"A poignant, yet hopeful lament over a dying metaphysic, upon which a bleak sun rises once again. Elegiac in the mode of enigmatic Old English works such as "the Wanderer" or "The Seafarer", the poem enacts its own collapse, and the collapse of the assumptions which sustained it, forcing them to their logical conclusion in the conclusion of their own logic, yet salvaging from the hermeneutical detritus a new and an Other logic." (Edna.)
Two Critical Approaches to Geoffrey's Poem "Untitled LVII"
With optimism tentative he ends
(Rather concludes contingently) his verse —
Which for its force ambivalent depends
Upon the text he is inclined to curse.
What can one say — "hypocrite!" is an option
It has been said so many times before!
Or else, "'Tis sport to see," (as in citation);
"The engineer hoist with his own petar."
It's certainly unfair to deconstruct it —
In metrical decay overdetermined
It lies in ruins utterly unstructured
Overambitious and unselfexamined.
Unlike itself it lies like certain fossils,
Last decadent product of its generation,
Like Keats's or like Sylvia Plath's Colossus
Not even adequate to its resignation.
Travestied, fragmented modernist text
Just failing, elegiac, to go down fighting
Suspended twixt one logic and the next
End of the book and the beginning of writing!
Dawn rose with her rosy fingers
Scattering her light across the land
Yet that hideous stench still lingers —
of corruption worse than the African rand.
The débris of discarded dogmas
Strewn across the floor
The works of failed philosophers
Thrown right of the door.
They had claimed it was no ideology
"A project only" they cried
However they offered no apology
To the thousands who yet had died.
"Iterability" was their rallying cry
Deconstruct or die
But no one stopped to ask "why?"
There was no one to stop the lie.
It ravaged throughout the land
Sweeping all in its path
Resistance to the text was aband-
oned for fear of its awful wrath.
And so I shall cease from my verse
Hesitant which way to turn
I fear lest my sanity get worse
When there's so much to learn
(shurely shome mishtake — Edna).
Roll "KAYAK" --> you get "KAYAK".
Isn't that intestine?
No, it's a liver (squelch).
This is page 35 from the end.
"If only Bicycle Repair Man weren't here!" said Arthur, expiring briefly.
"The Rubbish Bit of Rolled Kayak"
"Asleep! For evening in the bowl of flowers"
Has thrown a fit in leafy bowers —
And hi! We're back with (yes) part nine
Of Comic Relief for bloody hours and hours!
When I awoke I must have been completely pissed
As though I had fallen on the floor and missed
And in my eyes like pestilential pies
My pupils were converging — do you get the gist?
I listened for a bit but felt like Death itself
The night was soundless, just a groaning shelf.
I shouted loud to ease the boredom
The shelf collapsed — so far this year it is the twelfth.
Imperatively "Learn to DIY better!"
I had followed the instructions to the letter,
But I did not intend to have three screws remaining,
So I fed them to my pink red setter.
"The chair of time has but a little way to roll"
Quoth Stephen Hawking, who had achieved his goal
And thus discreetly died, quite unlike Icarus,
Sudden falling off the canoe into a whirlpool.
This verse is just like those which went before
In no way at all — I floundered on the floor
Inebriatedly, devoid of sober sanity
And rolled around in horrid sick and gore.
"So what had happened?" An answer, please!
I contemplated, remembering swarms of bees
That caused my Arctic kayak to capsize;
I thought "I die, and then I'm going to sneeze."
"The Rudeish Bit of Old Khayyam"
"Awake! For morning in the bowl of night"
Has vomited — and it is getting light
And lo! This poem has begun
Its bloody endless metaphoric flight!
When I awoke, I must have been hungover
As though I had been in Beirut or in Dover
And in my ears, like music of the spheres
Some moron whistling "The Gypsy Rover".
I listened like the undead for a bit
Then, through, the casement, "Put a sock in it!"
I shouted — the milkman did not respond
I tried my head on — and it did not fit.
Imperatively "In the fire of spring
The winter garment of repentence fling!"
Quoth Old Khayyam — but he did not intend
A woolly vest morosely smouldering.
"The bird of time has but a little way to fly"
And then perhaps it will discreetly die
Amd leave poets and dustmen all in peace
Like Icarus, sudden falling off the sky.
This verse is just like those which went before
Pointless in the extreme, an utter bore,
Completely null, devoid of plot or substance
There isn't even any blood or gore.
"Dreaming when dawn's left hand was in the sky"
I contemplated, then I asked her "why?"
"If you do that, your arm will start to ache"
She said "I live, and then I'm going to die."
A chap who believed himself orthodox
In writing was faced with a paradox
He fragmented the norms
Of his poetical forms
And his discourse became quite heterodox.
Whilst endeavouring to be sardonic
His limericks were quite self-ironic
And so deconstructably
And thus ineluctably
Proved themselves somewhat-misconceived.
An Idealogue, it seems, will not learn —
His mental state causes concern
For in uncanny places
And negative spaces
Repressions will always return!
A chap of mind somewhat uncritical
Regarded himself as analytical
His opinions, though vigorous
Were much less than rigorous
How could he be so hypocritical?
(((SPACE))) (+20 pages)
"Mind your A's and Q's" exclaimed Horace.
Deconstruction is really a bit
silly, yet it allows no respite
Liz reads it all day
But some day she yet may
Realise it's all a pile of horse manure.
A book called Limited Inc
Once got stuck in the sink
It clogged up the words
and attracted the birds
And created a most godawful stink.
semolina (with milky).
Q. How many semolinas are there in a piece of string?
A. Milky.
Q. How many pieces of string?
A. John Major.
Q. No he isn't!
A. Disqualified! Statement! I am, I am, I am Ian. Am I?
Q. I'm asking the questions!
A. State-ment! State-ment! [contortion of the features impossible in writing]
Q. How?
A. Heap big breakfast.
Q. Recycled bicyles, batman!
A. Aaaaaaaa
"No, I don't want to hear from you again." — Robin Day
"Where did I leave my brain-cell?" — D. Robin
"Feared by the bad, loved by the good." — Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood
"Help me, Batman!" — Robin
"Helpu min, Vespertulo!" — Rubekolo
"Can we TURNABOUT®™(P) the timer, please?" — Rob Curling
"Die." — RoboCop
"Milky milky. Lovely." — Anon.
"Anon." — Me
"You." — Who?
"Me?" — Yes, you
"Don't you tell me what to put in quotes." — Why not?
"Oh, Barry Norman is it all of a sudden?" — Rory Bremner
"Who?" — Shakespeare
"Abracadioduloservosystems" — Marvin, causing the page to end and all to be restored to...
There once was a pony called Freddy
Whose balance was not very steady,
He fell into a tank
Of battery acid (dank!)
And thus became called Ever Ready.
That's not an A! (Unless defined as such. And such isn't an A either. Sutch is mad, though I suppose the three are not mutually exclusive, especially insofar as they contain traces of their opposites. Of course they don't contain Z's either, which may or may not prove that they are not A.)
A, ab, abacus, succubus, omnibus, omniverous, herbivorous, herbicide, homicide, homology, analogy, analect, abstract, abacus, ab, A.
"The wheel has come full circle, I am here" — Shakespeare
"Here, or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning" — T.S. Eliot
"In the beginning was the Word" — St John the Evangelist
Weasel + Popacatopetl = Blump
There was a young woman called Tonkin
Whose hooter would always be honkin'
Though she stuffed it with dung
It still stuck out its tongue
So she gave it a jolly good seeing-to.
There once was a limerick-type creation
Which raised readerly expectations
By wasting some time
In order to rhyme —
But the last line had no innuendo.
There once was a couple called Wilberforce
Who decided to obtain a divorce
A limerick's constraint
Left them frustrated and faint
They stopped rhymimg so they could have intercourse.
Sorry. I appear to have lowered the tone. If one of the oboes could kindly provide an A?
Truth's not a thing like any door or table
Wombat or computer or referent
Alas, perhaps, it would have been convenient —
However it is rather more unstable.
Thus it is pardonable to be confused
By the linguistic sign — even perturbed,
Though wishful thinking will make you disturbed
Or pathological — if it's abused.
So be realistic, if you sadly are
Overburdened with outdated metaphysic
Acknowledge the odd little problematic
Though you be fearful, and though it may jar
Though subtleties so far have you eluded
You may even end up quite uneluded.
In the language of deconstruction
Obscurantism is normality
Indeed it's impossible to function
If one lacks the ability
To employ such difficult jargon.
They love the word "iterability"
Tho it was coined by a moron
It is tempting to resort to frivolity
Despite the unfeasability
Of my enduring ability
To continue in this style.
It is so incomprehensible
It completely baffles me
Tho' tis so reprehensible
I feel it overpowering me
Yet theory text must be resisted
As long as I have breath
'Cos it's so bitter and twisted
And as interesting as death.
It has already overtaken Liz
Which is an awful shame
For the result of this is this —
She can't even write her name
She continues to be absorbed by the text
Tho' it never makes any sense
For she has to keep wearing specs
In case she should go into the Gents.
Degenerate fumings of an idle brain. Sorry. State of Affairs. Indeed.
Except it isn't.
Apart from some people, who, as the name implies, are quite noodles.
Deifier saw dog on poop; no God was reified.
And as for the halibut, it didn't incarnate the sign, either. Or both. Gods must be carried on the stairs! Pass farther down the sub! Marine! You tell them! Remain? I rename Eire means Ire-land; man. Rain and elms. Ablithu, lithp, lps. Lapse of the lips, fin again (more holibit), writing. Am I? Miami, miasmus. No! Yes, yes. Really? Good. O God!
Finnegan's Wake — is he? For we all did said, but! Buttle! No more morrow for old Mrs Marrow. Truly the wain it was meant to beeb. Blobbledy boon. ! ? Her. Considering. Yes. Oh goodness. Where would be we without one? Do I? I don't know? I am going too fast for you.
I, I, and I.I.A.E.I.O.U.
Context?
Metatext... Four.
"Some people think that a tickling-stick is a sex symbol, but that's just a fallacy." (Ken Dodd)
"Some people think that an off-sea bar is a pub where divers go. I told that to a shop-assistant in Martin's once. She didn't understand it either." (R. Feaver)
"Some people think, therefore they are." (R. Descartes)
"'Some people' is an English-language signifier of an indefinite quantity of human beings." (R. Sole)
"Some people write with their nose." (R. B. Trerry)
"Sum pipple nobbly nibbly noodles." (Squelly Vacuum)
" " (Neg. Space)
A dustbin once contained a holy relic
Some socks, a video and a piece of cheese
And Arthur, standing right up to his knees
Disconsolate, and sometimes he went click.
On balance this is rather psychedelic
But what can you expect from text so thin
Or a linguistic construct in a bin
At least I haven't mentioned "Freud" or "phallic",
"Phallogocentric" or "overdetermined"
Though leaving you entirely unillumined —
But what can one expect from rhymes like that
So there we leave him, Arthur in his bin
As though of hemlock he had drunk, or gin —
At least he wasn't wearing a silly hat.
The punch-line is on line three of the subsequent page.
[No]
There's no one quite like Lizzy
And I'm sure you will agree
She really keeps you busy
Though she thinks she is a tree
And one day when we're madder
We'll look back and say
There's no one quite like Lizzy
She's crazier than she was today.
Bin icon to click dustbin sonnet.
Arthur, hero of our fragmented tale,
Midst signs heterodox and garrulous
Articulation always perilous,
O'er nonsense seemed unlikely to prevail.
The word ever plural, duplicitous,
Betrayed him still in many a hopeful seeming
Left him to wail "Where did I put my meaning?"
Whilst offering others, quite solicitous,
Insistent in despite of his intent.
Resourceful chap, and innovative yet
New forms did he discover or invent
To curb the implicit connotative that
Deprived him constantly of what he meant
Frail hope! Form, self-referring, is content.
{dustbin icon, mouse pointer, and message box}
Click dustbin icon to bin sonnet. [OK]
There's no one quite like Derrida
And I'm sure you will agree
He's old enough to be a grandpa
But he keeps trying to write philosophy
There's no one quite like grandma
Don't let a bad word be said
Yet she's been seeming ever calmer
Which isn't surprising 'cos she's dead.
Mr Jebbly Wally. Esquisho ££@{fish}
a) This sentence is not self-enacting, but no wait a minute! Yes it is!
b) This sentence contradicts itself — except — no it doesn't!
c) This gubblick contains several non-sklarkish English flutzpahs, but the overfall pluggandisp can be glorked from context.
"So what is the pluggandisp of pluggandisp?" (Saussure). [sosýR]
"Horrible hell-mangles!" screamed Arthur. "What's happen-ping?"
"Sum-text is fleebing my avocado and cauliflower dip." His mind was afflicted by words for which no concepts had yet proved necessary. "Rampant referents! For God's sake don't think!" But it was too late. With a small armadillo, God appeared. The armadillo was called Matthew Aristotle. But this was only important to him, and when. And whatsoever.
OR HERE! ORE HEAR! AWE HAIR!
Welcome to Page 47 from the End.
(The celery is already being prepared for the big Crunch)
Just as I had suspected! The end of the universe is vegetarian.
Hello to boldly goodbye, sweet shuffle-coil.
Appendages that make you go bang.
Trinitrotoluene makes you go bang too.
Things that go ha-ha-ha-plonk in the night.
Eric the half-a-bang (he went bang as well).
Rubbish! It's a total pile of old rubbish. ^
M -. |
A | |
D /_ / {[(def rdc ((setq y cdr(x))(reverse y)))]}
A \
S | (I'm sorry I have a Lithp.
A -'
DO NOT WRITE ANYTHING HERE!
"Night fell," said Boobly-Boo the Bunny-Bath, but she was lying.
Night fell. Nothing moved, except for a small squiggly omelette-faced poker-gobbler who lived under a muddy stone at the bottom of the River Shiver.
All was still. Completely other.
GOVERNMENT HELLFIRE MORNING:
"This book has a fractal-imaged cover.
Do not attempt to count the swirls.
Doing this can seriously damage your
brain. Writing the rest of this sentence
can result in old porridge showering
mouldily through a hammock of oafs."
"Flibbertigibbon!" said Arthur, rematerialising after a huge absence of MANY pains. "I really thought I'd vanished for never into a queasy queaky squeezy cliqué saneless weirdbag of salmonella droppings — but it's all right ('twas just the weather aftercast).")
"Can I help you?" mused Bertie, the Perplexed Beaver from Outer Mongo-away.
"Lemon meringue pie!" screeched Arthur.
"You're mad" said the sane mango, who wasn't in the picture, because he didn't know what he looked like.
"Glad to know someone is" said Arthur, who wasn't.
"You're odd" said the same mango (tho' it was still completely other). "Where's the yakky?" lied Prof. Carlsberg (or was it Kronenburg? Or Löwenbräu?).
And the advertising jingle went:
"Carlsberg Black Label."
And at the mention of the word "black", riots broke out in every major city in London.
Fish Diagram of the Bibliographical Narra-Escape
[FIŜO]
{picture of a large fish wearing shoes and a hat, and holding an umbrella; arrows proceed cyclically around the fish's outline, which is shaped like a closed alpha; three chevrons on its body point right towards its tail, and three on its tail point left towards its body}
["So that's where it went!" said Nietzsche in German]
Bison Diaphragm of the Billionological Marrow-Yawn
// CENSORED //
(Well, the content of the picture was so entirely unimaginable as to have made a sane man go "Wibblywobblybibbleeeebbrrdbrdrrbbddrblub".)
{magazine cover, with a picture of an earless spotty quadruped saying MOO}
GQ "Gramnivorous Quadrupeds'" Monthly
Inside:
Grass: is it all it's cracked up to be? Or why not have pasta instead?
Ermintrude on stardom.
BSE — does it really stand for Best Sex ever?
// MOPPOCRUMP MONTHLY
Only Available In Crumpton
This month:
WE TEST OUT NEW MOPPOCRUMP MOPHANDLES!
"WHY I WENT CRUMP" BY MRS MOPPO!
NOTHING ELSE! //
"The Worm"
Flow Diagram of the Biblical Narrative
(as it "means" at the "moment") .----- Writing <----.
| |
v © |
Trace --> LOGOS Speech
^ |
| |
'----- Writing <----'
N.B. Without edge in order to subvert logocentrism
{leading to}
Light, Plants, Photosynthesis, Animals &c
{leading to}
Adam & Eve, Fall of the Sign, Freud, Oedipus &c
Downhill from here {leading to}
God changes his mind {waters}
{leading to}
Old Testament, lots of rules &c
{leading to}
Jesus &c. Various unsuccessful attempts to incarnate sign
{leading back to the LOGOS diagram, and also to}
7.00 am, Early Church (lots of old people)
{leading to}
11.00 am, Middle Church (lots of guitars)
{leading to}
Illusion of Presence {chain of six squares linked by arrows}
{leading to}
Age of Writing
Downhill from here / Eschatology {leading to}
BIG BARBECUE (revenge of logos)
The Progress of Himmel-Rot: (cut out and throw away)
{A network of labelled squares, not unlike an adventure-game map}
START (Roll 6)
"To be or not to be"
{east to} BE
NO! WRONG CHOICE — GO BACK
MILKY WAY
MILKY MILKY
{south to} NOT BE
CREATE UNIVERSE
{east to} DESTROY PLUM
WATCH "THE WORD"
SNEEZE
WW3
{south to} WWF
{east (by two routes) to} WW1
{east (by two routes, one jumping ahead and entering from the east) to} WW2
{east to} WW3 {on the SNEEZE path}
{south to} STRANGE LOOPS OCCUR
{west to} HELLO
{west to} WW0
{north to} WWF {joining back}
{south to} FALL THROUGH BLACK HOLE
WATCH PAUL DANIELS MAGIC SHOW
DIE
END {glittering}
WIN £ 1/1,000,000!
The process of history (a diagram as well as an easy-to-play, ready-to-use, pull-out, pop-up, take-out-and-keep, game).
{A winding sequence of labelled squares, not unlike a snakes-and-ladders board}
BIG BANG (not in Belgium) {explosion}
DINOSAURS {dinosaur head; pterodactyl in the sky}
EGYPTIANS (Egypt only) {pyramids}
{pseudo-Greek lettering} GREEKS incorporating Trojan war
ROMANI {military flag, labelled "standard" at the bottom, and "eagle (nearly)" at the top}
Bloody barbarians hijack civilized world
ROLE AGAIN
{in a corner of the board} Dead end — time warp and deconstructionist hijack history
Dark ages (still going on in USA) {darkness}
MIDDLE AGES (hence in middle) {stick king with crown and sceptre}
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION {chimneys}
ROLE AGAIN
AGE OF COLONISATION (no illustration)
Go back to big bang — you meet deconstructionist
WW1
WW2
WW3 (optional)
BIG BRUNCH (with side salad) (not in Belgium) {implosion}
Thus, you can play and enjoy the game, while simultaneously acknowledging the process of history. More episodes to follow. Beware, do not be fooled by circular imitations. Or Liz.
Diachronous Timechair
_
\ / _/ | \ /
BIG <----- /___| <----- BIG
CRUNCH O o BANG
/ \ S.HAWKING,ESQ. / \
----<--------------<--------------<----
,---<---.
| | History is beyond the
V ^ straight line or
| | the circle.
`--->---'
Synchronous Timetable
Universe Universe Universe Universe -123
1 5 47 and counting
9.00
Nothing Everyone has Planet changes Planet is micro-
stirs. risen and direction at wave, which does
gone jogging, five minute not improve
except for intervals like cornflakes.
9.30 Liz, who was a microwave. Which doesn't
Nothing dreaming. Inhabitants, matter as break-
stirs Says "Aaaaag" used to it, fast hasn't been
stirs, and wakes up. are still invented and it
apart stirring. is dinner time
from the three Tuesdays
computer, ago, if Tuesdays
sounding hadn't been
like doom. abolished.
Do you think I would leave you fishing, when there's room in my four for six of one and half a dozen of the other, woman on the verge of a nervous ticking away from it all or nothing but the best in the west winds of war of words to the wise old owl.
Gibberish was a little fish,
Its noses were green and sorrow.
It planted a man
On the top of a van
And it sang like there's no tomorrow.
(TODAY IS THE TOMORROW YOU WORRIED ABOUT YESTERDAY...
AND ALL IS FISH.) Always now. And again is as good as a gift horse. "Neigh, Neigh and thrice neigh" quoth the gift horse. "Stop messing around," his friend replied, sighed and nearly died — for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have left the kettle on the boil. Double, double, toil or quits. Bless thy five wits, Tom's a-cold and a nod's as good as a wink to toe of bat and eye of newt. What can one say? Two.
It was interesting to note that the above timetable of events was diachronous — how very conventional. Is that it? No, there's more. What, more? I don't know. We shall have to see. Only time will tell: at the end of the day, it's only over when the final whistle blows. But I could go on until the cows come home to roost, but I wouldn't want to overstep the mark, which will soon be replaced by the ecu just stepped on my Foot was an excellent leader of the Labour Party time for tea for two's company, three's a crowd, far from the madding.
But enough word association football.
"Good game, Saint, at the end of the day
It's a game of 90 minutes and we're only halfway..."
to heavens above is that the time to buy a new watched pot calling the kettle black as night of the long knives forks and spoonful of sugar and spice and all the way home sweet home. Next!
6.40 Geoff leaves (if having arrived) for Hall Dinner (if not disgusting) (if not theoretical impossibility) (if not parenthetical addition) (if not being about to have been returninged retrowentahomewards for afternoon snack and Syriac-source-sandwich).
6.45 Starts to rain.
6.50 Liz leaves for Hall Dinner (if having remembered).
6.55 Simon gets up.
7.00 Simon puts breakfast, lunch, dinner, fried egg, tinned beef 'n' onions and cup of tea in microwave and cooks until inedible — and eats it.
7.05 Liz returns, having (a) forgotten bike lights (b) lost her way (c) set out too late and missed Dinner.
8.30 All together again for a bit of sad 90's TV.
9.15 Geoffrey laughs at exceedingly funny joke on TV and brings down part of the ceiling.
10.03 Simon has bowl of non-breakfast cereal.
10.03.03 Liz has bowl of "breakfast cereal".
10.30 Simon starts to play a rather good game on the computer, when Geoff arrives desiring to play Kix (Just For).
11.30 Geoffrey starts running bath.
11.59 Geoffrey seizes radio and has bath.
12.00 Geoffrey already out of bath (just to show Liz).
1.00 Simon and Liz talking rubbish over toast.
1.47 Simon goes to bed and writes essay.
5.30 Liz goes to bed, having noticed that Simon has gone to bed.
6.00pm Cup of tea. Geoffrey has literal thought, so universe ends. However, just in time, Liz has written limerick, which, because impermanent, remains.
There once was a thinker eccentric
Whose discourse was phallogocentric
But outside the conventionalism
Of author-intentionalism
We need not enquire if he meant it.
("This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.")
Loops. (Strange?)
1.35pm Geoffrey returns specifically to watch culturally limited Antipodean drama, having satisfied himself that the facts are where he left them (approximately, i.e. in writing). Liz stays around socially. Simon mad.
2.00pm Simon mad. Has cup of tea. Liz listening to Shostakovich, which (unfortunately for Geoffrey) isn't accessible. Geoffrey retaliates with Abba and more "facts".
3.00pm Simon has cup of tea. (Mad.) Geoffrey still at the "facts". Liz by this time trying to fit "phallogocentrism" into a limerick.
4.00pm Simon has mad cup of tea. Geoffrey has "real" cup of tea. Liz has cup of coffee with deconstructed subjectivity (cheaper than biscuit). Universe born. God names (significantly) "God" as the father. Universe thus procreated in the relation of text and metatext.
5.00pm Cup of tea mad. Simon drinks it anyway. Universe, as suspected, turns out to be the metaphoricity of a metaphor.
A guide to viewing — what's on at 39 William St
0900 All is still
0915 All is still still
0930 Geoffrey arises, breaks his fast, mends it again and departs — destination Bod (repeated same time tomorrow)
1045 Liz awakes and has a bath (repeated same time every day)
1100 Simon gets up
1145 Liz, having finished her ablutions, sits self in living room for breakfast
1245 Having sat for an hour, written gibber in the book and had breakfast, it's now time for lunch (also available in zebra)
1335 Despite protestations, Liz stays resolutely glued to her seat for Neighbours.
— to be continued
I sometimes think one never goes to bed
But sings "The Red Flag" in a hat instead
And certainly if a census were conducted
The living are outnumbered by the dead.
And each invigorating walk we take
Down here on earth for very boredom's sake
May cause a hurricane to be concocted
Or someone up on Mars to bake a cake.
A meteorologist, while drinking gin
Happened to see the Apocalypse begin
Eschatological weather forecast!
"Light showers, and fire and brimstone in King's Lynne."
For every trope the poet has invented
So many problems have been circumvented
That God might almost seem to take a hand —
The transcendental signifier has repented.
Spool.
He thought he saw an Argument
That proved he was a Goat,
He looked again and found it was
A mildewed overcoat.
"That's not so bad!" he said (quite mad)
And shoved it down his throat.
He thought he saw a cabbage-patch
Descending from the moon,
He looked again and found it was
A green and mauve baboon.
"A puzzling sight, if I see right!"
Exclaimed that mad buffoon.
There once were some horrible gibbons
Who enjoyed tearing people to ribbons
They went through a bad patch
When they met with their match
Having stumbled upon Bernard Cribbins.
Quite suddenly panic ensued
When the wings from the pigs came unglued
They descended together
Like birds without feathers
With numerous greenness endued.
A signwriter outside a pub
Was hit by a man with a club.
"It's just that I've seen
You need more space between
The words 'Lion' and 'And' and 'And' and 'Cub'."
There once was an oven of toothpaste
And microwave, igloo and roof space
O the metatext rhymes
In a sign of the times
But it isn't really in good taste.
(Just to demonstrate that I can tell the différance...)
[ There was once a young lad from Penzance
Who was after a bit of romance
So he took a big chance
And asked "her" to dance
But it turned out that she was from France
There was once an old bloke of Vienna
Who'd churn out psychology for a tenner,
His name was Sig Freud
And he really enjoyed
Sex with a new Kenwood Blender
It was the strain on the fish
That turned me in brain
That and the absence of sane.
Carrots in a row, too — so where? So Krud. Gibber. There are too many words here. Too much rubbish, krud, tosh, twaddle, blurb, gibber, garble, waffle, ... where's my θησαυρος?
I can't imagine! You may have contributed more.
There once was a shelf with a bowl on
Next to which Liz had drawn a semicolon
And a picture of Iggy
Who was fat like a piggy
And his ears were on stalks. Goodbye — so long!
There once was a [somethingty something]
Who had completely lost her marbles
She would about signs
Found between the lines
But her text looks like nothing but garble.
These poems have started a trend
And they've driven me quite round the bend —
Oh my God! What a blow!
It's sixteen in a row,
So I think at this point I shall end.
There once was a piece of old toast
Which thought it had spotted a ghost
It looked south and north
It ran back and forth
But couldn't decide which it liked most.
(dictated to Liz)
There was an old man known as Bill
Who croaked without leaving a will
It was puzzling, 'cos
No one knew who he was
So they pulped him through a paper-mill.
There once was a basket of eggs
Which had several flexible legs
Though it walked with them bent
This was clearly not meant
For its eyesight, and so it wore specs.
There once was a hairy old Sasquatch
Who fell into a bucket of whitewash
It got covered in paint
And yelled, "Happy I ain't,
'Cos this poem's a load of old hogwash!"
(20 in a row...)
There once was an MP called Gyles
Who wore jumpers and hideous smiles
He went mad, got elected...
And shortly rejected,
But his jumpers could be heard for miles.
I used to like lying in bed
But I've found something nicer instead
A rotten old mission
Called decomposition —
But it's possible only if dead.
There once was a Radio Times
Which was used to mop up household grimes
It was usually bearable
(But utterly terrible
Throughout the Olympic Gimes).
I once bought myself a pet cat
But I smashed it to bits with a bat
Then I purchased a second
But dinnertime beckoned
So I microwaved it — and that's that.
There once was a window of life
Through which one saw trouble and strife
All the prisons and laws
All the famines and wars
So I smashed it to bits with a knife.
I once had a poodle called Tim
Who was lovable, cuddly and prim
But he tripped on a saw
And now Tim is no more
But his head's sloshing round in my bin.
There once was a poet called Justin
Who wrote limericks foul and disgusting
He'd rewritten "Macbeth"
Using thrice as much death
Well, all right, it needed a dusting.
There once was a ghastly suggestion
That Hamlet was made out of hessian
(But more likely of sheep
Or computers) — to beep
Or not to beep — that is the question.
I once had a match. It was dud,
So I threw it away with a thud.
But the whole house caught fire,
I was blown into a mire,
And thus ended up covered in mud.
There once was a blob in a bucket
And nobody wanted to suck it.
(Unless they were drunk)
For it smelt like a skunk
And unpleasantly shouted out etc.
This book is now too full of verse
Despite its great proseness at first
If you're caught unawares
By a poem — who cares?
Just ignore it (or taste it and burst).
It's raining outside and it's cold
And I'm feeling quite terribly old
I've broken my back
And my knees just went crack
And my nostrils are clogged up with mould.
1. There never was cheese on the moon
And the end of the yawn came too soon
For the green ones are worst
When you're crying of thirst
And the dish blinked and caught a baboon
(Baboon)
And the dish blinked and caught a baboon.
2. I'm singing a song made of wood (tra-la)
Much better than I thought I could (tra-la)
It's so comfortably warm
On the front garden lawn
And here comes Little Red Riding-Hood
(Ding-Hood)
And here comes Little Red Riding-Hood.
3. Your spinster is full of old dust
And my foot, no! my brain, has gone bust
There's just far too much glue
In this Moppocrump stew
And it leaves me completely nonplussed
(Nonplussed)
And it leaves me completely nonplussed.
(ROUND) THE (B)END.
Self consuming Pac-man, or what?
What, please!
Incorrect. Forfeit three participles, two green eithers and sheet lightening.
So that, O best beloved, is how parachutes were invented.
Negative Space. The never-reachable final front-ear. These are the voyages of the Starman Derrida. His five-book mission to seek out strange new unrealities, to corner unthinkable paradoxes, boldly to gibber where no text has progressed before...
(Star Trext, The Post-Modern Generation).
Very meta trekky. Indeed. Inthought.
Sort of. Anyway. Full stop?
There once was some ten-month old sick
Which nobody wanted to lick
(Unless they were drunk)
For it smelt like a skunk
And was nearly a hundred yards thick.
The Deity, to His distress
Fell down an infinite regress
Quite unreconstructed
In "fact" deconstructed
The "Word become flesh" more or less...
There once was a Godhead Incarnate
Whose hair was the colour of garnet
Omnipotent, timeless
Infinite and rhymeless
He kept all eternity in a hairnet.My sofa is made out of rhubarb
There once was a hospital nurse
Who had spent all her life in a hearse
And yet no one knew why...
"Indigestion!" I cry,
For she'd eaten the whole Universe!
{Warning triangle showing a road that vanishes into the distance} Beware infinite regress (i.e. bucketfulls spelling of boredom).
"ARCANA"
Zxy burst into the plot. Suddenly it had come back — the plot, rather than Zxy — yes, it was back, and this time, it was contextual (or may be Freudian — who knows, both). Or did he burst in? Perhaps he merely entered — the possibility is there? Who is Zxy anyway? How can he be defined? Isn't there a danger of infinite regress?
Zxy soon tired of all this, and left the room. He had done his bit for advancing the plot, but the multiplex strata of dogmatic discourse had ineluctably foiled him in his endeavour, notwithstanding the not inconsiderable effort which he had employed in his deeds.
{DANGER sign showing an endless spiral} <-- Beware, vicious regress.
Vertiginous — what? — Vertiginous what!
{picture of a duck} Ed the Duck --> {an endless hypnotic spiral} Infinite regress --> {duck with no feathers} Ed the Duck (where's his clothes gone?) HOW FREUDIAN
What, vertiginous?
"FREUDIANA"
"DERRIDEANA"
"I do what I do not say, almost, I never say what I do."
{ sort that one out ... } — Ed. the Duck
{ } - 2/3 {α}2 // ~>= {universal quantifier} ± Σζ dδ/y-3 ∫Q with regards, Tom.
The answer is 42 (Tim (pan[um])).
[ðι 'α:nsər ιz 'fo:tι tu:] (Too(thp[aste])). Enough NOW.
When? Good question. And is it one?
The sign is the deferral of God. Bang.
God does not ex{lightning bolt strikes page}BANG (oops, spoke too soon).
There once was an old bloke called God
Who in no way resembled Ken Dodd,
Though he wielded the power
And was worshipped each hour,
He was really a nasty old sod.
To be so or not to be so
That is the beezo.
The beezo's a bit like a squid
A sofa or pedal-bin lid
It has several knees
And far too much cheese
And seven of them are called Sid.
Whether the weather is weather or not, and whether the weather is either. If not then the weather is probably whether and if so then the both are neither. And whether the whether is whether or not, and both in the latter case, conversely wether is always a sheep. Or not.
If the word whirls the world too much we get Gidding...
There once was a brainless old moose
Who was staggeringly mad and obtuse
He stepped in a flan
And his antlers went bang,
And he ended up Danny La Rousse.
There once was a poem surreal
Made of panthers and pineapple peel
(to be continued...)
(and somewhat later, he wrote...)
It was rather too pink,
It was purple, I think,
Never buckets for curly the kneel.
("Eh?")
... Up, as they say, acknowledging their sadly Northerly position, if indeed they might be said to be so.
To be or not to be
Is it a question?
Whether 'tis more realistic to accept
The linguistic nature of philosophy
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.
Binarism! Resolution — and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That thought's aware of. 'Tis a reductionism
Devoutly to be wished... Conceptualize
Perchance problematize — Aye, there's the rub
What complications may arise
If we have so dismissed all this "blah"
Must give us cause
To regret that we ever presumed so far...
(With apologies to Hamlet, at least...)
Just two more...
I tried for a while to avoid
A further reference to Freud
But your nervous relation
To signification
Suggests you may be paranoid.
A chap whose faith in the logical
Bordered upon the euphorical
Found citationality
In his rationality
And structures irreducibly metaphorical.
(You deserved them...)
When I look back upon my verse
It's always with a sense of shame
I can never make things rhyme (?rame)
No matter what I try to think
To speak in words or write in ink
It's the same thing in my mind —
It's a sign!!!
At school they taught me how to be
So clear in thought and word and deed —
They didn't quite succeed!
No matter ...
It's a sign!!!
Everything I've ever said, every word, every line
All that I keep repeating all the time —
It's a sign!!!
Father forgive me, I tried to understand it
I read through deconstruction
Not knowing therein lay destruction
Whatever you taught me, I didn't believe it
Father, you formed me, 'cos I didn't care
And I still don't understand it
So I look back upon my verse
And it's always with a sense of shame,
I can never make things rhyme (?rame)
It's a sign!
DESIDERATA
Whatever you do, whatever you do, try not to repeat repeat yourself. Get real. Make sure you have enough milk in the fridge (and don't buy that awful skimmed stuff.)
Avoid riding a tricycle in the morning. Respect the word. Always quote out of context, except that this is impossible. Never drink Pimms with reptiles or chemical engineers. Use a toothbrush, not a copy of "The Brothers Karamazov".
Lead us not (presumably) into textualization, and deliver us from the sign ...? For, "Metaphor is the logic of contamination and the contamination of logic." Need one say more?
Endeavour not to impose an order on the text. Order not your elders, betters and blubbers. Order a 37 with lychees. Speak clearly from the diaphragm. Spell diaphragm. Discuss. Pass briefly from adverb to conjunct, and the world will see you as you truly aren't. Write limericks till the mourning after.
But the work of mourning is always already (see Freud). At 12:15 p.m. in East Death. Do not buy invisible signatures of Salvador Dalí. Be happy.
Always look on the Sheffield (Brightside). Go to jail — go directly to jail, do not collect $200. Pass the buck. Give us a clue. Don't stand in the middle of motorways. Stop doing that! If you do that once more, I'll be cross.
Start doing this! If you don't do this now, I'll be Maltese. Think carefully before making up your mind. Too many desiderands stain the cloth.
Ten thousand thundering typhoons, + VAT (Vegetarians Against Tractors).
1/ It's a godawful small affair
To the girl with mousy hair
But her mummy is yelling "No"
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is nowhere to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seat with the clearest view
And she's hooked to the silver screen
But the film is a [sounding board]1
For she's lived it 10 times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to [call the song]
[Sea dwarves] fighting in the dance hall
Old man — look at those cavemen go
It's the creepiest show
Take a look at the old man beating on the wrong guy
Old man, wondering if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?
2/ It's on the merry ... [orchard] brow
Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
Now the workers have struck a vein
Lenin's on sale again
See the mice in their million hoards
from Ibiza to the Norfolk broads
(1 ? bore — ed.)
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog and clowns
But the film is ...
(That's enough David Bowie.)
_ _
| |
I think that I shall never know
A tree as lovely as a po-
em, written by some crazy bod
And nothing at all to do with God.
|_ _|
Out of deference to
The wishes of
Our leadero
The rest of this page will be in free verse
Which isn't just "chopped up prose",
As it has been designated
Because of
The negative spaces.
(Which are all around us
Even as we speak, making
Sure that our speech is writing.)
That's all, fisho.
'Twas in the year of 1992, the month was not July
When I decided to write about Julius Caesar
("The Roman geezer")
Who was much affected thereby.
Though not as much as by Shakespeare — I cannot lie.
1992 — Julius Caesar — dead
Unless memory mistake
{Simple Chinese ideogram}
Unġelaeredon preostas!
Correct answers on a limerick (or a post card if you're Socrates)
Thank you.
Iam estis virin' el Dorseto
Kun multege da libroj sur breto
Oni ofte ŝin mokis
Kaj rezone sufokis
Tamen restis ŝi tekstulineto.
An optimistic Presidento
Wrote limericks in Esperanto
A convenient dodge
Whose obscurity-oj
May not have been quite what he meanto.
There once was a Captain called Haddock
Who lived like a horse in a paddock
Except that he didn't
There's no antecedent
To this limerick which is quite baddock.
As I picked up the book this morning
Just as the day was dawning
I noticed a huge array of limericks —
there were well in excess of six.
So I determined there and then
"Limericks — never again."
Their form is too constricting
Not to say debilitating.
And so we must change the form of the text
and give the limericks a rest
lest boredom set in
and madness creep in
And we go about wearing nought but a vest.
Sorry, but...
There once was a beetroot called Muffin
Which was useful for virtually nuffin'
It was sixty years old
And oozing with mould
So they used it to make some tinned stuffin'.
There once was a person sardonic/laconic
Who was often considered moronic,
If one ever protested
At what she'd suggested
She'd reply, "I was being IRONIC!"
There once was a bucket of soot
Into which I mistakenly put
Some inflammable hair
And a chocolate éclair,
The result? — well, it blew off my foot.
One ontological high flier
Loved the existential quantifier
And had it existed
Could not have resisted
The transcendental signifier.
To the logocentric discourse imperious
Which cannot be taken for serious
One attributes inanity
And sometimes insanity
Ironically — only when generous!
As the sign operates through analogy
And the truth of truth is a tautology
There are no pragmatics
Without problematics
And the future is in grammatology.
Have a nice day.
Who created a game with a map,
It was all about fish
And it looked very swish
But it was really a pile of crap.
There once were some folk who wrote limericks
For rhymes they were frequently in a fix
It became such a feat
That I've started to cheat
And am ending this one — archaeopteryx.
There once were some folk who wrote limericks
About intertextual metaphysics
They were over two-thirds
Full of very long words
And they scanned as iambic anapaestics.
There once was a yak in the bath
And an elephant under the path
There were eggs in the trees
With a plate of cream-teas
Oh, this limerick's good for a laugh.
There once was a person called Liz
Who would get in a terrible tizz
If one slagged off the text
She'd get awfully vexed
For she claimed she's a text — and she is!
There once was a textual vision
Which embodied a loony position
It was not white or black
Or a smelly old yak
But a mere binary opposition.
Horrendously purple monstrosities
Used to spout lots of verbal pomposities,
Though they may have been right
On a Saturday night,
On a Sunday they were useless verbosities.
There once was a chap who was vexed
That writing had thinking annexed
Tho' you may deride it
There's nothing outside it
And therefore "Il n'y a pas d'hors-texte."
There was a young lass of Bridport
Who bought lots of books she ought
not. Therein lay no knowledge
Yet still she wouldn't acknowledge
Their contents were of no import.
I refer you firstly to the relation between poesis and noesis.
Secondly...
A young man constrained by his metaphysic
And well-past-its-sell-by-date logic
Found the undecidability
Of an Other rationality
Quite outside his faculties analytic.
That is quite awful. (not awe-ful.)
In a book made of more than just words
Lay some limericks (food for the birds!)
One was totally smothered
'Cos the other one othered
Though they scanned like a pair of old nerds.
There was an argument quite consequential
Of matters almost influential
But its process poetic
And form esoteric
Showed it to be self-referential. 19/20
"Mind the broken Glas! Mind the broken Glas — or is it groken blah!"
"You've never had it so good, yet the nays have it — {therefore} the nays have never had it so good."
There was once a most ridiculous sect
Who constantly idolized the text
It was their consistent perpetual joy
To link everything with Freud
So that at the heart of each matter lay sex.
There was a young man who thought noesis
Bore no relation to poesis
And as for the word
He thought it absurd
He may be in need of analysis.
{Universal quantifier} x (x reads Glas --> ¬ TRYING TO SHOW OFF KNOWLEDGE OF LOGIC SYMBOLS; BUT "NOY" SYMBOLISED BY ~ x is sane)
{Existential quantifier} y {(y is at Exeter College ^ y reads Glas) --> y's mental health suffers}
I {heart} Existential Quantifiers
"'Twas Aye!" yelled the Speaker until his tonsils fell out, "Aye — the Nay's have it (and the vote)."
The nays, indeed, were dying of it like flies. "Neigh!" they said, and flew. The flies pigged like death. "Fore legs good, back legs bad." The pigs balanced then overbalanced, overdetermined, by a volley of nays. "Throw the burglar!" said the telephone, answering, as ever, itself. "Drawer, the aeronaut," corrected itself, ever, that is. Dial 666 for the problematics of translation — no fish, I don't want to die like a Ney.
"What, is he dead, then?" prayed pathetically the holy how-alliteratively heart brass-handled door-nail dead Hopkins (Gerard Manley-ish, also deceased). Martial! Yes, he also. Farewell, the plumed troop?
But remember that one man (sorry, person; sorry life-form; sorry (ad infinitum))'s FiSh is another etc's poisson...
"'Twas I!" yelled the centipude, breathing sickly black venom into her own major intestinal bat, "I left it out in the raining pour!"
"It's raining yaks and dogs," moaned Marvin rustily, "I've just put my foot in a poodle."
"'Twas Eye!" yelled the centipodule, breathing sickly blue pustules of sick into his own minor un-armpit, "I poured warty water out of the raining pour."
"Yes?" inquired Old Mouldy the Disgusting Warthog meaninglessly, pouring with rain himself, though never before lunch on Sundays (barmitzvahs an exception).
"'Twas I!" yelled the sentence-pede, who was also Warden at Bretton Youth Hostel, "in t' forties and fifties we had real rainstorms — there was a Warden once, aye!"
"Shut up you old loony," yelled the centipoff, who had had enough "had"s in one sentence; all became clear as muddy daylight, and the sentence-pede fell away into a surreal and non-existent Northern dimension of his own devises.
Richard III opened the book to find himself confronted by a TEXT TEXT TEXT applying the pillow firmly TEXT and a spoonful TEXT of custard. Apologies for TEXT the interruptions — the book has TEXT indeed caught a TEXT virus — not very TEXT surprising, really.
Now is the content of our disparate text made glorious somewhere by this proper name. Now is the context of our desperate name made glorious Shakespeare by this proper text. Now is the subtext of our aspirant glory made proper Shakespeare by this textual name?
"No, I would not be made, not mad sweet Heaven!"
Ambition pole-vaulted straight into the Other.
{Mirror writing} "Life, don't talk to me about Life!" it said.
"Where's the fishy?" inquired Karsill for the second thyme.
"Where's my growbag?" inquired Mr Stranger-Sort-Of-Potato, who didn't.
"Only me!" said Mr You-Don't-Want-To-Sniff-That, who couldn't possibly have.
The world ended for about the sixteenth time that week (which was weird for a Wednesday).
In one universe, it is always ending. The metaphysical has no guard rail, like a perilous escalator. The five has no three, being irreducible. This time it won't — promise!
"Whirled in that destructive fire / Which burns before the ice-cap reigns."
"But wouldn't it snow?" corrected Arthur.
"Be thankful you're not a poetic subject," Professor Carswell responded. "A pun like that and you might die of hypothermia."
"Pizza pizza pozza, wear the barleymow" (Derridan)
"Mey the bingly bongly bananabrain goggggg" (Derk)
"Surrventro-uf t as
b
k
l
u
m
{The letters pour out of the sentence, landing in a jumbled heap at the foot of the page}
That isn't supposed to happen, unless the book has a computer virus.
They were doomed — and this they knew, all too well. Detective commissioner Walrus, having been dragged from retirement, not to mention the grave, was called upon to investigate a terrifying case of signifiers running riot in Little and Great Giddy. They had snatched milk bottles from fridges, and seriously confused numerous inhabitants. But another dimension made the case still more dangerous — the involvement of the deadly RAVING MAD (q.v.), setting up a communist conspiracy to seize the marginal fascist seat of the Giddies (by stealing the swingometer). In the course of the case, he meets the irresistible Desdemana, a card carrying neo Nazi, who is only too willing to endure anything to promote the cause, and to enjoy it. In this tangled web of intrigue, corruption, not to mention deconstruction, Det. comm. Walrus is thrust, to battle valiantly against the odds and Prof Igloo, if he is to save the world from the clutches of the sinister signifiers...
Denis Wheatley says, "In all my dealings with the people of texts — 'critics' as they like to be known, one thing has become clear to me: I recommend that no one become involved in deconstruction — of either sorts, and should handle all proponents of it with serious care. Thank you for buying my book, by the way."
Two more tangerines, however, and walnut?
Never in the field of human Slough
"Swarm over, death!" Euphonium, slipper.
Can a nipper eat a kipper
Standing in two pails
If I did that the chair would lend me
Straight upstairs to Wales.
Not at all. Predilection for squid
(squidself waxing doriangreyer in its dud hud) FW, HCE
OK — after you. And so on.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!
ARCTURA (α Boo) [FEM], not Arthura.
Quod Erat Detrimendum
What about the Quarswells?
"Common as the pronoun 'I'." "I, I, and I. I. A. E. I. O. U."
Quite Enough Determinacy
Thank you.
"And arise, you numberless infinities of souls
All whom the flood has and fire shall overthrow!" — in Donne, done in, by text text bye bye... "Though some have called thee mighty and dreadful!"
Finnegan beginnegan.
"Quid pro quo?" questioned Arctura, a new character, Arthur's twin sister.
(α Boo) [FEM]
"But where, oh where, did I leave myself?" wondered Arctura's twin brother Arthur2 + Arthur2 + Arthur2 = 3(Arthur2) {therefore} 1 = 9.
Path! Path! Whither wandereth the happy hippy?
Never the spain, nor up in the hoopy?
Nowhither, somewhence, and Anywhyhow,
But the Marston Cycletrack is covered in cow.
The Arthurs were in different universes. In others some of them were feminine, in which case the Arthuras weren't. In one or two, if such apply, they were covered in cow. To introduce another term and another infinity, Earwicker appeared. "Plot 2, Text 57, Reason Nil" he said. "That sounds about right."
Arthur blinked, and understood nothing.
(ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRINE SLIDE OF KNIFE)?
After all, "nothing" was easier than "being", although he had to be careful to think about it (and — nothing) without thinking it, as it were, itself, if it has one, which he was not sure whether to doubt or not. Oh dear! Oh shut up!
"No representation without textification!" Professor Igloo declared vehemently, but was struck squarely on the head by a copy of "On Grandmatology II: this time it's personal", hurled by a gnu called Boris. He then demolished the pie. "I was hungry," he later claimed in self defence, to the Roving Armed Vegetarians In New Guinea and Madagascar Against Death — or Raving Mad, as they were better known.
"Buffoon?" screeched Professor Karswell, reemerging into the plot from a nasty oily puddle of mulch where he had been squashed when a particularly heavy text (it was the "Plena Ilustrita Vortaro de Esperanto") had clunked him on the head.
"Buffoon" squawked Professor Igloo, who was Karswell's antimatter doppelgänger (twice removed with a spanner before inserting cartridge D; do not connect blue wire to green fuse without full insurance first) and expired. (Tax disc, and the.)
"Where's the fishy?" said Professor Karsill, who had gone potty. He pottered round the potty, going potty, and battered round the batty going batty, it said on the door, please don't spit on the floor, so he stood up and spat on the BANG!!!
"No one expects the Limerick Squad," shrieked Michael Palin, who was now an hour-and-a-half late. Everyone looked at their watches, but since they were all made of marzipan and fondue, they watched their looks instead (at).
"Is this yours?" asked the rancid rebellious Palin, seeing the Bowyers' Tinned Steak and Kidney Texty-Pie and picking it up. But it screamed in displeasure and refused not to be replaced on the amazing new ultra-strong in-room personal gravity compensator (the floor). "I wasn't born yesterday!" it squealed. "I was born tomorrow!"
"Impossible," laughed Professor Karsill.
"Impothible," said Sylvester.
"I tought I taw a puddy-tat," squeaked Texty-Pie.
"3.141592653589794..." squirmed Texty-π.
"Where's the fishy?" said Professor Karswell, who still hadn't found it (insert innuendo here: __________). But there was too much weather in the boot, and they all died happily ever after, and other things what begins with a Q.
There once was a rationalist clot
Who claimed that this book had a plot
What did he expect?
A transparent text?
A referential discourse or what?
(Enough limerwrecks. Ed.) (Who's Ed? Antiplautus)
There once was no goat on the moon,
Who were never (tho' sometimes) quite soon,
He was strangled, they say,
And exploded one day,
Tha silly old beer named Baboon.
"The death agony of the metatext... is interminable."
(Guess...)
Professor Igloo was interminable too, though he was not a mortal/immortal (mortal/immortal (under erasure (?))) metatext. The green aliens, to pursue another concatenation of signifiers for a moment, had gone mauve with boredom, trying every known method of termination. Finally, they hit upon ("literally") a Bowyers' Tinned Steak and Kidney Pie (note product placement). And they used it, despite Igloo's protestations, in the negative. They then poured off to the factory to load up with a few tons before using them to destroy civilization as we know it.
Exeunt omnes. Dixit dominus. Cui bono?
"Enough clichés; and on with the story text doodle moose. They rowed for 50 days, but then realised that they'd forgotten their binoculars.
There once was a book full of BLA
The title of which was something like Gla
It wasn't much good
But indeed what could
be expected from an ex-Nazi called Derida!!!
Kongritalutions...
There was a young chap who presumed
To versify — quite unillumed
On the subject of "bla(h)"
And went rather too far
Though less misinformed than confused.
There was once a deleterious doctrine called deconstruction
Well known as a fiendish device, a devilish concoction
Just as it was incomprehensible
In equal measure reprehensible,
So that the reaction of most to it was eructation.
There was a young man who wrote limericks
Which tended towards the pathetic
He found it hard to relate
To the textual state
Constrained by phallocentric binary logic.
blew up.
Did it? An apostrophe to the epistolary form — and why not? Will power — that three.
At just that three (nearly seven, now) a flying milkjug (they don't all use saucers — some of them have mugs) landed and some biggish green inhabitants emerged. "Remember us?" they said, in proto-Indo-European, "we're back. It took a few millenia but — we learned your language. Just to show we're not into cultural imperialism. We merely intend to exterminate you — have a nice day."
"Not bad, but you haven't quite grasped the idiom," said Professor Igloo. "Unfortunately we speak American now. So had better jolly well beetle off and learn it!"
That was an interjection on behalf of the plot. Now — back in the metatext... wordz-a-poppin. (ah yeah!)
"Anyone who can't spell 'millennia'." (Mr Mad)
Up we shall journey, to the wild wastelands of the North
Desperately wondering whether the voyage will be worth
it. And yet as we travel the distance to places afar
Our thoughts will turn to Liz at home, reading Glas.
We hope she will prove able to cope by herself
And that she won't consume anything deleterious to her health.
All that I would say to you is this — mind the text,
Liz, mind the text, lest you have a surfeit of it,
Wherefore we might have, on our return, to inform your next
of kin as to your impending insanity. But what of it —
It will now be apparent that I have difficulty
Making this rhyme ———
but tell me, o Liz, can I be blamed for this?
Is it a crime?
P.S. Don't be too garrulous here in our absence.
& have a good Easter moose.
Elk to the left of them, elk to the right of them
Into the negative space
Rode the five hundred moose
"Dark in here!" said some of them.
"Mooses in here!" said others.
"Elk!" said the elk.
"Text" wrote the text.
"Texting, texting, 1, 2, 3, texting," said the Moose.
"Eek, a moose!" screamed the early sixties sitcom woman.
{Drawing of a stick woman standing on a table, pointing at a tiny moose on the floor}.
THAT, TOO, OF COURSE,
BUT STILL COMPLETELY {In a triangle, with a picture of an elk} ELK.
elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elik elik elk elk elk elk elk elk elk text elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk elk text elk elk elk text elk elk elk text elk elk elk elk text elk elk text elk elk text elk elk elk text elk elk text elk text elk text elk elk text elk text text elk elk elk text elk text elk text text elk text text text text elk text text elk text text elk elk text text text text text text elk text elk elk text text text elk text text text text text text text text text elk text text text text text text text text text text elk text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text ...
(the metamorphosis of the text!)
THAT, TOO, OF COURSE,
BUT STILL COMPLETELY {In a triangle, with a picture of a radioactive splodge} PURPLE.
"ALARM!" "ALARM!" "MAD!"
{Musical notes} Es gibt zu viel Gibber im Buch
{Picture of a person with their hair on end, screaming "aaargh", within a barred circle} < deconstruction free zone
The moose glistened sideways, treading on Peter Quince's nose the while. The forest was filled with mooses, raspberry mooses, chocolate moooses, and moose factories. They had assembled for the fifth plenary session of the General Council for the Consistory of Deputies of Mooses. Their leader Usdaw was due to be deselected, but a huge swing on the moose-ometer had changed all that. Or was it rather a huge moose on the swingometer? Nobody seemed to know. Or care.
"Wow, some dream," mused Ernie, who (of course) drove the fastest milk cart in the West. But now was taking place the long awaited
>> DRANG NACH OSTEN >>
Will to Power to You Too — with umbrellas on!
"Drags its long slow length like a wounded snake along." (Not necessarily in that. And is anything?) Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold! This truth is true... And what about your strange and divers ways, Peter Quince?
"Not I!"
"Disqualified — statement."
"Not I — except when I am."
"Qualified — disqualified," persisted Arthur. Peter Quince was the stupid one, but Peter Pears is dead.
"So have we started, then?" asked Quince, still confused, thus human, all too human.
"How should I know?" asked Arthur.
"Does that mean I should?" Quince (Peter) had begun to understand.
Meanwhile, back three spaces and miss a turn — bishop to king's third, gentleman's fourth — do not collect two hundred pounds. How often? Never! Really?
"No..." Arthur doubted. "All seven? With olives? Seriously? Oval? Good Lord!" And that was just before tea.
Afterwards, the city was empty. Windy windy. Those ubiquitous leaves and big papery detritus. Diacritics scurried villainously from drains. Dire critics collapsed in the streets. Those that were left trumpeted. Jean was alone, the speaker dumb, the writer dead, chairs chairs. Isn't it time for our lesson?
(because they lessened...)
And it was true, every last fact of it (Liverpool, no thank you, I don't disagree with mud in my pudding — pud! (in my mudding, through a long-winded (and largely tautologous set of rhyming couplets (of the Alexandrine style, as popularised so jibely by that (four-legget bandicoot of a pobble (nây, này, and quice náy (I speak of Mr(s) A.M. (F (S ((poobl(glun(k))))))))))))atishoo). Merci.
"Stop making sense" isn't a very good film. Or is it? "Great, smashing, super." "Where's the plot? The romance? The agony? The thrills? The spills?" "They're over there in the corner," Arthur responded laconically. Mordred cast Arthur a baleful look. "Well caught." "But now take this," proffering him a piece of smoked trout. "There's not enough fish in this," the spokesmen for Fish In Social Hexagons or Yeovil (FISHY) shouted. "Or are there," Eric the herring replied.
Έρικ δα χαφ α χέρριγγ. (Ar, NE 218b-c)
Professor Crisp smiled in disgust, yawned, sneezed, yawned again, gained a yawn, smelt like an old goat for half an hour and then
(continued in 4 pages time)
Uncle Maria says — "Five ways to go BANG!"
Hunting of the quark. Quark of the covenant. Fish!
Arthur surfaced for a moment — the island had disappeared in the interim, which was square and deep and full of letters. "W!" he said, clearing his throat. An acrobat swam by, in Nietzsche's umbrella.
Careless bastard.
He's been talking to it for ears.
Four-ears.
Five-eyes.
Five yes. (odd!3).
Six noses, all told. Odd, odd, odder.
THAT, TOO, OF COURSE,
BUT STILL COMPLETELY {In a triangle, with a picture of an ostrich} OSTRICH.
THAT, TOO, OF COURSE,
BUT STILL COMPLETELY {In a triangle, with a picture of steaming dung} DUNG.
{In a triangle, with a picture of a mother holding a baby saying "waaah"}
THAT TOO OF COURSE,
BUT STILL COMPLETELY MOTHER.
{In a triangle, with a swastika and the letters "P de M"}
THAT, TOO (OF COURSE)
BUT STILL COMPLETELY DECONSTRUCTIONIST.
That three, and totally unjust. I thought we had got beyond such cheap ideological categories. De Man is dead and de text is innocent though always already fallen.
He will not (therefore) have been implicated.
ET TU, GOLF COURSE,
GUT-SPILL (REPLETELY) άλλωс
{In a triangle, with the word "Help!" and a picture of a top-hatted gentleman who has a huge bow tie protruding from his ears}
(man with bow-tie through his head)
ANKAŬ TIO, KREDEBLE,
SED ANKORAŬ TUTE ALIEL
I always knew the Wombles were a bunch of proto-ecologists and, as you know, the green is either. {Tick}
But, as we all know, the Wombles are grue not green, while others do contend that they are bleen. Who knows? 8 out of 10 Wombles said they preferred bulldozers to pianos. But then, they would say that, wouldn't they? {Tick}
What more can one expect of those who prefer pseudo-real demolition to the possibility of artistic creation?
THAT, TOO, OF COURSE,
BUT STILL COMPLETELY {In a triangle, with a picture of something that has just disappeared} NOTHING.
No thing O thing othing othering boo
And a complete absence and almost antithesis of derring-do.
The Wombles shifted in nervously. "What are we here for anyway?" one of them asked querulously. "Well, there was to have been a plot," Phil began, before being interrupted by a drum solo, "but it was intercepted on the way by a posse of hermeneutical mafiosi, who headed it off at the pass."
And yet, and yet, Arthur mused. Somwhere, there must be a plot. "Yes, we want a structure, give us some logic," the Wombles cried. But their efforts were resisted by the Ma'd tribe. Ray Vin Ma'd, their leader, looked up from his copy of "A pseud's guide to Derrida; or Derrida's guide to pseuds; a.k.a. how to gibber in 5 easy lessons (vol. 2 free with vol. 1)". {Tick}
What no allusions?! No — originality stands on its own merits. Soon, soon, we shall move up into the broad, sunlit uplands, where plots exist. There is no alternative — other than the rantings of the Ma'd — "I have nothing to offer you, but gibber, text and words."
Calm down! Norman is an island, as Chinston Wormhill may have dead — thank you as well to our first Guest Spooker, in honour of whomp we commend this new crolour.
(Unfortunately we're unable to acknowledge your letters, but the cost pode remains (hic)).
Oh, a double braquet; how suckening (siquening?).
Yes!
Affirms itself apparently — and what more can be said? In writing. Of course! No man's land, not a ghost of a chance, beyond the principle of power, the post (age stamp?). What a card! Miss Addressed — Wake!
"Awake my soul a-and with the Son," sang Arthur, feebly, keeping his metaphysics warm. A tempest raged — windy windy! Airy nothing!
The plotline was long and windy, not to say windy. It stretched through a verdant and strange land
{Cuneiform text}
{Simple Chinese ideogram}
{The same simple Chinese ideogram}
[unwibbling povot]
"Blow winds and crack your cheeks. Fishy fishy."
"Unclear, Nuncle Lear." "In flew Ezra."
"Pounds, shillings and pence. BANG!"
Excuse me. To return to the windy windy (vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts!) plotline. We are on an island which may or may not have at one tiime belonged to Prospero. At any rate it is second hand.
— Book! Book book!
There are chickens on the island. It has seven pages. Geronimoo.
No, it's an island. Islands have no pages. Rather, they have — er — palm trees, and sand ampersand woods words, Abominable Spoonman. No, no. Gramophones itself. To no is to know, no? Ha! Bless thy five wits! Tom's acold.
{in red biro} Caramba! Now that's what I call GIBBER (volume LIXV). There's limited ink in that red pen, Arthur thought. "So what's happened to the plot?" It was last spotted heading in a southerly direction. — If anyone has any information, please could they contact 'The Author', c/o The Mind, The Himalayas, where he lives in happy harmony with the Abominable Snowman. "Who said Abominable?" shouted de man in the Nazi uniform. "You vill all die or agree viz my deconstruction polizeis, sorry policies. Nein. Nein."
Textual malfunction due to radical injustice. And should we really hand over the plot to the author? Just like that? He is, as we have already seen, rather tasteless. Perhaps one should enquire more closely into his policies for the future of the text.
That was a Party Political Textuality on behalf of Limited Responsibility
"Fairly windy" said Michael Fishy.
Fish, fash, fosh! Fush & foodles... Arthur picked up a convenient plotline and smashed them all to bits with a broomstick.
Left, right, left, rong, Rongo Starr.
It'sthecustardinthewrazzlethatmakesyougokerfazzle?
"And, dear O, (dear, dear O'y), our tale is nearly taled.
Our tale is nearly stale. Our toll is nearly steel.
The curlew tolks the Salg of prattling dæg."
Also sprach Brandreth, wearing a fluorescently illuminant jumper; "Would the Right, Left, Right, Left, Honourablem Gentlymarsh explode wire (and I mean it) tax (tacks) have/s/d incrooned. Oh shut up."
ATTACK (n.): Used for pinning things on notice burps.
Welcome to page 36. In order anything here to write,
invert yourself in a bouquet of jellé.
"Texty, texty," said the Welsh Himalayas, exploding.
There once was a man from Tibop,
Whose egg-boxes never would flop,
He said "I am mad,
But you haven't been had,
For my brain is a bucket of slop."
(Edward Blear)
"Texty, texty, texty," said Murphy, who was a loony from the planet Sodd. "Manure," (if not flexible flexitime and/nor textible texty-time) — and at that point a great yawning yawnm yawned up from the yawno yawnbag and said:
"Do-be-do-be-do-be-do-be-doo. BANG. Excuse me."
This will not (therefore) have been a DIALOGUE OF COWPATS CHR$(140).
For the chief and sufficient reason, O reader, that it is NOT DIALECTICAL. Or the cowpat, especially the left one. Otherwise we could understand it ≠ x. So here.
{upside down, with the S's mirrored} SOUFFLE DISH
Arthut surveyed the absence of his subjectivity. It was rather dull, and full of part-objects. "I do not seem to be able to distinguish myself from my mother," he said, "Oh bother." That unfortunate lady was deceased, consequently Arthur could not even say whether he himself was alive or dead.
"For in that ƒleep of death what creams may dome, when we have muffled of this chortle soil!"
It was raining cats, hats, bats and even flats. The signifier sank like Oedipus into the sea. "Oh shit," said the author, who did not beat about the bush, in case a lot of birds, or words, or worse, should fall out.
"I think that's rude," said Arthur, and slowly smiled.
"I am I am I am I am I am I am I am I am," he said, quoting Sylvia Plath two and a half times.
"So you keep saying," said the author, defensively. He sang, tastelessly, "Nietzsche NAZI is dead and Paul de Man NAZI is really quite deconstructed!" A moment later, he was struggling under the weight of the phrase "obese elephant", which Arthur had thrown at him accurately, if a little arbitrarily.
{Palimpsestically} SOUFFLE DISH
The floor burst open, and in yawned Mr Gyles Z. Badbreth, the well-known game-show host and member of parlour-game-show host.
Easy on the game-show hosts! Whoa there! Avast!
"Jewellery, jewellery," exclaimed Sir Jimmy Saville OBE DSO BZW KCMBCBG. Somewhere, in the uttermost recesses of the mind, a chicken clucked. "It's all in the mind," confirmed Dr Anthony Clare, "or do you know better?" added Esther Rantzen.
"Enough celebrities," said Arthur, and exited the mind.
"A plague upon the foul fiend! Tom's a-cold." Lonely as a cloud and twice as mauve, Charlie recoiled from the beginning as if always already. "But it did sound vaguely familiar."
"I took you for a joint-stool." No — seven and a quarter.
"How" said the eggs.
"No — how?" Five and a half, apart from the goat.
"And then some," exclaimed the captain. "Ahoy there. Shiver me timbers. Hoist the mainsail. Keel-haul the yard arm."
Enough navalities. "Me too," rejoined Theo, and together they sailed into the sunset. "Oops," they said. "It's a bit hot here."
"SALVATION" is the name of the game (-show host). But all was merry and bliss. (Wedded bliss, Wedded blitz).
In walked Charlie the all-grated Grate Luddleggy Moffo of Mabblewib, shouting for all he was word, leering, blearing, steering and alkali, and all the monks were fission chipmunks. Hahahahahaha
"Stop it!" "you're driving me insane" "Aaaaaaagggh!"
He pushed the REWIND button, and screamed in a voice that could have frozen hydrogen, "Remember this?"
{On a scroll, imitating the appropriate handwritings}
Six eggs, half a kilo of elephants, and a tin of text. Stir well until indemnified. Serves 25, 36 on weekends, 5 in a leap year.
"This will not (therefore) have been a book." Already it is too late. Hurricane Ian MacCaskill is a found poem. There can be no guarantees, and they must be very small elephants. No two numbers are alike and I, too, have lost my umbrella.
Monstrous plagues and bubblery!
{Drawing of a stick person in the lotus position, labelled "Pole". Below them: upward-pointing arrows and whizz lines, labelled "Vedic flying". Above: the word REaLITY in a cloud, labelled "invAlid cApitAl A". To one side: a picture of a book, with THE BOOK on its front cover, and (with the letters individually mirrored) EHT KOOB on its back cover.}
{mirror writing}
,noitcelE eht niw ytraP waL larutaN eht fi, lleW"
".truohgoY agoY ym tae ll'I
(odranoeL)
{mirror writing}
gnitirw fo gninnigeb eht si koob eht fo dne ehT
{mirror writing, also upside-down}
niaga nigeb ,nagenniF
{mirror writing}
{scrawl} ecnoTo .uoyknahT
begin dne eht
at the osla
beginning sI G
A N
R I
AM
R B
A L
F E
£200000000000000000 COULD BE YAWNS!SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS
Rubbish: {three lines of text in a non-existent writing system}
Type BURBLEBURGER for NAFFLE.
Tyre TYRO for RAFFLE.
Go BANG for BANGLE.
Enough now. Back to the plop --->
"That is hispanological, captain," interrupted Captain Hornblower, addressing himself. "We don't want any more of that as we raid the Spanish Main — or is it Mane — or even Maine." And if this were reflected on a national level, it would mean that the UK was completely mad. See fig. 1 for current polls (Poles — ed) (ed who? Ed) on relative madmen. /\
| __________ / \
| | | _____________ / \
| | | / \/ Liz's\
|_______| | / \ new \__
| | |/ \trousers/
| Simon | Geoffrey | Liz | |
| | | / |
|_______|__________|________________/_________|____
But after the visit of Judith, and assorted schoolfriends of Liz, the swingometer™ (Peter Snow) indicates that the situation now looks like this: This could
'TEXT' 'HELLO' 'BOG 'LABOUR' be you
| ___ ) ___ ) OFF' ___ ) ___ (just
| / \ / \ ) / \ / \tear off
| \___/ \___/ __/__ \___/ \___/the form
| | _|_ __\__ | | below
| \_|_/ / | \ / \|/ \|/ and send
| | | | | $5 to
| / \ / \ / \ / \ me ...
|______\________\________________\________\________
Liz Simon British Geoffrey
Rail
backwards
"Aachooptkqw3" lied Mrs Pumblechook.
That is grammatological, birdseye.
"Aranjasquiddle" is a very odd wordseye. Some scientips beloove it behoves from the 14th millenniummiunmummymoomoo BC/BD/AQ. But I disagree, me I say "ningi" in very very very {scrawl} illegible handwriting, "Pap!"
Mr Spock teleported down from the Enterprise. "Glas?" he queried. "That is illogical, Craptain." This format has been was with God and manglewurzle bits of cement drip drip drip he went. None could
{A few words in a non-existent writing system}
(language, Timotei!)
The plot stood up, stood down, won the Election and then strode off in an entirely new dissection. "Sarajevo!" came the cry. "Apple crumble," came the
pie
п nibal!"
Misplaced quotreəг-
г^~/
{dribbles away into the non-existent writing system}
