The poet, in my view, is the kind of time-waster who thinks he is doing something crucial with the time he wastes. Clive James.
I’ve been asked whether the ‘valedictory’ poem that I recited during my retiral presentation was on the blog associated with these pages. It wasn’t at the time of asking, but it did get me thinking. Although I am not an out and out literary type I have, on occasion, penned a rhyme other than the limericks associated with A View From The Lanterne Rouge. In fact there have been a number of such occasions and, having been asked about one of them, I thought that I’d publish all of them here.
The first is an embarrassing schoolboy classic, the second is a monologue in the style of Marriot Edgar as popularised by Stanley Holloway, the third is my farewell posting when I quit Facebook, the fourth is my retiral ode to a working life, and the fifth and sixth were written by my dog! A recent, one, the seventh, was written while I battled an earworm over several days (see ALAW #253). The latest, the eighth, has been penned for the occasion of my former boss’s retirement (apparently she has emphasised that it is a very early retirement!).
Some of them are ‘derivative’, by which I mean that they are inspired by the style and structure of well-known published verses; the others are entirely original and, while it’s taken some time to get round to posting them as text, I may try and embed recordings of them at some time (but don’t wait up!).