And here I know all three!

Made The Independent, too, Max, names & all....

But maybe anonymity would be a good idea, but here...?

Doug
On 8-Aug-06, at 4:59 PM, Max Richards wrote:

> Morning headlines: huffing and puffing
>
> Shuffling, slipper-scuffing,
> already I've woken both dogs
> from their beds in the passage.
> They're noising their need
> for breakfast. We crowd through
> the side door into the garage.
>
> Out front I pick up the paper,
> fumbling for the edge of the clingwrap,
> sometimes a task beyond a half-awake
> old codger. In the kitchen judging
> how much water the kettle needs is taxing,
> pouring milk in the sugar-basin likely,
> and shifting the teabag to the bin
> calls for rare co-ordination.
>
> The headlines! some days you know
> the real news is so bad - and so like
> yesterday's - it's been buried on page four.
> Something local and not too 'political'
> may substitute for the seriously grim.
>
> What's it today? I can't bear to tell you.
> But on page four instead of Lebanon,
> it's 'Gallery's Van Gogh may be fake',
> and 'Poets fall out...from bard to verse'.
>
> Poet One in his memoir details drug-taking
> with poets Two and Three. Now they object!
> 'fabrication', threatened 'defamation action',
> sending him up to forty emails a day.
>
> Poet One responds with restraining order,
> and won't read at the Byron Bay bookfest
> for fear of assault.
>
> Poet Two speaks of falsehood and betrayal,
> and 'he has no sense of humour...of irony.
> ... just a publicity stunt.'
>
> Poet Three; 'Restraining order?
> ... That's typical of him.
> We were just having fun.'
>
> Nothing about poems. Still,
> I shall look for the memoir
> next time I'm in a bookshop.
> Just a quick browse to confirm
> my sense of humour, irony
> and superiority.
>
> Do their names matter? That old idea -
> poems should circulate without names on -
> grows more attractive by the day.
> Memoirs? no solution comes to mind.
>
> After breakfast, the dogs will quarrel
> unless taken to the park. I'll take them
> one at a time. In the cool dawn air,
> they can publish their vaporous exhalations.
>
>
> Max Richards
> Doncaster, Melbourne
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> This email was sent from Netspace Webmail: http://www.netspace.net.au
>
>
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton  Ab  T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/

Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664

			Perhaps, after all,
there is no polite way to withdraw
from the privilege of the first person.

		Méira Cook