch a day move on
I’m so in love with her she likes to have me there
It’s so typical she’s so cynical we’re both to blame.
I split my mind in two
She knows just what to do
I like to wonder why she doesn’t have to try
I make a move today she did it yesterday.
She’s vegetarian and I’ll eat anything.
She’s so critical; I’m so cynical it’s so typical
We’re both to blame.
She likes Betjeman I read Spiderman
She needs food for thought, I need alcohol
She wants to meet the stars; I’d like to own a bar
She’s so Liberal I’m so malleable it’s so typical we’re both to blame.
I’m so typical it’s so pitiful, she’s so - unexpected.
Jan 19, 2014
Jan 19, 2014 at 2:42 PM UTC
In the world cannot erase
the tedium of an english
seaside suburb where
old colonials retire
Cricket and warm beer
the elongated death of
the english gentleman
John Arlott describes
scattring pigeons as the
ball rolls idly by
A gentle ****** of teacups
(bone china) and
Betjeman on the wireless
1,000 years of Malmesbury town
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 3:36 AM UTC
I have finally found you
In St. Enodoc Church;
Home is where your heart rests
Not your place of birth.
Summoned by the three o’clock bell
A pilgrim across the eleventh fairway,
Towards a crooked spire that protrudes
Like a drowning swimmer,
Signalling to be rescued from the dunes.
As I enter through the gate
Your headstone greets me with a shout;
A marvel of the stonemason’s art
Explosive script from marbles cold darkness,
Radiates your humour and warmth.
I am not humbled, sad nor afraid
This place is fitting to rest your phrase;
Looking down at where you lie
I try to imagine that lived-in face.
Archibald lies at your head
Old and trusted, faithful ted;
So much heard, but nothing said
All through the years of pressured steps,
To follow where your father led;
But you had other plans and instead
Were drawn to words with rhythmic thread,
That made you Poet Lauriat, a knight
Who finally has found some peace.
Nov 3, 2019
Nov 3, 2019 at 7:13 PM UTC