Interesting, Pat. I like 'the somewhat gloomy sieve of my brain'.
Perhaps with erasures you were thinking of Max's excisions more.
Bill
On 01/05/2014, at 9:45 AM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 06:31:21 +0100From: Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]>Subject: Re: Lamb snapsThanks Bill gave me an early morning chuckle -P did Charles Lamb cross yourpath?
>
> Lamb and cross makes me think of Lamb and erasure...
>
> http://www.thethepoetry.com/2012/06/interview-with-matthea-harvey/
>
> Finnegan
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Douglas Barbour
> Sent: 29 April 2014 22:45
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Lamb snaps
>
> I like the way the story ends, Bill (but wonder if it reads a bit too much
> like a story). Some neat turns along the way, though. ' Doug On Apr 29,
> 2014, at 3:34 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Lamb chops
>>
>> Lambs lap my life. First Leslie:
>> Miss Lamb, young, pony-tailed,
>> high school teacher of physics.
>> (a subject I should have taken)
>> At Balwyn Baths she wore
>> a red bikini on swimming
>> sports day. At Wilson's Prom
>> she led form six study campers
>> to the peak of windy Mt Oberon.
>>
>> Next, gruff bespectacled Ted Lamb
>> a Class 9 federal public servant,
>> interrogated me when he learned
>> I was to be a member of his tertiary
>> education assistance team while
>> still having an outstanding student
>> overpayment. Are you serious about
>> this work? Yes. Well that, he rasped,
>> will come out of your first pay cheque.
>>
>> Six months later, one postcode away,
>> son of Lamb, Andrew, would snot me
>> with a left right combination Yarraside post Bureau of Stats Booze
>> Cruise.
>> Why? I had ripped, daintily, I thought, but yes, deliberately, the
>> front pocket of the Neat and Trim blue uniform of Bev Lamb, his
>> clerical wife.
>> While she was yet in it.
>>
>> I was merely illustrating its torn-ness, the uniform to me the office
>> equivalent of overalls. But Andy, with a cruise afternoon of ales in
>> him, saw an assault and launched his fistic barrage. Hands dragged me
>> away from the Lamb fury as I tried vainly to explain. My first and
>> only black eye took a week to heal.
>>
>> Robert Lamb, a different kind
>> of enforcer, a smiling killer in a grey suit, wheel-in school
>> principal, curer of alleged staff underachievement, entered lamb-like
>> enough, consulted individually and collectively, before granting us
>> what we seemed to want.
>> Certainty. Robert ripped into a benign Asian girl for being out of
>> uniform.
>>
>> Reduced her to tears. Then called her
>> into his office when apprised of his
>> overreaction. Apologised and asked
>> about her photographic ambitions.
>> Pulled a heckler out from assembly
>> and summarily expelled him. Insisted
>> all stand when he entered a room.
>> And he entered all rooms. Systematically.
>> To this Lamb I tendered my resignation.
>>
>> bw
>> 30.4.14
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