potatoes.

[Jerrybaldy]

Man in oncology is learning French.
Evangelist drinks blood
from Normandy.
The nouveaux riche reappraise
peace by the pool.

One potato, two potato, three potato, four.

I will grow a beard to stroke.
I will stroke my beard in a way that women find
adorable.

Five potato, six potato, seven potato more.

Old people are young people in a cul-de-sac.

I act all alone.
Nobody knows who they are.

She sells seashells by the sea shore.

I must, I must, improve my bust.
Tomorrow I will be all I want to be.
Watch how I grow in the morning.

Nobody loves sex once it's done.
Or the flower dead in the vase.
Or the body once it's burnt.
Or the person, once revealed.

What big eyes you have granny.
All the better to see you with.
I see inside you.
I feel your pain now I see you again.

I am acting of course.
Rest, sweet child,
Hold my old hand
and smile.

[Delta40]

I'm lost on the first V. It gets going when the nursery rhyme starts because the rest of it seems more cohesive like a big ruby red.

[Jerrybaldy]

Thanks Delta my faithful friend. I quit writing some time ago.
These days I write any old crap that comes in to my head although, given, the difference is subtle to say the least :D x

[blank|verse]

A relentless register-shifting, polyphonic patchwork of a poem, this one, Jerry, which works very effectively. It’s a comment on the mutability of appearances, and a critique of modern anxieties, force-fed to us from an early age and perpetuated through the media and advertising, namely that we’re all not good enough as we are, and that we must improve in some way (‘We must of course improve’, line 2) that many people are gullible enough to swallow and spout back in meaningless slogans (‘Tomorrow I will be all I want to be’, line 18). And tomorrow, as John Lennon knew, never comes. Of course, it’s all just a massive con to get people to spend more money and prop up capitalism.

The borrowing of language from advertising, the media (the opening lines read like newspaper headlines: ‘Man in oncology is leaning French’ shocker) and nursery rhymes brilliantly suggests how pervasive this insidious brainwashing is, right from an early age. Even, in context, the ‘potatoes’ of the title, and the children’s counting game, seem symbolic of pointless accumulation for its own sake; the name of the game is ‘more’ and that’s it. A similar suggestion could be made for the lady in the tongue-twister ‘selling seashells’, but it also suggests elocution lessons (‘How now brown cow’ and all that) which brings us back to the poem’s main theme of self-improvement. It might have been interesting to include something about the people-adverts of Facebook pages as well. But maybe that’s a bit too new-fangled for ol’ Jerry!

Among all the superficial images, however, there is something darker, suggested in the shift from laugh-out-loud humour (‘Old people are young people in a cul-de-sac’) – which also says something about the deceptiveness of appearances – to the observation of ‘I act all alone. Nobody knows who they are’. Perhaps this emphasis on surface is all many people see and care about, which means that reality is ultimately disappointing because it can’t live up to the advert’s glossy sheen (nobody likes ‘the person, once revealed’). Anticipation is all. Desire fulfilled is no desire. (This sudden shifting from comedy to tragedy is something Shakespeare knew all about to heighten the emotions of both – the Porter scene in Macbeth after the killing of King Duncan being a famous example that springs to mind, in this case a shift from tragedy to comedy.)

Then we’re left with Little Red Riding Hood questioning the appearance of her much-changed Granny, who, now a wolf in, err, OAPs clothing (apologies), can ‘see better’ than her real Granny – but one would associate her Granny with seeing through the superficial and knowing the real person of her grand-daughter better than an imposter. I struggle to square this happily with the rest of the poem if I’m honest, although I’m willing to overlook some minor quibbles. However, I found it contributed to the end of the poem lacking a bit of punch; not helped by a very slow last line, the word ‘whilst’ really sticks in the mouth.

But the majority of the poem uses stark, brutal, single-line sentences to achieve its effects; the poem's fragmentary nature reminds me of T.S. Eliot, particularly in these lines:

I will grow a beard to stroke.
I will stroke my beard in a way that women find
adorable.

which brings to mind lines from ‘Prufrock’: ‘I grow old… I grow old… | I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled’. Both poems share a similar sense of disillusionment with the world. I’m also put in mind of Radiohead’s track ‘fitter happier’ from ‘OK Computer’, which is a list of commands the brainwashed modern consumer feels they must obey to fit in with society (‘Tyres that grip in the wet | Shot of baby smiling in back seat’, etc. – which for my money is a great free verse poem in its own right).

Personally, I think the poem would be better without the first two lines, which tend to spell out the ‘meaning’ of the poem a bit too clearly. I think we have an equivalent in later lines ‘I must, I must improve my bust’ which communicate this effectively enough. I don’t like the title either. :) But overall, this is joyously bitter, jubilantly depressing, so typical of a Jerry poem, yet for me has an edge over others.

[munkinhead]

What he said.
Radiohead
I liked it too.

[108 fountains]

I liked this hard-hitting, bitter and enjoyable poem a lot for all the same reasons blank verse did. He/she has said it all, and I agree with all he/she said.

[Jerrybaldy]

Thank you all for your comments.

Particular thanks to Blank|verse for such an in depth analysis. You have single handledly restored my faith in this place. I thought you had gone west with Hill, Prince et all and very glad to be wrong. The thought behind the poem was mainly nihilistic. I agree with your thoughts on the opening and closing lines. I can hear auntie saying the first two lines are too much "tell" . Will adjust accordingly.


Thanks all once again.

JB

[blank|verse]

Cheers, Jerry. It's a shame there aren't some of the old faces still around, and I don't contribute as nearly as much as I used to, but I'll chip in now and again when the mood, or a poem worth commenting on, takes me...