(Standing in for John) Speccie new comp: Tube Times
 

As you'll see on the 'Speccie Any Questions' thread, John's away from his desk for a few days.
Here's the next comp but, despite the fact that I was on the London Underground (aka 'The Tube') only two days ago, I'm not as clever as John and can't just drum up a stupendous poem to kick off this thread... but I know lots of you can!

NO. 2710: TUBE TIMES
You are invited to supply a poem reflecting on the experience of travelling by Tube (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, if possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 17 August.

I think we nonBrits will be out in the cold on this one, unless Chris can do something brilliant. Still, I have at times ridden on the tube, and it reminded me rather of my favorite verse by John Betjeman:

The Old Great Western Railway shakes,
The Old Great Western Railway spins.
The Old Great Western Railway makes
Me very sorry for my sins.

Oh, I don't know, Gail - isn't the US subway much the same as the UK tube?

When it comes to 'reflecting on the experience of travelling by Tube' I'm wondering whether anyone will dare to do a poem about the day Jean Charles de Menezes died.

I often dream of London's 'Tube',
although I've never been there,
and so the dreams that I have dreamt
are conjured out of thin air.

From what I know of Britain, though,
from watching Dr. Who,
I'm pretty sure the dreams I dreamt
must by and large be true.

The people all seem nice at first
while traveling beneath
the streets of London Town, but they
have secret pointy teeth.

They're aliens who target Earth,
but Dr. Who's no rube.
He runs along the tracks, prevails,
and saves the London Tube.

This isn't humorous, but long ago I wrote about the Tube, or at least it was mentioned...

The inner-city sees her on the street.
She’s toughly dressed in jeans, a jacket, boots.
She takes the underground, but you won’t meet
this London goddess on your daily routes.
She’s shy. One look, she’s gone. One word, she’s out.
But where she goes, you’ll never know. She makes
you chase her, longing for some news about
her, when she reads or writes or sleeps or wakes.
It’s all a mystery, including why
the years race by, and still you deeply care.
You wonder if your feelings are a lie,
for all this time, you’re here, but she’s not there.

Let’s go down to the Tube, tra la
And visit all the stations.
With all the civil Brits. Tra la
And their very English patience.

I do not know my way around.
Is there a Convent Garden?
It’s such fun riding underground.
Excuse me. Beg your pardon.

If I keep riding long enough
Will I reach where I started?
The atmosphere is strong enough.
Oh goodness, someone farted.

Everyone just looks away,
You chaps, you are so proper.
Well, cheerio, I cannot stay.
I think I’ve come a cropper.

Milton's Error
 

The Subway? The Tube? Just to buzz around?
When did we befriend the underground?
It's a profoundly theological conundrum.
It's out with the head and up with the bum,
those ickies below and the wicked 'down there',
where critters gnash who need no hair,
where darkness and dampness and worms are king
and froggies go gulp and the birdies don't sing.

I fear old Milton himself is the cause.
Had he done the job right and followed the laws
he would have insured we'd never desire
to chill and thrill where there should be fire--
(whose purpose should not be to warm up your hands.)
I'm afraid the squinting poet commands
our nods on the general fall from grace,
but his Hell is, quite frankly, too nice a place.

Edmund, that made me laugh out loud! I was in...er, Covent Garden on Tuesday this week but from now on I will always think of it as Convent Garden :D

Jayne, I'm just going to pretend that I wrote that deliberately

It's rank in places and the noise is loud;
It sports graffiti, here and there, beneath
Its coats of city grit—and that is just the crowd
Who’ve rushed or trudged to fill this gleaming sheath,

Which takes off in a hush of whirring metal.
Across from me, one glum old gent, alone,
Ignores our bright bough’s freshest, wettest petal,
A girl who’s just been jilted via phone.

But when she sobs, his handkerchief is offered;
Her seatmate, who’s been buried in her map,
Says, “He’s not worth it, Dear.” A hug is proffered.
We also serve, who only mind the gap,

And light her way with smiles at Southwark station.
As someone's cell phone plays “Amazing Grace”
I almost feel we’ve all earned dispensation
And may arrive at some same, better place.

Frank

Very nice one, Frank.

The surprise when you reach and that is just the crowd is priceless.

Just one small thing - annoying noise? Maybe you prefer the repeat sound, though as it's the people who smell I'd have thought something much stronger like 'It smells disgusting' (which it often does, believe me, especially in warm weather!) would be closer to the real sensation.

I think the term 'non-discretionary fragrance' came from the States; it's so much more imaginative than the UK's 'B.O.' (body odour) ;)

Thanks, Jayne, though now it yis what it yis, as Popeye might say. Some may recognize it as (I prefer homage to rip-of, but will settle for) a tinny echo of Bill Coyle's "The Flautist at North Station."

Editing in to say I take your point - I guess it's not possible to 'smell annoying,' is it? Don't think I've helped the repeat sound, though - sometimes they bug me, but I thought a train poem might be appropriate.

Frank, I have no nits; I just want to say I like it tremendously. The nods to Pound and Milton gave me big, big smiles. Lovely vignette. And I've been in those stations.

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.

waltzes/peristalsis is quite a rhyme!

This one goes nowhere, but what the hey:

Tubing

The day I went schlepping
from Heathrow to Epping
I learned that the Underground's huge.

Crammed in and boxed in
the train I saw Hoxton
and Tottenham Court Road and Goodge,

and Croxley and Gloucester.
I must have been lost or
how else did I see Parson's Green?

I purchased no fare
to ride by Leicester Square.
My goal was to visit the Queen.

[quote=FOsen;207962]

Across from me, a glum, old gent, alone,
Ignores our black bough’s freshest, wettest petal,


I wondered who would be first with a Pound allusion. You need more than one pound for a Tube journey these days.

Haha - wrong contest, Bazza.

jocularity
 

Ooh you are awful.

Actually, that might not make a bad suggestion for a future Speccie:

METAPHYSICAL POET: Why did you take away my drink?
BARTENDER: I’m sorry, sir, I thought you were Donne.

not exactly a reply, but...
 

I can't send a Chris O'Carroll a personal message of congratulation till he empties his message box. So well done for the double hit, Speccie & Staggers, Chris.

bazza

PS: Empty your message box, Chris, or weed it at least.

Thanks, Bazza. I have your message now. My inbox was jammed with messages from the hack comedy police warning of dire consequences if I ever do another Richard Dawkins joke in a God-themed competition.

Congratulations to you for your divine obit, and to R.S. Gwynn for having the only human race obit among the winners, and also for winning with a poem in a prose comp.

Last minute entry (trying to maintain the promise to at least have a go each week):

They told us what the problem was: "One under"
- but up till then I'd travelled on Cloud Nine
(well, actually, the Piccadilly Line
from Hyde Park Corner) in a state of wonder.

Another suicide. Oh, not today!
The passengers began to talk, asked "Why
do people choose this monstrous way to die?"
but no one knew. Then I heard someone say,

"A new life has begun, though; it's profound."
I realised the one who spoke was me.
I'd told my secret inadvertently
to perfect strangers on the Underground.

Most days we all get on and off the trains
without a moment's thought for anyone.
Then something happens. When all's said and done
thank goodness our humanity remains.

Oops, I forgot to send mine in. I'm sending them now, an hour or two late, and hoping that they fail to win on the merits rather than missing the deadline.

Tube Times

Of all thy fearsome works, O Lord,
Flood, Fire, Famine and the sword,
Most Potent is the sight and sound
Of London’s mighty Underground.

In Pandemonium below
The silver bullets come and go.
Of steel and aluminium
They come and go and go and come.

They grunt, they grind, they shriek, they cough.
Hell’s Angels stumble on and off.
“Mind the doors!” the devils say
Before each bullet speeds away

To Seven Sisters, Tottenham Hale,
Barking, Balham, Maida Vale,
Hainault, Fairlop, Leytonstone,
Tooting Bec and Mary-le-bone