“A well-made barograph is a joy to behold - an elegant confection of brass and steel, mahogany and glass”
- Simon Winchester, Krakatoa (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), p. 265.
But a poorly-made barograph is a sorrow to behold - a crude salmagundi of spit, crud and balsa.
Yasser Arafat ‘very, very sick’.
In other news:
Yellow snow ‘bad for health’ - p 10
Britney divorced married - p 43
Pope’s taste in hats ‘unorthodox’ - p 94
Yasser’s missus is a bit of a fox, though.
The poetry in transit doesn’t rhyme or
have any discernible meter. Usually
it resembles the
beginning or end of a short story
by a mediocre student of creative writing
fed
through a shredder
and reassembled by a couple of chimps. Perhaps
Translink have had complaints
from
commuters accidentally awoken,
distracted from their newspapers, or worse,
from conversations on their mobile phones,
or who have had their concentration broken
amid the body odours and colognes
by an unexpected dose of verse,
that they just couldn’t ignore.
Probably they think that I’d prefer
a lukewarm metaphor
and the phony mystery
of piss-poor prosody,
like a fly by night who won’t remember me,
nor I her.
“It’s Mrs Phone for you.”
“Thanks.”
But “thanks” isn’t what I want to say at all. I know that a call from Phone is always succeeded by a visit from Wall. And I don’t want a visit from Wall. I hang up at the split second the receptionist transfers the call. Cowardice is the better part of discretion.
I’ve never met Mrs Phone, but I’ve seen her name in the minutes of meetings and I know that none are as well connected as she. Everyone in the company knows how it works with her and Mr Wall. Phone picks you up, then Wall comes in and makes the hit, thump, like a lump of pig iron in the sternum. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
I wait for the phone to ring again, and torment myself with the knowledge that it’s impossible to unplug it from the wall.
the good christians who don’t tut at every blasphemy, and who you only find out are christian when you ask them what kind of music they listen to, don’t forget them, when you come to measure out your blessings. god is generally a nobler vocation than politics, though neither of them pay especially well.
but not overlong, not long to the extent that it never ceases, or that lockjaw ensues, but long enough nonetheless, and leisurely, below eyes a little lidded, and only the tiniest bit stifled, opening out like a lotus or a door, and potentially, in the circumstances, inappropriate, seeing that really really turns me on
Been having a few problems with my keyboard - the ‘b’ key was kind of sticky, and my brackets were coming out the wrong way around. So I shook it hard and out fell:
Sesame seeds,
toenails,
pieces of pie,
pieces of eight,
pornography,
a pocket watch,
two stumps and a bail,
two elvers and an eel,
a fragment of Petronius’ Satyricon,
eyelashes,
pots,
pans,
flashes,
bangs,
crashes,
and a lithograph of a cowpoke
silhouetted against a gibbous moon.