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The Poetry Of.
John Shaw...............................................

Mad Pencil

Come a little nearer while I whisper,
I've got a brand new syndrome,
I've got Mad Pencil In The Head.
We two are all who know as yet.
I always think it so outrageous,
this illness that he cannot cure,
tagged with his name and never yours
can spread a doctor's fame
beyond the pages of the Lancet.
He gets invited to the smarter parties
and every kind of foreign conference.
Occasionally they wheel you out
as exhibit 'A', a teaching aid.
Is that the sum of all my days,
to be some bounder's teaching aid?
Don't breathe a word to my consultant
until it's registered in my domain.

I've got Mad Pencil In The Head.
Day and night I feel it scratching,
displacing me from writing letters,
opening bills, and paying taxes,
from chasing other people's wives.

I've got Mad Pencil In The Head.
While dreams unfold their shadow show
and soothe the secrets of the blind,
the pencil's scratching on my binding.
Could any mind find peace at night
attacked by this demented blight?

I've got Mad Pencil In The Head.
I've got it and I've got it bad.
The flat's on fire! What should I do?
Call the fire brigade? No-o-oh, write a poem.
If only I had Pen and Ink Disease,
I could get a chair at Cambridge,
chew my beard, and look distinguished.

I've got Mad Pencil In The Head.
It's a very odd sensation to feel
a pencil wedged in your imagination.
I thought, like Doctor Jekyll,
I could run the razor's edge.
Now it's getting so much bolder,
demanding as a jealous lover,
somewhere I have got to draw a line.


If friends ask about me, say, 'He's dead.
He was abused by rhyming couplets.
Blood was spilt, he couldn't hack it,
put a duelling pistol to his temple,
trigger cocked ... thought better of it;
pushed the gun into a drawer,
and sharper than a witch's claw
he stuck a pencil in his head.'





Life is irresponsible

The weatherman says,
Grey is the colour of the day.
His sweeping arm calls up a storm.
The barometer is already dropping.
Roll me a cigarette, and tell me
life is irresponsible.
Fix me ice with a twist of lemon,
get it on its feet with vodka,
set it off in my direction.

Every day, life stares unblinking
from your make-up mirror.
Look again and see your mother.
Life is not your friend.
It rarely gives an even break,
it hates a level playing field,
and moves the goalposts overnight.

Remember life is more than winning.
Remember you're a sassy woman.
Remember all the things you did for love?
Throw away that black umbrella.
Roll me a kiss from scarlet lips.
Blow, weather man, and crash your graphics!
Tell me life is irresponsible.
Pour me a glass of cold champagne.

(For Denise O'Leary)





Passing Trains

I find I'm almost over you.
I've learned to live
without the lies, the small hotels,
the emails that I cannot keep,
encounters with suspicious friends.

In crowded streets I don't scan
every woman's face for yours
or stand outside your empty house
and, though I know you live abroad,
wonder if a fragment of your spirit
somehow lingers on
inside that small back room
where we made love
like kittens fighting in a box,
so locked into each other's eyes
we never saw the daylight
fading into dusk.

Nor is your absence so distracting
I overshoot my subway stop,
then catch a train
and overshoot it coming back.

Every street is not a rendezvous
where you might some day call my name,
I've played the scene a hundred times,
I'd act surprised and wish you well.
You'd ask about my wife and daughter.
But while your man was flagging cabs,
nothing could stop our eyes from meeting.
Every day I know I'm healing,

In dreams we are always riding trains
that pass each other to and fro.
As mine slides under the station's carapace
your train is already pulling out,
reflected in its glass the platform lights.
Compartment windows flicker by
like silent movies for voyeurs,
until I catch your fleeting image,
your secret smile, a present
saved for my eyes only.




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