Saturday, January 10, 2009

Here's one from Tim Atkins' Horace that I particularly like.

The range of reference & clash of historical period is dazzling & dizzying. "Jordan's rugged jugs" is fab. And there's plenty more where that came from - as The Goons used to say. 


ODES II/ 28


Owing to a shortage of cocaine,
I turned my back on public life
And live in Market Harborough
With Robert Lowell’s widow, Caroline

50 Gauloises after Ezra
A pound of lip up fatty
And an anecdote featuring
Mein Kampf

What is more uxurious than
The waiting jar dating from
Bibulus: nightcable praised in
Appropriate song?

Young, I was diagnosed as diastic,
In middle age I accept
The green hair and
Oasis to come

Seeking the unpeopled world
Past the castle of Prudence,
Drowning my crew upon
Jordan’s rugged jugs –

I joined the school of quietude
& ended up with a beard
Scones, towelling, and the flying day fixed.
Jeremy, we could have done worse.

No comments:

April Fool?