Friday, October 22, 2010

A value for money PSF today.

No, no, it's Beazley. With a "Z".

Far from crazy pavements -
the taste of silver spoons
A clinical arrangement
on a dirty afternoon
Where the fecal germs of Mr Freud
are rendered obsolete
The legal term is null and void
In the case of Beasley Street

In the cheap seats where murder breeds
Somebody is out of breath
Sleep is a luxury they don't need
- a sneak preview of death
Belladonna is your flower
Manslaughter your meat
Spend a year in a couple of hours
On the edge of Beasley Street

Where the action isn't
That's where it is
State your position
Vacancies exist
In an X-certificate exercise
Ex-servicemen excrete
Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies
In a box on Beasley Street

From the boarding houses and the bedsits
Full of accidents and fleas
Somebody gets it
Where the missing persons freeze
Wearing dead men's overcoats
You can't see their feet
A riff joint shuts - opens up
Right down on Beasley Street

Cars collide, colours clash
disaster movie stuff
For a man with a Fu Manchu moustache
Revenge is not enough
There's a dead canary on a swivel seat
There's a rainbow in the road
Meanwhile on Beasley Street
Silence is the code

Hot beneath the collar
an inspector calls
Where the perishing stink of squalor
impregnates the walls
the rats have all got rickets
they spit through broken teeth
The name of the game is not cricket
Caught out on Beasley Street

The hipster and his hired hat
Drive a borrowed car
Yellow socks and a pink cravat
Nothing La-di-dah
OAP, mother to be
Watch the three-piece suite
When shit-stoppered drains
and crocodile skis
are seen on Beasley Street

The kingdom of the blind
a one-eyed man is king
Beauty problems are redefined
the doorbells do not ring
A lightbulb bursts like a blister
the only form of heat
here a fellow sells his sister
down the river on Beasley Street

The boys are on the wagon
The girls are on the shelf
Their common problem is
that they're not someone else
The dirt blows out
The dust blows in
You can't keep it neat
It's a fully furnished dustbin,
Sixteen Beasley Street

Vince the ageing savage
Betrays no kind of life
but the smell of yesterday's cabbage
and the ghost of last year's wife
through a constant haze
of deodorant sprays
he says retreat
Alsatians dog the dirty days
down the middle of Beasley Street

People turn to poison
Quick as lager turns to piss
Sweethearts are physically sick
every time they kiss.
It's a sociologist's paradise
each day repeats
On easy, cheesy, greasy, queasy
beastly Beasley Street

Eyes dead as vicious fish
Look around for laughs
If I could have just one wish
I would be a photograph
on a permanent Monday morning
Get lost or fall asleep
When the yellow cats are yawning
Around the back of Beasley Street

18 comments:

squib said...

I lurve JCC. My fave is Ten Years in an Open-necked Shirt

Anonymous said...

The kingdom of the blind
a one-eyed man is king


Thanks Ramon. I must have seen this quoted a hundred times and never bothered to look up where it came from.

And in other tenuously linked political naming news: the upcoming version of Mint (the world's most user-friendly free desktop operating system) will be named Julia. Coincidence? Well, maybe, but the default web-browser is Firefox, so what does that tell you?

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

Hope this makes up for the cricket poem, Squib.

Sorry Alex, but the bod who said "in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" was probably this bloke.

Anonymous said...

Thanks again, Ramon.

squib said...

Nothing could make up for that, Ramon

wari lasi said...

Nice poem Ramon.

Not indulged yourself in the Costello-Howard spat yet?

Go on, they deserve it.

Unknown said...

I can't read this on account of it being half-term break now and I take the opportunity to be sampling fine ales from my local and am therefore too busy (and a little tipsy).

Sorry.

I'm sure it's good though.

(Which is probably what I said on the reports I wrote at the pub this afternoon. Feck it, they're only Year 9's it's not like they need their GSCE's to get into university or anything ...)

Lewd Bob said...

Here's a Tom Waits song that references the one-eyed man quote. It's not the official video but some guy's animated version. Interesting nonetheless. And a great song.

Puss In Boots said...

Question for you crazy poetry freaks - I need two poems/literary extracts/song lyrics for the wedding ceremony, but I can't find any I like. I want them to be romantic without being over the top lovey-dovey.

I don't mind Elizabeth Bennett Browning's Sonnet, but I'm not sold on it, and I thought you fine folks might be able to come up with some better ones?

Melba said...

"Come live with me and be my love." From memory it's what Ramon had, and it is so beautiful but from memory it's man speaking to woman...

I'll try to think of some others. I suggest getting a copy of Norton's Anthology and just methodically working through it. Makes for quite a nice Friday night (make sure to drink while you are going through...)

Puss In Boots said...

I suggest getting a copy of Norton's Anthology and just methodically working through it. Makes for quite a nice Friday night

Sounds like my worst nightmare. I just can't get into poetry. I just want to yell at the authors to write a bloody short story instead!

Melba said...

No, Puss you're wrong. I'm not a big poetry person; it usually bores me, leaves me cold, is too wanky, can't get into it, etc. But a bottle of champagne and a night of Norton's was one of my best night's ever.

Sure, I was heartbroken and alone but still it was pretty good. You flick through, don't try and read every poem, god no.

But seriously if you feel like that, if you don't like poetry, just don't have it. We didn't. We didn't have music just the bagpipes for walking in and out. Just keep it snappy and short (the service part) don't have anything you're not wholehearted about.

Kettle said...

Puss we had a poem each: mine was the Barrett Browning (you mean "When our two souls..."?), and Mr Kettle's was the last stanza of Walt Whitman's 'Song of the Open Road' from Leaves of Grass:

I give you my hand!
I give you my love, more precious than money,
I give you myself, before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?


Good old Walt.

Kettle said...

PS I'm with you, Melbs, on Norton. A pal just brought me back a collection of Frost's poems from the States: can't wait for my next marvellously self-indulgent angsty evening so I can crack it and a bottle of shiraz open - freakin' A.

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

Puss, if poetry brings you out in hives maybe you should consider not having any poetry.

There's a poem by Browning which contains the line "Come live with me/the best is yet to be"

Of course, it gets a bit awkward if you have a screaming row on the honeymoon and split up five days later.

Puss In Boots said...

I found one I like. It's called "I like you" by Sandol Stoddard Warburg. I like the part about wanting to punch them in the nose if they're not mad at you too.

We're going to modify it and change all the likes to loves, and take out some of the verses (because it's long).

One down, two to go! I don't hate all poetry. I just hate 99% of it. So it's about finding three poems/readings in that 1% area.

squib said...

Pablo Neruda wrote a lot of lovey dovey poems

Have you considered reading 'There is a light that never goes out'?

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well the pleasure, the privilege is mine


No? OK, what about The Owl and the Pussycat. Classic! Or e.e.cummings 'i carry your heart with me'

Puss In Boots said...

Some of Pablo Neruda's are on my short list, as is The Owl and the Pussycat.

I liked ee cummings' I carry your heart, but the boy hated it.

And that one you quoted is a little too morbid for me. I've already told the boy he can't choose any songs for the reception that have death or breaking up in them.