Yes, Joanna,
I'm laughing and a bit tearing up (don't know why) at reading again this
beautifully building and slamming poem. Freeing, isn't it?
The clever cursing (cussing? swearing?) is SO like you (not).
Judy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joanna Boulter" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 7:52 AM
Subject: Re: [POETRYETC] Shiver my timbers
> THE TALE MY UNCLE TOLD ME
>
>
>
> See that barn, there? There's a story to that.
>
> You had a ancestor was a buccaneer;
>
> and he went pirating off to the Caribbean,
>
> come home again with a shipload of gold.
>
> Well, maybe not so much, shared with the crew -
>
> but a nice little fortune for one.
>
> So, soon's they get within sight of the Worm's Head,
>
> your ancestor (who was a clever man, see,
>
> like all his descendants), he calls up the crew,
> proposes a swearing match. Winner gets the lot.
>
> Well now, they're all for it. Not a man there
>
> but prided himself on his tongue for oaths.
>
> So they set turns, began to fire away.
>
> And the curses thundered out like cannonballs
>
> spat from between their teeth, could have blown holes
>
> in a Portugoose or a Spanish man o' war.
>
> Imagine that lot, yelling the French to rout!
>
> But no man a clear best. Well, your ancestor,
>
> he waited them all out. Sense of drama, see.
>
> Till they were shoving him, saying Go on mun.
>
> Then he stepped forward, planted his feet firm
>
> on the heaving deck, threw back his mighty head
>
> - duw, duw, he was a fine man, mun -
>
> and he opened his mouth and began.
>
>
>
> Well damn your eyes mun, he said; but that
>
> was only the start. Oaths flowed from him
>
> like wine from a cask. He was uncorked all right.
> The style of him! Never a misplaced damn,
>
> never a bloody adrift. Ach y fi
>
> was nothing to him. Flaming buggers of hell
>
> he called them, blisters on the bum of God,
>
> the Devil's emeroids; said they hadn't the wit
>
> to piss downwind (I'm only quoting, mind);
>
> told them to frig their bloody ear'oles clean
>
> and listen to him; told them to get their brains
>
> out of their britches, give 'em room to think.
>
> And there was more: Hell got more colourful
>
> under his bruising tongue; the griddled bones
>
> of saints were flaming, fit to scorch your ears.
>
> His rhetoric whanged the air with cutlass words.
>
> And all the time
>
> the rhythm of it running like the swell
>
> of his own element. The hwyl was on him.
>
>
> And then a moment's calm, like the dog days,
>
> before a storm of shouting, whistling, cheering -
>
> because the others weren't a patch on him.
>
> They were a load of miserable buggers,
>
> couldn't string enough oaths from the yardarm
>
> to hang a cat. So, guess who won? No contest!
>
> And there's the barn he built with his pirate gold.
>
> But duw, he was a fine man, mun.
>
>
>
>
>
> Joanna Boulter
>
>
>
> (from 'On Sketty Sands', Arrowhead Press)
>
>
>
|