Last night
I heard the tap and hum
of haddock mating in the deep.
They dive,
it seems, to distant depths
as if the atmospheric weight
could tense
their roe to spasm forth
and in the sport of lowly spawn
they beat
the rattle of a drum
as baritone cicadas might.
In lust,
with rhythms from the flesh,
they thread the needled cloth of night

A POEM DEDICATED TO ALL LOVERS
OF THE "TINTIN" COMIC BOOKS
by
Edna

Captain Haddock had always liked le petit Snowy:
It was the cheeky smile on his cute canine jowls
Which really got the randy Captain going:
"Blue blistering barnacles", he would cry erotically.

But Snowy had his doubts, as he knew the fervour
Of cher Tintin's possessive proprietorial passion
And absent-minded Professor Calculus' twisted lust
Was a bitter memory in his doggy ****.

Wouah! Wouah! dit le Snowy.

'Haddock's Eyes' or 'The Aged Aged Man' or
'Ways and Means' or 'A-Sitting On A Gate'

I'll tell thee everything I can;
There's little to relate.
I saw an aged, aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
'Who are you, aged man?' I said.
'And how is it you live?'
And his answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.

He said 'I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat;
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,' he said,
'Who sail on stormy seas;
And that's the way I get my bread--
A trifle, if you please.'

But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one's whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That it could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, 'Come, tell me how you live!'
And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale;
He said, 'I go my ways,
And when I find a mountain-rill,
I set it in a blaze.
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland's Macassar Oil--
Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil.'

But I was thinking of a way
To feed oneself on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue;
'Come, tell me how you live,' I cried
'And what it is you do!'

He said, 'I hunt for haddocks' eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat-buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine,
But for a copper halfpenny,
And that will purchase nine.

'I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for *****;
I sometimes search the grassy knolls
For wheels of hansom-cabs.
And that's the way' (he gave a wink)
'By which I get my wealth--
And very gladly will I drink
Your Honor's noble health.'

I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.

And now, if e'er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know--
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo--
That summer evening long ago
A-sitting on a gate.

If I could blame it all on the weather,
the snow like the cadaver's table,
the trees turned into knitting needles,
the ground as hard as a frozen haddock,
the pond wearing its mustache of frost.
If I could blame conditions on that,
if I could blame the hearts of strangers
striding muffled down the street,
or blame the dogs, every color,
sniffing each other
and ******* on the doorstep...
If I could blame the bosses
and the presidents for
their unpardonable songs...
If I could blame it on all
the mothers and fathers of the world,
they of the lessons, the pellets of power,
they of the love surrounding you like batter...
Blame it on God perhaps?
He of the first opening
that pushed us all into our first mistakes?
No, I'll blame it on Man
For Man is God
and man is eating the earth up
like a candy bar
and not one of them can be left alone with the ocean
for it is known he will gulp it all down.
The stars (possibly) are safe.
At least for the moment.
The stars are pears
that no one can reach,
even for a wedding.

Perhaps for a death.

Sometimes you expect more of someone,
Because you
Would do that much.
And it hurts to realise
That you don’t have:

A rope to grasp,
A wall to lean on.

That you walk on a floor,
Whose tiles unfeelingly dissolve,
Letting you fall into the abyss,
With no rope to grasp.

That the one that haddock your turns to wind,
Letting you lose your balance,
With no wall to lean on.

An emptiness so vast,
Barley contained,
Held within a fist of flesh,
Pulsing with despair.

Weekends


In the afternoon sun
the asphalt road shines like an ice rink;
flanked by green trees that
cast black shadows,
helped by the breeze
they flutter slightly,
soundless articulation a symphony for the deaf
My memory brings me
the aroma of curried
chicken and rice,
but since it is Friday, it will
be smoked haddock, boiled potatoes and
stewed carrots  

Still a twenty minutes drive,
before getting home,
shadows merge with the evening and
the ice rink is a memory

Chicken in boxes and burgers in bars,on the streets and in cars,everyone eats as if it's their last ever meal.
Did you ever feel that the whole world's a mouth and we're all going South or just me?
I see take aways being taken and salt being shaken on chips and on cod and I do think it odd that no one is satisfied with stone baked,grilled or deep fat fried and I've tried to resist the nice crisp of a pizza as sold in the hut but I'm just a man.
I can no more remain stoic, and I'm not that heroic that I would starve before eating,the fact is food's beating me down.

I could go into town and come back weighted down with bags full of haddock and tatties,sporadically I get these mad urges to merge into mutton become a glutton for punishment.
A lamb's not what I am
I am a man and can resist,deep crispy pancakes and sweet toasted lakes of fresh maple syrup,
but the indent is there and it's food that I care for,I swear I would die for and it's there,why should I wait for a blessing from you.
Come on and join in,come and give it a spin let's pig out together,whether you like it or not,it's food that is hot and it's fashion today,
so what do you say to a pie?

twirl ballroom spritz
    'cross abandoned parking lots

weave your lamentations
    out in umber mist

gin and panadol
white arsenic cordial

death drive in moderation                      


bushy dough
down your gumboot towers
yyo faggg
fark your sign'a'lings
carped up in the haddock pouch

in maudlin dreams
swirl your phone sleeve
round your wristflick
                                         nah
you blooster mate
right cranberry

where the **** is it? where the **** did you put it? it's not funny, hahaha, oh god, hahaa…..


but     later,    


  radio incinerator
   nightcap in sodium cloud
beached tire tree

So busy tracking the tragedy.

I take my eyes off the screen in order to see that
they're even busier talking of fracking,
we know that the ice shelf is breaking away
cracking a bit more,
a bit more every day, but
they're busy tracking the tragedy and
have no time for me.

I googled the end of the world last night
but google just sent me
a link to
the tragedy.

If I fall off the end of the sea when
I'm fishing for haddock to have for my tea,
who will see me
fall
and if I call out in alarm
who'll lend a hand?

I stand and mention the tragedy
they all give me a hand when applauding me
I hope the good Lord's watching over me,
if not
then that would be
a tragedy.

i never, ever, never ever got my head around this... you know that they needed healthy slaves to export to america, yes? yes, yes, we know that white men can't jump, as taught by wesley snipes, that said: black men can't swim; but how the **** did these white boys catch a usain bolt, without injuring him?! you smell that? i swear i'm getting a whiff of salmon, or cod, definitely not haddock, maybe, but certainly not herring... how the **** do you catch an agile african when you can't (a) injure him or (b) out-run him?! probably as mysterious as the: ******* architectural endevour at giza!

this has to be, the shittest song,
  with, probably the best intro ever conjured...
and that qualifies it as a carlsberg moment of
inquisition - none other than?
   iron maiden's
    *the loneliness of the long
distance runner...
from the album lost in time...
competing?
well, obviously
with a solo section
from afraid of the dark song
afraid to shoot strangers...
a solo that's an
   anti-solo ****-project...
a solo section that
doubles up as a rhythm section...
with paul di'anno
they're hardly metal -
more akin to punk...
sure some accents of high-tier
guitars,
   but they were still heavy
on the rhythm;
and if they kept him?
they'd be regarded as punk:
are we agreed that
the fun part outside of
philosophy in applying
dialectics is also beyond
that reach of diacritical markers,
that simply
invokes the pleasurable debate
of music?
   seems the only thing
worthy of applied dialectics
is music bound, and music alone...
afraid to shoot strangers
has a rhythm solo that nothing
can beat...
    and the loneliness of
the long distance runner the best
intro, but subsequently the shittest
follow up...
   you begin listening and drinking
a carlsberg, which ends up
as dog's ****:
i really hope they rewrite
that song...
  i'd love to hear it, one more
time: as it should be heard,
invoking the melody
from genesis,
           to the zenith of an exodus
    into silence;
with paul di'anno they're still
punk to me...
    defining a newly emerging genre:
trash metal, post-scriptum to punk...
oh forget thrash metal...
      jeff hanneman died...
   as did the "****-fluence" -
                ****** was in the driving
seat... much of what the album
reign in blood was, was his
wehrmacht heritage...
                  now that's missing...
   so there's really nothing else to really
talk about...
              oh yeah... my grandmother
was given opiates to stop her from screaming
when my great-grandmother / father hid
from the army of the wehrmacht...
                          when they raided the villages
and killed my great-grandmother's brothers...
yeah, she lived to be 91...
   i still remember summers playing
with my aunt and uncle (conceived late,
nearly my own age at the time)
over the past span of memory reaching
toward the 3rd decade...
which makes someone who's english
or american suggest i'm ****...
          that bit is ******* hilarious!
it's almost the same moment
(with regards to feeling) of feeding these
idiot to wild boars in that
   famous hannibal scene...
i just want to hear their moaning-in-agony
joke regarding pigs:
    oink...        oink?! you sure?
pretentious half-caste ******* sons
of wenches...
        i said it already!
a stick had to ends! you think the seesaw
doesn't allow someone to grip the staff
once being hit with it, on the opposite end
of the spectrum?
well, **** me! sign me up!
     maybe you knew memebers of
your family, directly affected
by the second world war...
                let hear that recital
about the horrors of the london blitz...
i'm just... dying to know
   about horrors you endured...
and how you bred these ignorant,
half-baked cookies of a worth of a people...
who can spend hour concentrating
on an advert,
   but treat actual books as
                                         doorstops.

What about the Mistress plan?
is it always about the Master?
I cast a weary eye and reel in
a scene from Tin-Tin.

Herge,

the Thomson twins
win
and Haddock smells
something fishy.

When there's much to do and
not much time
Much runs Robin ragged.

Men in Lincoln Green,
just another forest scene

cut.

He puts his spin on it
tells me that Rin Tin Tin
is in on it
and Tintin's having none
of it,
but Captain Haddock still sets sail
looking for Ahab and the
great white whale,

Flipper's eating kippers because
dolphins roll like that

haha
and you thought Postman Pat and Jess
were weird.

Hello world! Though written in 1997, how I love this one (Happen to find it while editing “Swedish Book”).

.          Collapsing In On Itself
  
A week-dead pike on local stone wall,
Placed there or dropped by some passing seagull
And ignored; once fresh and full now meagre and dull,
Is almost the same as the day that it came,
But entrails have started to go.
(Are they ‘entrails’? I don’t really know.)
Of course it has innards; the roe, liver gall,
And I’d guess there’s a stomach.
It think it’s a pike - maybe perch, not a haddock!
The thing that’s essential, its cardinal what-ness
Is something that shows now whenever I to pass it.
Everything rotten or heading that way,
Falls in on itself in its terminal rot-ness.

Collapsing In On Itself 8.16.1997/revised and amended 5.13.2019 Swedish Book; Circling Round Nature; Birth, Death & In Between; Nature Of & In Itself; Arlene Nover Corwin

there was a man from Tunbridge Wells
who gave off the most offensive smell
friend and foe
told him so
"go away! you smell like *!"

so this man of whom i tell,
the man from Tunbridge Wells,
he took a shower
till he smelt like a flower
and went off to climb the fells

but when he returned from his hike,
he smelt like haddock and pike,
said he, "what's the point
o' me washing me joints?
I'll smell like I ***-well like!"

Unwanted affection

I’m writing a play about an older man who was helpful
to a woman crying in the street and he thought that
was the end of the incident.
At night a knock on his door, the woman wanted
to thank him and before he could turn around, she sat
on his sofa insisting on holding his hands and him
felt her hand was like a wet haddock.
He knew she mentally disturbs but didn’t like to say so
the worst thing was he was watching his favourite show.
He feigned tiredness got up to open the door,
she offered to stay he froze by the horror of the thought.
She left after kissing him on the cheek.
He rang the porter and told him never let in this ****** woman.