[John Whitworth]

Here's another Philip - as an agony aunt as I said.

Auntie Phil

I read the wretched wrecks of dreams and hopes.
I trace the tracks of tears, so wan and ghostly.
I see the letters in their envelopes,
And the addresses, neatly written mostly.
You have to keep your spirits up, you must
Preserve the possibility of better.
Your past and future crumble into dust
And yet you find the strength to write a letter
To me, to me. Because? Because to tell
Your sadness and your suffering amends them?
The wounds you bare here never will be well,
You know, I know, we know that nothing ends them.
Something far back, too far, was bad begun.
No comfort save the lack of comfort. None.

[Janet Kenny]

John,
That's such a splendid idea. I wouldn't dare touch Philip Larkin after that. I chose another favourite poet of mine.

John Betjeman


I’d own a teashop in a street
Where conversation isn’t drowned
By traffic noise. A quiet retreat
Where teacups make a gentle sound.
Brown earthen teapots, scones with cream,
And racks with Punch and Country Life,
For supermarket girls to dream
Of love and being a country wife.
There’d be a tinkle from the door
When customers went out or in,
And table cloths, and on the floor
Some faded rugs to damp the din.
I’d listen and I’d watch and quite
Forget the grief that makes me write.

[John Whitworth]

I wondered if, when, you were going to post this. Brilliant, a winner. Or at least I think so.

[Janet Kenny]

Thank you John. I think Larkin's larking has the edge, especially with that nice touch of pessimism. That lonely "None" gets me right there.

[Terese Coe]

Emily Dickinson, Women's Doctor


If I can stop one Egg from Dropping
I shall not live in Vain—
If I can, by one Pill Popping,
Remain Sane—

And see within my Lifetime
A Birth rate on the Wane—
I shall not live in Vain.

[Jim Hayes]

The Road Not taken--E.A.Poe

Oh the midnight would be cheery as I sketched each little dearie
at the Moulin Rouge or Lido where the finest girls undressed.
While I painted a la Toulouse, Moniques. Mirabelles and Lulus
would each come and caress me, press me to her ample breast.
Oh the hell with writing poetry, with this painting I’m impressed,
Only this, and I’d be blest.

And I wouldn’t be like Vincent, no mere sunflowers, I’m insistent
I'd sell paintings in an instant to replete my treasure chest.
Every time I set my easel up would fill up my Merc with diesel up,
and my heart fill with the thrill of mam’selles from the east and west,
With the rare and radiant love of maidens from the east and west.
Lautrec can have the rest.

[Martin Parker]

The truly incongruous thought of John Betjeman in tights appealed to me. So, hopefully with a touch of his endearing wistfulness regarding lust ;--


Your fish-netted thighs have me weak at the knees
As I dream of us climbing towards our trapeze,
Then standing surveying the crowd from the heights,
You in your sequins and me in my tights --

Then the audience cheering your lissom young charms
As you fly your parabolas into my arms,
And their gasp of alarm as you plummet and twist
Till I grasp you and clasp you by ankle and wrist --

And the thrill of your touch and the throb of each nerve
As you hang from my legs in a sinuous curve,
And the joy that would come, once I gathered you in.
From the nearness of sequins, the closeness of skin.

Away with my love for Victorian yore,
Let Erato my Muse flee my life evermore;
For I’d swap them today for the chance of a whirl
And an aerial tangle with one spangled girl.

[Marion Shore]

Humorist, Heal Thyself

Ogden Nash

When I have fears my oeuvre may have gone from bad to verse,
then I yearn to be the man who stands in the OR and hollers "Nurse!
Scalpel, please!" Yes, I'd gladly trade places with that feller
who makes the sick get well and the well get weller.
Ah, if I could be the Hippocratic hero responsible
for removing many an appendix or kidney stone or tonsible,
how lordly in spotless labcoat I'd stand
dispensing prescriptions in an illegible hand.
But the one thing that almost always raises my spirits after
these sessions of self-doubt is the old adage that laughter
is the best medicine, or so some insist.
Well if this is true, then I'm a specialist:
a practitioner of puns and limericks and silly rhymes too numerous
to count. That's right. A doctor of the humerus.*

*Although some purist will undoubtedly point out that the sensation of numbness
.......attributed to the funnybone, aka humerus, is actually caused by the ulnar nerve.
But 'twill serve.

adage fixed. Thanks, Professor.

[John Whitworth]

Oh yes! Perhaps I might add n pedantic vein that adage has one d, or at least I think it does. We ARE doing well this week