Glad you liked it Bob. The poem came to me when I was spending 6 days in
hospital having my blood pressure brought under control. This 'Falstaff' was
laid in the same 4 bed side ward as I and there were others in the same ward
too. My condition was inherited while those about me bought it by all
accounts.
'Have him on the hip' is an Elizabethan phrase derived from wrestling and
means to have the decided advantage over someone as you prepare to throw him
to the floor. As I have always understood it. Arthur.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 12:19 AM
Subject: Re: New Sub: Death of a Falstaff


Hi Arthur,
Wow! This is a great poem!
(But I'm biased, I once played Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor when I
was at School... (I was well padded!) - Hey, I've just been surprising
myself by reciting some of my lines...)
I think you've got the character well - and Robert Nye wrote a novel called
Falstaff which, like your poem, reaches and touches the life (and death) of
his larger than life character too.
But I, too, ain't too sure about the first line... I sort of sense you're
struggling with the iambics and the pentameter. (Hows about: "At beermat
flicking I was so adept" which still sets the jauntiness and keeps the image
- which is a powerful contemporary take on his character!).
I like the last line 'almost' as it is (it seems so Falstaffian to throw in
the last two words after such a defiant statement of refusal!)
But how about changing it to:
"I refuse to obey or die - yet will."? The word "or" instead of "and" seems
to make more sense to me...
And the couplets are OK with me! I sort of feel they work so well at
expressing the guy's character and fit the speech patterns you're using. In
the end there's plenty of templates for sonnets, and plenty of variations on
the templates too. This one seems fairly regular and appropriate to me.
(I'm thinking about the phrase "they have me on the hip," though. It's not
too clear, not as clear in meaning as the rest of the poem perhaps...).
And I like "confounds me" (not the singular "confound me"!) too. It sounds
like Falstaff!
The whole poem sounds like him!
Yeh,
Bob






>From: arthur seeley <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New Sub: Death of a Falstaff
>Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 19:13:27 -0000
>
>An earlier poem reworked as a sonnet:
>
>Death of a Falstaff. 2002
>
>At flicking beer mats I am an adept
>as street-wise as the world is wide, I've set
>echoing streets aloud with bawdy song
>and swilled and sang as midnight's come and gone,
>while through the reeling darkness of the night
>I've waltzed the shadow of my late delight,
>smoothly she moved and swayed like meadow grass
>under a summer breeze, my slender lass.
>
>This tutorial of tubes, clean sheets and drip
>confounds me now, they have me on the hip.
>Some Mistress Quickly comes and goes all day,
>collects my body's wastes while I decay.
>A lard-arsed lump, I slowly fail and chill.
>I refuse to obey and die - yet will.


_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus