[toybulldog]

cheers Pikey

Throw Me Corn, another old rhythm so often re-sampled in dancehall

Larry Marshall

[toybulldog]

Bags of Meat

‘Here’s a fine bag of meat,’
Says the master-auctioneer,
As the timid, quivering steer,
Starting a couple of feet,
At the prod of a drover’s stick,
And trotting lightly and quick,
A ticket stuck on his rump,
Enters with a bewildered jump.

‘Where he’s lived lately, friends,
I’d live till lifetime ends:
They’ve a whole life everyday
Down there in the Vale, have they !
He’d be worth the money to kill
And give away Christmas for goodwill.’

‘Now here’s a heifer – worth more
Than bid, were she bone-poor;
Yet she’s round as a barrel of beer’;
‘She’s a plum,’ said the second auctioneer.

‘Now this young bull – for thirty pound ?
Worth that to manure your ground !’
‘Or to stand,’ chimed the second one,
‘And have his picter done!’

The beast was rapped on the horns and snout
To make him turn about.
‘Well,’ cied a buyer, ‘another crown –
Since I’ve dragged here from Taunton Town!’

‘That calf, she sucked three cows,
Which is not matched for bouse
In the nurseries of high life
By the first-born of a nobleman’s wife !’
The stick falls, meaning, ‘A true tale’s told,’
On the buttock of the creature sold,
And the buyer leans over and snips
His mark on one of the animal’s hips.

Each beast, when driven in,
Looks round at the ring of the bidders there
With a much-amazed reproachful stare,
As at unnatural kin,
For bringing him to a sinister scene
So strange, unhomelike, hungry, mean;
His fate the while suspended between
A butcher, to kill out of hand,
And a farmer, to keep on the land;
One can fancy a tear runs down his face
When the butcher wins, and he’s driven from the place.

Thomas Hardy

[toybulldog]

Days

What are days for ?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days ?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

Philip Larkin

[toybulldog]

‘If I might be an ox’

If I might be an ox,
An ox, a beautiful ox,
Beautiful but stubborn:
The merchant would buy me,
Would buy me and slaughter me,
Would spread my skin,
Would bring me to the market,
The coarse woman would bargain for me,
The beautiful girl would buy me.
She would crush perfumes for me,
I would spend the night rolled up around her,
I would spend the afternoon rolled up around her.
Her husband would say: ‘It is a dead skin’
But I would have her love.

Ethiopian tribal song, translation unknown

[toybulldog]

Law, Like Love

Law, say the gardeners, is the sun,
Law is the one
All gardeners obey
To-morrow, yesterday, to-day.

Law is the wisdom of the old,
The impotent grandfathers feebly scold;
The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
Law is the senses of the young.

Law, says the priest with a priestly look,
Expounding to an unpriestly people,
Law is the words in my priestly book,
Law is my pulpit and my steeple.

Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,
Speaking clearly and most severely,
Law is as I’ve told you before,
Law is as you know I suppose,
Law is but let me explain it once more,
Law is The Law.

Yet law-abiding scholars write:
Law is neither wrong nor right,
Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by times,
Law is the clothes men wear
Anytime, anywhere,
Law is Good-morning and Good-night.

Others say, Law is our Fate;
Others say, Law is our State;
Others say, others say
Law is no more,
Law has gone away.

And always the loud angry crowd,
Very angry and very loud,
Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.

If we, dear, know we know no more
Than they about the Law,
If I no more than you
Know what we should and should not do
Except that all agree
Gladly or miserably
That the Law is
And that all know this
If therefore thinking it absurd
To identify Law with some other word,
Unlike so many men
I cannot say Law is again,
No more than they can we suppress
The universal wish to guess
Or slip out of our own position
Into an unconcerned condition.

Although I can at least confine
Your vanity and mine
To stating timidly
A timid similarity,
We shall boast anyway:
Like love I say.

Like love we don’t know where or why,
Like love we can’t compel or fly,
Like love we often weep,
Like love we seldom keep.

WH Auden

[toybulldog]

Onomatopoeia

[toybulldog]

Thank you Esme

xx

[toybulldog]

Why Birds Follow Spring

the soaring voice of Alton Ellis

[toybulldog]

Annie I’m Not Your Daddy

Kid Creole and the Coconuts

[toybulldog]

Kimble The Nimble

Lee Perry

[Author]

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