Two near-Wilsons

Two near-Wilsons.

"Invented by Herbert Wilson (1817-88), a Wilson is a poem of five lines, each of which must rhyme with the first line, except for the third which must contain a non-rhyming reference to a vegetable." –Ian McMillan.

Shy Brian sang of sand and surf and sun,

of Hondas, tans, bikinis, endless fun

in temperatures to bake the biggest spud.

Alas, the good vibrations soon gave out

and Smile (his almost-album) came to nowt.

B.J. played drums on ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’,

in which the Miller maundered through his Tale

(with scarce a nod to cabbages and kings).

They never replicated that success:

their star was blighted, as with Hardy’s Tess

(Too much fandango-skipping, is my guess).

'Impresario'

Impresario

If I think of my father now,

I see a figure on an oil-drum

at the garden end, coat spread

over his shoulders in the late evening sun,

like an impresario who’s just been told

first night could conceivably be last

or a pundit warned to avoid the purlieus

of Lingfield and Kempton Park.

Chin on hand he stares at the ground

where he began, though elsewhere,

the Llanelli mines—for all of half a day

in family lore, after which he upped

and resolved to discover Xanadu,

which is always one hill beyond

and anyway at last dissolved into Sedgley,

Ettingshall, Roseville, none presuming

to be the prize for tonight

or even the passing moment. 

 

Follow That Dream,

sang Elvis in a pub where dad

once bought me a Vimto, parked me

in a room where the tv didn’t work.

Each day of his foreshortened life

his dream minced and gurned

and blew raspberries.  Leave him so, then,

on the drum as the sun turns to other lands,

shopyard grease on his palms and cuffs,

Xanadu still in his eyes. 

21st June, 2020, Father’s Day.

The Unravelling Wilburys

'So. Farewell, then,
Jeff Lynne.'

'Pooh, I think you've got the wrong--'

'Your most successful band was that bunch of initials.'

'Pooh…'

'TUC.  Or was it LMAO?'

'I think, Pooh--'

'Or, according to some severe critics, SFA?'

'Pooh, can I just stop--?'

'Everyone loved "Mr Blue Skies", 
Though my favourite was "Wild West Hero". 
On which you sounded like George Harrison.'

'Pooh…'

'Which was no surprise,
Your being big mates.'

'Look, Pooh--'

'And all that.  In fact, was it him singing?

We shall never know.'

'Pooh, I hate to--'

'Alas.
But everyone forgets your first band,
The Idle Race.
When you sang "Days of the Broken Arrows".
Which, by a strange coincidence,
are precisely the days we're re-living now.'

'Pooh, I'm just sending you the obit--'
'And of course there was your existential outfit,
The Unravelling Wilburys.'

'It's got the write-up, Pooh, with her--'
'It's a shame
You didn't ask your Auntie Vera to join them.
That one she did about not knowing where or when
Would have fitted right in.'

'Listen, Pooh--'

'But she'll probably sing it at your funeral,
And her other one:
"There'll Be Lilacs Over The Blue Sheep of Dover."

One of Allen Ginsberg's favourites, that.'

'Pooh, just read the--'

'Or was it the favourite of the main character
In that surreal series

They had on the old Light Programme?'

'Pooh, when we talk later--'

'Yes. "Mrs Dali's Diary".  That's the one.'

18.06.20