[John Whitworth]

10.

A Song of Tubes

Earth has not anything to show more fine
Than that which underpins that mighty heart.
The same arrangement graces yours and mine
But London’s bowels are a world apart.
Embark not on another aimless wander,
Go, operate thine Oyster and invest in
An hour or two to ride the rails and ponder
The intricacies of its great intestine.
Scraps of humanity are sucked inside,
Whirling with strangers in unwitting waltzes,
All thrown together in a breathless ride
And squeezed along by merry peristalsis.
Through any of its many mouths man passes
To issue from its omnipresent arses.

[Maryann Corbett]

Talk about peri bathos! Wordsworth may be turning in his grave, but I hope he's laughing while doing so.

Something half-buried in memory says the poet is actually American, despite that last couplet.

That comma at the end of L5--a typo, maybe?

[Janice D. Soderling]

I must have been doing a Rip van Winkle for I don't know any of these. Or perhaps they originally had a home at D & A which I (blush, blush, blush) don't always keep up with--though I love it. The D & A regulars are way out of my league so I don't even try to crit there.

However, the reference to Oyster makes me think that it is indeed a UK writer. (re. "the world is my oyster", and the "oyster" card one uses to pass in and out of the tube system.)

John's choices are superb. So much talent demonstrated on this year's Deck. I am overwhelmed.

PS. Which is not to say that there hasn't always been a great show of talent. Indeed there has.

[Susan McLean]

I remember this one from D & A, and it is a delightful extended metaphor, with wonderfully unexpected rhymes. I get a hint of Dante in its exploration of the underworld.

Susan

[Lance Levens]

This looks like an Oldie's Comp that far surpassed the playing field. Well done.

[Orwn Acra]

I haven't had time to participate in this year's DTH, so all I can offer are short comments, and I'll start with this one:

The poet manages to turn the Underground into some sort of subterranean monster with colorful innards and whimsical anatomy (Elephant & Castle!). "Operate thine Oyster" does it for me. I don't know for sure who wrote it, but I have a guess. I like the poem. And her.

[Charlotte Innes]

My favorite rhyme: "waltzes" and "peristalsis."

US or UK? Being both... I can't tell!

I think it's breathlessly brilliant, with its mix of high-flown poesy and scatological humor. In fact, I feel so whirled about that I have become quite sick and must sit down for a minute.

Charlotte