Asbury & Asbury

Poetry and Music

Manchester design company Music are smart people with great work. The type who get asked to do covers for Creative Review.

They got in touch over the summer asking if I'd like to write a Corpoetics-style poem to fill a guest slot on the home page of their website.

The only text I had to work with was their client list, which at the time looked something like this:

Allermuir Furniture Manufacturers
Bolton Council Carbon Footprint
Chester Performs
Chester Summer Music Festival
Ctrl.Alt.Shift
D&AD
Flip Flops
Flowerburger Records
Fruit Tree Books
Joly Good TV
Kevin Boniface
Matthew Beardsell Limited
MCFC CSR Report
MCFC Press
MCFC Stadium
Manchester Independent Economic Review
Place Space & Identity
Tamewater Developments
Where Are You? A Postman's Diary
Woodward-Kelly

The resulting verse isn't strictly a 'Corpoetic' as I've taken the liberty of adding some words and generally being looser with the whole thing. For some reason, I imagine it being read aloud by Ian McMillan.

15 wishes

I'd like to eat a flowerburger back to front
in a land where flip-flops leave no footprint.
I'd like to head woodward to water a fruit tree.
I'd like to review an identity
for MCFC, appear tame on TV,
and do joly well at D&AD.
I'd like to sell beards to a man named Matthew
and manage an independent economic review
of a girl called Kelly from Bolton Council.
I'd like to press for a postman's festival
to take place in Chester every summer.
I'd like to become part of the furniture
and have a front seat when Kevin performs
a stadium version of his CSR Report.
I'd like to have my own place and space,
change my name to Allermuir Boniface,
and live in Bolton – but then I'd like to shift
Bolton to nearer where Manchester is.
Given one last wish, I'd probably use it
to turn myself into a piece of Music.

Thanks to Craig and Anthony at Music for the invitation.

Copies of Corpoetics are available for £5 plus p&p, with all proceeds going to the National Literacy Trust.

Limerick with ill-advised choice of rhyme words

There was a young man full of angst
who was permanently on the cusp
of releasing a film
about peeling an orange
but he kept having to go to the toilet.

A trio of triolets

Been practising writing triolets, a gratuitously restrictive poetic form where you stick to a tight rhyme scheme and repeat the first two lines at the end, as well as repeating the first line in the fourth line. At best, they can be quite songlike and memorable. Here are three early efforts.

From here twitternity
The day I died I had no time to tweet
or update my Facebook status.
There is no key to undo or delete
the day I died. (I had no time to tweet
this observation.) Nor is there a cheat
to quit me out of this enforced hiatus.
The day I died I had no time to tweet
or update my Facebook status.

Death.pdf
I shouldn’t have clicked on this pdf,
but I cannot undo what I’ve done.
I can feel the slow approach of death.
I shouldn’t have clicked on this pdf.
A baby somewhere takes a first breath.
Armies clash. Earth circles the sun.
I shouldn’t have clicked on this pdf,
but I cannot undo what I’ve done.

The Self-Googler
I’m going to Google to Google myself
to find out if I’m still around.
I’m going to Facebook and Flickr myself
then go back to Google to Google myself.
I just hope it doesn’t find somebody else
or come back with ‘no matches found’.
I’m going to Google to Google myself
to find out if I’m still around.

Wendy Cope has written better ones, including this.

Lullaby for a dormouse

Thought I’d send this sleepy little poem into the world to mark the news that the decline in population of the dormouse is apparently slowing. It’s taken from Songs for Animals, a collection that we’re aiming to produce in book form some time within the next year. Speaking of which, if you know any good animal illustrators who might enjoy a project like this, let us know.

Lullaby for a dormouse

It’s time to go to sleep now.
The sun is up and the day is young,
but it’s time to go to sleep now.

The clouds are heavy with snow.
A hollow will be your winter home
in the roots of the hazel tree.

Let winter come and have his time –
it’s time to sleep and dream.
The ground will soon be soft with snow.

This summer was the happiest one –
so many little things to be done.
But it’s time to go to sleep now.

The world will wait and winter pass,
the way that winters always do.
Spring will come and make things new.

But it’s time to go to sleep now.
The sun is up and the day is young
and it’s time to go to sleep now.

A poem about lost brands

Had this poem knocking around my head for a while. Not sure if it’s finished yet. I think it is. (But feel free to suggest some more verses.)

What if

What if Cif was Jif?
What if Olay was Ulay?
What if Morrisons was Safeway?
What if C was still &A? 

What if Treets were still sweets?
What's with Immac and Veet?
What if Fruits were still Opal?
Whither Constantinople?

Wasn't there a shop once
called What Everyone Wants?
Where did everyone go?
How come Do It All don't?

What if Liptons lived on?
Where's Radion gone?
Why did Boo take a bow?
Where's our Principles now?

What of Kwiksave and Cullens
and Dolcis and Dillons?
And Marathon bars?
Is Our Price still ours?

Why did Rumbelows close?
What if nobody knows?

Thanks to Paolo Margari for the pic.