I was reviewing the manuscript of ‘British Standards’ and wondered whether I’d touched on our PM’s cosy relationship with oligarchs, in my obsession with the famous twins Brexit and Covid. I’m pleased to say I found this, from ‘Tabitha and Thunderer’. Just one verse (though they were originally written as separate poems, based on Mary Robinson’s superb sequence ‘Sappho and Phaon’).
Farewell dead-drops farewell my registry
girls cracking codes farewell
Russian babes longing in golden coves
swapping cases by royal benches at Kew
strings broken across leopard-skin thighs
uncrossed crossing Bo mesmerised by
oligarchs waving ash-tipped cigarettes
Thunderer sinks to the carpet liars spout
schoolboy Greek couched in conch he
licks his stubby fingers tongue fresh
from salty crevices of caviar-devils
pleasured with cocaine their cupped
palms pour his excess off while
Tabitha helps out by eating out
The last line dates the poem to the summer of 2020, though I’m being cruder that Rishi Sunak might have imagined. It’ll do. Here's me reading it today. Slight fuzzy quality in the sound.
I have another
extensive post on ‘Tabitha and Thunderer’ and on Mary Robinson here:
which also
features more images, videos and links!
British Standards. from which ‘Tabitha and Thunderer’ comes, is Book Three of 'The English Strain' called. It is best described here: https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2021/04/transpositions-of-hartley-coleridge-end.html where you will find links to other magazine appearances of parts of the book, where I transpose sonnets by Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and others…
Read about
Book One of ‘The English Strain’, The English Strain here . Parts
of that book appeared in a previous issue of Blackbox Manifold.
Book Two of 'The English Strain', Bad Idea, is talked about here .
You can buy both published books so far, here: Pages:
How to buy The English Strain books one and two together
(robertsheppard.blogspot.com)
The Selected Poems of Mary Robinson is now out from Shearsman – edited by me!
Publisher’s details HERE: Mary Robinson - Selected Poems (shearsman.com)
The publisher's sample of the book may be read here: mary-robinson-selected-poems-sampler.pdf (cdn-website.com)
