On the eve of my fortieth birthday 
I sat on the porch having a smoke 
when out of the blue a man and a camel 
happened by. Neither uttered a sound 
at first, but as they drifted up the street 
and out of town the two of them began to sing. 
Yet what they sang is still a mystery to me— 
the words were indistinct and the tune 
too ornamental to recall. Into the desert 
they went and as they went their voices 
rose as one above the sifting sound 
of windblown sand. The wonder of their singing, 
its elusive blend of man and camel, seemed 
an ideal image for all uncommon couples. 
Was this the night that I had waited for 
so long? I wanted to believe it was, 
but just as they were vanishing, the man 
and camel ceased to sing, and galloped 
back to town. They stood before my porch, 
staring up at me with beady eyes, and said: 
"You ruined it. You ruined it forever."

Man and Camel by Mark Strand, read by Connor Thompson

One afternoon the last week in April
Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet
One-half turn and it sticks in a stump.
He recalls the hatchet-head
Without a handle, in the shop
And go gets it, and wants it for his own.
A broken-off axe handle behind the door
Is long enough for a hatchet,
We cut it to length and take it
With the hatchet head
And working hatchet, to the wood block.
There I begin to shape the old handle
With the hatchet, and the phrase
First learned from Ezra Pound
Rings in my ears!
"When making an axe handle
     the pattem is not far off."
And I say this to Kai
"Look: We'll shape the handle
By checking the handle
Of the axe we cut with-"
And he sees. And I hear it again:
It's in Lu Ji's Wen Fu, fourth century 
A.D. "Essay on Literature"-in the 
Preface: "In making the handle Of an axe
By cutting wood with an axe 
The model is indeed near at hand.-
My teacher Shih-hsiang Chen 
Translated that and taught it years ago
And I see: Pound was an axe,
Chen was an axe, I am an axe 
And my son a handle, soon 
To be shaping again, model 
And tool, craft of culture,
How we go on.

Axe Handles by Gary Snyder, read by Connor Thompson

Note: Hoshang was one of my professors at the University of Hyderabad. I never sat for his exam, but I did join the Fairy Queen in the first Hyderabad Pride March. 

Greets me in his pyjamas
Distils venom against feku profs
And is stilled
His wife bribes me with lunch
In exchange for gossip
I oblige: am fulfilled
The boy can't read
The girl can't spell
(at 3 she should or she won't sell)
The boy gets kicked
The girl gets kissed
Grandma's gone to grandpa
Who can't see well
(Nor can anyone for three generations)
Wife loves truffle
I buy cake
For friendship's sake
I'm treated to Dvorak...
A Mme Prof and Vice Prinicipal drop in
For taping and baiting
-- I drop out.

The Professor by Hoshang Merchant, read by Connor Thompson

1
'Up, down, good, bad,' said
the man with the tubes
up his nose, ' there's lots
of variety…
However, notions
of balance between
extremes of fortune
are stupid—or at
best unobservant.'
He watched as the nurse
fed pellets into
the green nozzle that
stuck from his side. 'Mm,'
said the man. ' Good. Yum.
(Next time more basil…)
When a long-desired
baby is born, what
joy! More happiness
than we find in sex,
more than we take in
success, revenge, or
wealth. But should the same
infant die, would you
measure the horror
on the same rule? Grief
weighs down the seesaw;
joy cannot budge it.'

2
'When I was nineteen,
I told a thirty-
year-old man what a
fool I had been when
I was seventeen.
'We were always,' he
said glancing down, 'a
fool two years ago.''

3
The man with the tubes
up his nostrils spoke
carefully: 'I don't
regret what I did,
but that I claimed I
did the opposite.
If I was faithless
or treacherous and
cowardly, I had
my reasons—but I
regret that I called
myself loyal, brave,
and honorable.'

4
'Of all illusions,'
said the man with the
tubes up his nostrils,
IVs, catheter,
and feeding nozzle,
'the silliest one
was hardest to lose.
For years I supposed
that after climbing
exhaustedly up
with pitons and ropes,
I would arrive at
last on the plateau
of walking-level-
forever-among-
moss-with-red -blossoms.
But of course, of course:
A continual
climbing is the one
form of arrival
we ever come to—
unless we suppose
that the wished-for height
and house of desire
is tubes up the nose.' 

Tubes by Donald Hall, read by Connor Thompson

because you’re classically trained.
I’m ugly because I associate piano wire with strangulation.

You’re beautiful because you stop to read the cards in newsagents’ windows about lost cats and missing dogs.
I’m ugly because of what I did to that jellyfish with a lolly-stick and a big stone.

You’re beautiful because for you, politeness is instinctive, not a marketing campaign
I’m ugly because desperation is impossible to hide.

Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.

You’re beautiful because you believe in coincidence and the power of thought.
I’m ugly because I proved God to be a mathematical impossibility.

You’re beautiful because you prefer home-made soup to the packet stuff.
I’m ugly because once, at a dinner party,
I defended the aristocracy and wasn’t even drunk.

You’re beautiful because you can’t work the remote control.
I’m ugly because of satellite television and twenty-four hour rolling news.

Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.

You’re beautiful because you cry at weddings as well as funerals.
I’m ugly because I think of children as another species from a different world.

You’re beautiful because you look great in any colour including red.
I’m ugly because I think shopping is strictly for the acquisition of material goods.

You’re beautiful because when you were born, undiscovered planets
lined up to peep over the rim of your cradle and lay gifts of gravity and light
at your miniature feet.
I’m ugly for saying ‘love at first sight’ is another form of mistaken identity,
and that the most human of all responses is to gloat.

Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.

You’re beautiful because you’ve never seen the inside of a car-wash.
I’m ugly because I always ask for a receipt.

You’re beautiful for sending a box of shoes to the third world.
I’m ugly because I remember the telephone of ex-girlfriends
and the year Schubert was born.

You’re beautiful because you sponsored a parrot in a zoo.
I’m ugly because when I sigh it’s like the slow collapse of a circus tent.

Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.

You’re beautiful because you can point at a man in a uniform and laugh.
I’m ugly because I was a police informer in a previous life.

You’re beautiful because you drink a litre of water and eat three pieces of fruit a day.
I’m ugly for taking the line that a meal without meat is a beautiful woman with one eye.

You’re beautiful because you don’t see love as a competition and you know how to lose.
I’m ugly because I kissed the FA Cup and then held it up to the crowd.

You’re beautiful because of a single buttercup in the top buttonhole of your cardigan.
I’m ugly because I said the World’s Strongest Woman was a muscleman in a dress.

You’re beautiful because you couldn’t live in a lighthouse.
I’m ugly for making hand-shadows in front of the giant bulb, so when they look up,
the captains of vessels in distress see the ears of a rabbit, or the eye of a fox, or the legs of a galloping black horse.

Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.

Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.

You're Beautiful by Simon Armitage, read by Connor Thompson


Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,   
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.

Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks—
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.   
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.

The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,   
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me   
To the hills’ northern face, and the face is orange rock   
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space   
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths   
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.


Blackberrying by Sylvia Plath, read by Connor Thompson

 King Oliver of New Orleans
         has kicked the bucket, but he left behind
              old Satchmo with his red-hot horn
                to syncopate the heart and mind.
                  The honky-tonks in Storyville
       have turned to ashes, have turned to dust,
                 but old Satchmo is still around
         like Uncle Sam’s IN GOD WE TRUST.
 
               Where, oh, where is Bessie Smith,
       with her heart as big as the blues of truth?
           Where, oh, where is Mister Jelly Roll,
           with his Cadillac and diamond tooth?
              Where, oh, where is Papa Handy
  With his blue notes a-dragging from bar to bar?
       Where, oh where is bulletproof Leadbelly
          with his tall tales and 12-string guitar?
 
                                Old Hip Cats,
              when you sang and played the blues
                    the night Satchmo was born,
       did you know hypodermic needles in Rome
         couldn’t hoodoo him away from his horn?
          Wyatt Earp’s legend, John Henry’s, too,
              is a dare and a bet to old Satchmo
  when his groovy blues put headlines in the news
            from the Gold Coast to cold Moscow.
 
                                 Old Satchmo’s
    gravelly voice and tapping foot and crazy notes
                             set my soul on fire.
                                   If I climbed
           the seventy-seven steps of the Seventh
  Heaven, Satchmo’s high C would carry me higher!
         Are you hip to this, Harlem? Are you hip?
              On Judgment Day, Gabriel will say
                       after he blows his horn:
   “I’d be the greatest trumpeter in the Universe
          if old Satchmo had never been born!”

Satchmo by Melvin B. Tolson, read by Connor Thompson


In the naked bed, in Plato’s cave,
Reflected headlights slowly slid the wall,   
Carpenters hammered under the shaded window,   
Wind troubled the window curtains all night long,   
A fleet of trucks strained uphill, grinding,   
Their freights covered, as usual.
The ceiling lightened again, the slanting diagram   
Slid slowly forth.
                            Hearing the milkman’s chop,   
His striving up the stair, the bottle’s chink,   
I rose from bed, lit a cigarette,
And walked to the window. The stony street   
Displayed the stillness in which buildings stand,   
The street-lamp’s vigil and the horse’s patience.   
The winter sky’s pure capital
Turned me back to bed with exhausted eyes.

Strangeness grew in the motionless air. The loose   
Film grayed. Shaking wagons, hooves’ waterfalls,   
Sounded far off, increasing, louder and nearer.   
A car coughed, starting. Morning, softly   
Melting the air, lifted the half-covered chair   
From underseas, kindled the looking-glass,   
Distinguished the dresser and the white wall.   
The bird called tentatively, whistled, called,   
Bubbled and whistled, so! Perplexed, still wet   
With sleep, affectionate, hungry and cold. So, so,   
O son of man, the ignorant night, the travail   
Of early morning, the mystery of beginning   
Again and again,
                         while History is unforgiven.


In the Naked Bed, in Plato’s Cave by Delmore Schwartz, read by Connor Thompson


Felicity the healer isn’t young
And you don’t look him up unless you need him.   
Clown’s eyes, Pope’s nose, a mouth for dirty stories,   
He made his bundle in the Great Depression

And now, a jovial immigrant success
In baggy pinstripes, he winks and wheezes gossip,   
Village stories that could lift your hair
Or lance a boil; the small town dirt, the dope,

The fishy deals and incestuous combinations,   
The husband and the wife of his wife’s brother,   
The hospital contract, the certificate ...   
A realist and hardy omnivore,

He strolls the jetties when the month is right   
With a knife and lemons in his pocket, after   
Live mussels from among the smelly rocks,   
Preventative of impotence and goitre.

And as though the sight of tissue healing crooked   
Pleased him, like the ocean’s vaginal taste,   
He’ll stitch your thumb up so it shows for life.   
And where he once was the only quack in town

We all have heard his half-lame joke, the one   
About the operation that succeeded,
The tangy line that keeps that clever eye   
So merry in the punchinello face.


Doctor Frolic by Robert Pinsky, read by Connor Thompson

Recording poetry for my own personal amusement

Baby C Money

Popular tracks