binding words into a snare,
but I find there's nothing there.
How sweet the name of Cthulhu sounds
How sweet the name of Cthulhu sounds
In raving mystics' screams!
It drives them mad, enflames their brains,
And troubles all their dreams.
It brings insanity and dread
Into the world of men,
This world which once seemed safe and sane
Shall not make sense again.
We gaze upon thy face more dread
Than any watchful dragon;
And sing the eternal hymn to thee,
Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn.
Cthulhu! my dead yet sleeping king,
Thy cults shall be restored,
Thy tomb shall rise to air again,
Just, r'lyeh, r'lyeh, Lord.
Weak is our twisted woodland dance
And cold our campfires cursed,
But when the stars shall rise aright,
We shall be eaten first.
* * *
After How sweet the name of Jesus sounds by John Newton.
Eos and Cornipsis
“And one day, out of Heaven knows what material, he spun the beast a wonderful name, and from that moment it grew into a god and a religion.” — Saki, Sredni Vashtar
Wherever on this earth I roam
a pair of deities are found:
Great Eos, goddess of the dawn,
Cornipsis, god of traffic sound.
In yet another far hotel
the moment when the curtain's drawn
there to my eyes she manifests,
Great Eos, goddess of the dawn.
When lost again in foreign streets
I hear his comfort all around
as constant as when I was born,
Cornipsis, god of traffic sound.
Great Eos feeds the world its light,
a world Cornipsis fast destroys.
In every land they turn their trade,
the gods of dawn and traffic noise.
Hallelujah Simpkins
Hallelujah Simpkins, Syllogism Brown,
Wandered up to Barkingside to walk around the town.
Does it make you wonder, when they ring the bell,
How they press the organ keys and sing along as well?
Syllogism wondered so he climbed the tower to see;
Hallelujah, Simpkins said, I know that I am free.
Hallelujah Simpkins, Pendlebury Jane,
Hurried to the hospital and hurried home again.
Does it make you wonder, when they run so fast,
How they know they'll ever reach the hospital at last?
Pendlebury wondered even though she couldn't run,
Hallelujah, Simpkins said, today I have a son.
Hallelujah Simpkins, Academic Smith,
Never et an orange if they couldn't eat the pith.
Does it make you wonder, if oranges can float,
Why they catch the Underground and never catch a boat?
Academic wondered so he went and caught the train;
Hallelujah, Simpkins said, and said it once again.
Hallelujah Simpkins, Concertina Flight,
Hear the song the angels sing in Dagenham tonight!
Does it make you wonder, climbing Heaven's stair,
How you'd speak to Hallelujah Simpkins, if he's there?
Simpkins only wondered whom he followed as he soared;
Hallelujah, Simpkins said, and glory to the Lord!
The crocodile
A little fishy saw a smile,
And curiously, he followed;
He knew not 'twas a crocodile:
He very soon was swallowed.
The little fishy cried and cried
To try and call his mummy,
Because he was shut up, inside
The crocodile's dark tummy.
The croc had heard the fishy's tears.
She pushed him past her liver
And through her heart, and out her ears
And back into the river.
Hymn
Oh, many bounds I've beaten well,
And many more I'll drub,
But through this maze I'll take the ways
That lead me to the pub.
Where worries may be left behind,
Where life's despair may fail,
Where peace has smiled on pints of mild
And blessed the winter ale.
Where folk may laugh, where folk may spend
A moment free from fear,
Where smiles may bless a game of chess
Beside two pints of beer.
And in my mind I see the bar,
The beers' familiar names!
The window-seat where old men meet,
Where children play their games!
Where still you'll find a Sunday lunch
On Sunday afternoon,
And God's own pie, denoted by
A number on a spoon.
Oh, many weary miles I've trod,
All filled with life's alarms,
But in my brains it still remains
My local Carlton Arms.
* * *
First published in Ale, December 2010.
With apologies to Rupert Brooke
For Pennsylvania is the Land
Where Men with Hearts may Understand,
And much the nicest part must be
The County of Montgomery.
And in that district I most like
The town that ends the Pottstown Pike.
For heaven's blessings rarely stick
to folk who live in Limerick,
and you would be the worse to know
the crimes that they commit in Stowe,
and heaven's wrath comes raining down
on men who live in Boyertown,
where sins are strange, and stranger still
are secrets hid in Douglasville;
they'd slit your throat for twenty pence
in frightful Lower Providence
and rumour tells me true that no men
are virtuous in Perkiomen.
But Pottstown, oh, but dear Pottstown!
Why, there a person may lie down
upon its riverbanks so stony,
or paddle in the Manatawny.
They laugh and love their life so well
They're purchasing a carousel.
(And when they get to feeling old,
a thousand senior Cokes are sold,
with super fries and apple pie;
McDonald's, Hanover and High.)
* * *
After The old vicarage, Grantchester.
Flooding in the Welsh Marches
Llywelyn, looking down with glee — to see
the sea that the country
from Edward's domain cuts free.
The coastline of Cilmeri.
Morning prayer
Go praise thou the Lord! It's seven o'clock!
You cannot afford to slumber ad hoc.
Five times you've hit snooze, and you've wasted an hour,
Forget your excuse, and go get in the shower.
Go praise thou the Lord! The prayerbook awaits,
its words unexplored, so get on your skates.
It stands on the shelf for the start of the day,
For Jesus himself rose up early to pray.
Go praise thou the Lord! Praise him in the morn!
You seem to be floored. You don't know you're born.
I wake you at six and you wail that you're sunk
but just try your tricks as a friar or monk!
Go praise thou the Lord! Take heed what I say:
I know you've implored today's Saturday;
No more may you lurk with alarm clock ignored;
For praising takes work, so go praise thou the Lord!
On not being a cat
Were I a cat, my love, I'd leave each day
; a single dying mouse upon your bed;
but, human, I must find another way,
and honour you by leaving verse instead.
Recognition
I thought I recognised some guy
asleep off Berkeley Square.
His face had such a peaceful look
behind his dirty hair;
his beard, the scabs across his head,
I thought I'd seen before,
if anyone that I would know
was sleeping in a door.
On second thoughts, it wasn't him.
Or, well, I'll never know.
A glance was all the time it took
to pass him in the snow.
Not April in Paris
The sea lies solid under ice,
The blizzard seldom stops;
The glögi's running freely
In friendly coffee-shops;
The trams still run and life goes on
And still I can't remember
Why no-one ever calls a song
“Helsinki in November”.
Retweeted
Jill retweeted what I wrote,
forwarding to all her friends.
Time, you thief, who loves to gloat
over hopes and bitter ends,
say my loves and lines are bad,
say that life itself defeated me,
say I'm growing old, but add:
Jill retweeted me.
* * *
After Jenny kissed me by James Leigh Hunt.
Marriage
In seeking a wife,
with the cook he'd converse.
Her pancakes weren't stodgy.
No, quite the reverse.
Another girl wrote him
a triolet, terse.
He wanted them both,
and he muttered a curse,
and prayed to his God
with a question perverse:
“Lord, should I get married
for batter, or verse?”
A love song
The ones who breathe below the wave
have tales of how I should behave,
but should I sing, or comb my hair
when sleeping deeply in my grave?
There, deep within the murky green
I dreamed a man I've never seen
with trousers rolled and fading hair.
I offered him a nectarine.
Oh, does he take it? Will he eat?
I long to weep upon his feet
and wipe them with my golden hair.
He fades, and we shall never meet.
Not about any church I know
Thou who sent thine own Anointed
once for all the world to bless:
Should we make our windows pointed?
Should our deacons wear a dress?
Should our candles light the dark?
Lord, remain within the ark.
Should our priests be mild and matey?
Should our men be nervous types?
Should our women all be eighty?
Art thou fond of organ pipes?
Or dost thou, above the stars,
yearn for amplified guitars?
We shall sit around the fire, and
mumble of the Crucified,
preach his gospel to the choir, and
never mind the night outside,
where despite the rain and chill
winds are blowing where they will.
So I was told
The Bishop said, “You celebrate
the mass an awful lot.
I've heard the other priests of late
suggest that it's a plot.
You have to write the homily;
you have to heat the hall
three times a day; it seems to me
the congregation's small:
there's four, or even fewer folk.
It's almost microscopic.”
The Priest replied, “The Lord once spoke
upon that very topic.”
Nobody believed him
Nobody believed him: they all said he was mad
when he claimed he'd seen a ghost. He knew he really had.
And still the ghost would haunt him, in any kind of weather,
till one sad night the old man died.
(And now they haunt together.)
Spanyel
Spanyel! Spanyel! Thine embrace
Places Paws upon my Face;
What celestial Factory
Dare fill thy doggy Heart with glee?
From what Furnace flowed thy Blood?
Whence proceeded all this Mud?
Was that a Cow thou hidst beneath?
What the Tongue? and what the Teeth?
What the Nose? and what the Jaw?
In what Quagmire was thy Paw?
Hast thou swum the Pond as well?
That perhaps explains thy Smell.
Spanyel! Spanyel! Thine embrace
Places Paws upon my Face;
What celestial Factory
Dare fill thy doggy Heart with glee?
* * *
After Tyger by William Blake.
Mass transfer
Somewhere high above the ocean in a flying tube of steel
a friendly man is asking, “White or red?”
I've eaten all the pasta from my plastic-packaged meal,
the cake, and now there's nothing but the bread.
I'm passed a small Bordeaux that fills a single glass with wine.
Unnoticed by the other folk on board
I smile in recognition as I see the outward sign
of a venerable in-joke with the Lord.
Do not kowtow
When I am old, as owned by wrinkled skin,
and not by thought, since I'm already old,
do not kowtow to what you see. Within
the wrinkled skin's a child of three years old,
a teenager in terror of his sin,
a twenty-two year old in love, an old
and bitter fool, whose inspiration's thin;
when I am full of tales, and sick, and old,
do not kowtow to old and wrinkled skin.
Leaping like calves
Once, a young fresher was reading the rules, and was
more than perplexed at the place where they state
“All undergraduates, if they are Anglicans,
must be in chapel each Sunday at eight.”
Racking his brains, he began a small rumour that
spread through the town on the weekdays that followed; he
was not an Anglican, nor Nonconformist; his
faith and religion was mere Heliolatry.
Saturday evening, our hero retired with a
smile on his face and his bin at his door,
only to wake to a thunderous hammering,
made by the porter, next morning at four.
Ah, how a little lie, told with great frequency,
gains repercussions that no-one expects!
“Dawn's almost here, sir, the Chaplain expects you;
go down to Main Court and you'll pay your respects.”
###
About the author:
When Thomas Thurman was a child, his ambition was to write storybooks. Many other things got in the way, including owning three cats, ringing tower bells, writing sonnets, moving to Cambridge, becoming a parent, unexpectedly emigrating to Pennsylvania, learning to make fudge, and maintaining interesting but obscure parts of computer systems. Nevertheless, he is still writing.
Not Ordinarily Borrowable
Maria is occupied with trying to earn her doctorate, and she's far too busy for adventures. But when the library books she needs are unexpectedly borrowed (by a dragon) she finds herself on a quest to find the books, the dragon, a sword, courage, and the greatest cake recipe in the world... not to mention the last chapter of her thesis.
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