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thanks, Andrew. Yes, about the chopping - and I ask myself what would listeners hear were I to read it aloud. Most is so extremely prosaic that I told myself there was a sort of comedy in my pretending it was verse. I used to ask poetry students a question I myself would fail - if you met this set out as prose, would you be able to find the line endings and set it out as verse? Oh dear… On 27/06/2012, at 4:56 PM, Andrew Burke wrote: > Hey, Max. I too like it a lot, but I wonder about the chopping up into tidy > quatrains - some of the breaks seem illogical and un-musical. How about > trying it with the breaks dictated by sense, not just tradition? > > But I do like it, honestly. > > Andrew > > On 27 June 2012 14:51, Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]>wrote: > >> Ah those memories captured thanks Max >> Ps I worked in a grocers -biscuits were loose those days and I had to check >> the eggs in a bucket of water P >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On >> Behalf Of Max Richards >> Sent: 27 June 2012 02:00 >> To: [log in to unmask] >> Subject: snap: butter [with 'bach' in its NZ sense] >> >> Butter >> >> When the butter doesn't spread, >> but makes my knife drag, >> instantly I'm back in Auckland, >> seventeen, wielding a spatula >> >> over bulk butter in cartons. >> I'm slicing from each two ounces; >> numbered they go to shelves >> to see if any carry nasties. >> >> My first job after high school it was - >> at the government bureau >> that oversaw dairy exports. >> 'temporary junior labourer' - >> >> nothing could have paid less. >> Down on the wharf just along >> from the ferry building >> chilled cartons of butter >> >> arrived from every factory >> in the North Island, paused >> briefly in the big cool store, >> were loaded on the cargo ships, >> >> and sailed away, mostly to Britain, >> keeping New Zealand afloat >> and Britain's bread buttered. >> Where was the guilty factory? >> >> My boss the Pommy scientist >> cast me as assistant sleuth. >> We're getting to the bottom of this! >> Slice and shift, number and store. >> >> In my breaks I worked my way >> through the three old Pelicans: >> A. L. Bacharach, >> 'Lives of the Great Composers'. >> >> Of most I'd never heard a bar. >> I'd plodded steadily >> as far as Monteverdi. >> Ahead lay Bach and more Bachs. >> >> My boss pounced on the name >> Bacharach - a well-known chemist >> from his own home town. Read on, >> Max, but don't neglect the butter. >> >> At last, the moment - Eureka! >> The dirty-water factory >> was way past Tauranga >> and even Whakatane, >> >> almost at East Cape. >> Retribution followed. >> The lab staff celebrated, >> my job was terminated. >> >> Music-less in an uncle's beach bach,* >> I read up Bacharach's Bachs >> spending my hard-earned quids >> on ice-cream from a clean source. >> >> >> [*bach: New Zealand word for week-end shack] >> > > > > -- > Andrew > http://hispirits.blogspot.com/