the idea of this poem has been staring me in the face for years
and, now i’ve seen it
its so obvious
so needs-to-be-done
...
and it won’t be hard to do, to write
it’ll be a rhyming poem and rhyming poems are fun
fun to think up
fun to write
and a great challenge to make work
...
the kind of challenge you can relish approaching
because you can be pretty sure its doable
achievable
resolvable
...
the English language is fabulous for rhyming poetry
an endless trove of potential
there are six or more words for most things
so with archness, and rulelessness
and fooling about with phrasing and word-order
you should be able to make almost anything work
all you need is time and thought and a sense of fun
...
yet
how come i never saw this could be a poem twenty years ago?
i’ve had the key line all this time
...
images are a non-sequitur
the mud volcanoes near Shyam Nagar
on North Andaman
...
while rhyming is much easier for performance poets
for performance poetry
which allows huge flexibility with time and timing
and the stretching of vowels and syllables
all making a perfect rhyme considerably easier to achieve
...
and those lines and rhymes might look terrible on the page
like execrable
but who cares?
its a performance piece
its for the air and the ears
its for lyrical surprise in the right now
...
...
poems with poor or flatly obvious rhymes are
almost always
a sure sign the writer hasn’t spent long enough on the words
for with time and thought
with a circumambulation in the approach
and a sense of fun and lightness
one really should be able to get it right
...
like i should
now the obvious idea has leapt out
saying WRITE ME WRITE ME WRITE ME
...
...
how did i not see this before?
its plain as day
i’ve not just had the idea for years
i’ve had the last line of every verse for years
...
where the chief rhyme is going to be with the word “LESS”
so the chief issue i can see is not
accidentally
turning into something which resembles a certain poem
one of the very best performance poems of them all
ever
Johnny Clarke’s
“You Never Get A Nipple In The Daily Express”
...
off the “Live At The Electric Circus” 10 inch EP
which i had for years until i lost it
at The Libertines gig in Edinburgh in 2002
where me and Jenny Lindsay were the support acts
...
that poem
“You Never Get A Nipple In The Daily Express”
is very probably the first performance poem i ever heard
and loved
and got knocked sideways by
and considered at great length
in its wit
its politics
its gorgeous adept language
...
though i already knew
and loved
“Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”
which is supremely free and funny and smart
...
...
rhyming poems are so much fun
that i have trouble explaining to myself
or anyone
quite why i’ve written so few
when i’ve thoroughly enjoyed the writing of
“Clanger Man”,
way back when
and
“The Man So Acutely Vulnerable He Brings Out The Vulture In Everyone”,
in the years before 2025
and
more
but not enough more
...
...
for me the gods of rhyming poetry are
Johnny Clarke
Cole Porter... e.g. Anything Goes
Chuck Berry... e.g. Nadine
Bob Dylan... e.g. Hard Rain
and a trillion pop songs
e.g. “you’re gonna need an ocean
of calamine lotion”
...
while the one thing i shouldn’t do
so it doesn’t set me any patterns
is YouTube the Johnny Clarke poem
which i haven’t played for well over a decade
yet i can probably remember EVERY LINE
...
so here i go
i have a rhyming poem to write
here i go
fun to come
here i go
having climbed a hill for an easy roll down
here i go
but not quite yet
...
i think i’ll let it ripen
will conjure some more issues to keep
juggling the notions a
few days more...
...
Ana heads back to Europe in four days
and i’m gonna go exploring Havelock Island
so i’ll wait till Radhanagar Beach
...
while the nature of the idea
chunky, political
is going to open up a whole host of possibilities
so its not like i’m going to be milking one idea
i’m gonna be having bags of fun grabbing ideas from all over
from the personal, the historic
the specifically now, the timeless
the literary, the pop
...
though i don’t actually need the piece
for a new show
until next year
as i’m taking a year off
so i got time
...
yet the key thing is to write the first draft
and then, however long it takes
fast or slow
get to a version i’m happy with
and then, through the months,
slowly muck about with it
have fun with it
let it rise with the yeast of chance
ferment with the sugar of time
...
for me, now i have the core idea
its gonna be about the cultivation of the notions
as they stretch themself ever fuller and wider
and i get the chance to
idly and / or determinedly
consider the petals
and stems
of the many growing
and flowering
possibilities
...
...
so here i go
after Kalipur Beach
its Aerial Bay
for the mud volcanoes at Shyam Nagar
then the ferry to
Port Blair
for Aberdeen Bazaar
and Cellular Jail
then Havelock Island a.k.a. Swaraj Dweep
for Radhanagar Beach, a.k.a. Beach Number 7
to catch all the balls
a-juggling in my head
and finally write a poem called
**[words to be created]** Harder and Longer For Less
...
here i go
…
the mud volcanoes are near Jol Tikry and Shyam Nagar
which we journeyed to pretty much by accident
after being stymied in our Plan A for the day
…
never seen anything like them
yet they are not easy to get to
and took two buses and a jeep
…
if you look at the second clip
that mud is very slowly moving
they were apparently dormant for twenty years until February
and are not volcanic
are, rather, organic matter decaying somewhere under the hill
