Tuesday 9 December 2008

Unmersion

What the hell is “mersion” ? the opposite of immersion? They shouldn’t be allowed to have the “im” word if the other part isn’t a word to begin with. Inflammable means the same as flammable, what the hell is the point of that extra word then? We might as well speak French. Why isn’t there an “unflammable” it makes perfect sense.

As you might have guessed, today’s theme is Hell. Hell hasn’t quite frozen ever yet but Brussels almost has and that’s near enough for me. Hang on, I’ll get me tights and quill I can feel a spirit within:

Yes its snowing like bloody hell here,
Getting in my hair and eyes,
Hellish eyes red with rage and torment,
Quivering like two ripe tomatoes on a Queensland beach.

A diabolically possessed beach
With jellyfish the size of a man!
Baking on the salty silicon compounds!!
Casting evil aspersions towards Tasmania

Ahhh Tasmania, the home of The Devil
Hell itself, off the coast of Victoria,
In all her dark splendour,
Still mourning Albert after all these years.

All these years, they’ve gone away,
And taken those things that get better with time,
Have they? Will they? Or are we just delicate jellyfish,
Burning on the paradise of Queensland beaches.


Yes I like a good Christmas poem, the snow put me in the mood for it. When it’s snowing people want to hear about beaches and warm things, so throw in a bit of retrospection and melancholy and “Bob’s your uncle”, you’ve got yourself a recipe for a commercialised version of a two thousand year old festival stolen from pagans. That’s what my work was trying to encapsulate.

By “work” I mean that poem. It’s not only dead people’s poems that are called their “work” or “works”, mine is work too. It was hard work writing it and I’m sure it’s going to be bloody hard work reading it.

But that’s enough lunch, back to work.

JJ

3 comments:

Gorilla Bananas said...

They read like lost verses of I am the Walrus. The double exclamation mark is a nice touch.

Zed said...

Very topical, JJ. Did you write entirely by yourself?

Soup Waiter said...

GB: glad you liked it, I thought long and hard about the double I do think these things are used too lightly in the modern age

Zed: really, of course it's my own effort, I can't afford a house poet even though most of them work for soup and bread. It seems.