The Waste Land: Five Limericks [by Wendy Cope]

The Waste Land: Five Limericks

I

In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyantes distress me,
Commuters depress me--
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.

II

She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions--
Bad as Albert and Lil--what a pair!

III

The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep--
A typist is laid,
A record is played--
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.

IV

A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business--the lot,
Which is no surprise,
Since he'd met his demise
And been left in the ocean to rot.

V

No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,
Then thunder, a shower of quotes
From the Sanskrit and Dante.
Da. Damyata. Shantih.
I hope you'll make sense of the notes.

-- Wendy Cope

Comments

[Bernard England]

Perfect timing: Nicholson Baker makes much of Wendy Cope -- as well he should -- in his ballyhooed new novel "The Anthologist."

[Don Share]

“Four Quartets” Revisited
by Belle Randall

On opening a long unopened book,
what odor rises from the parting pages,
what genie is released, what dark spell broken,
as if some spirit trapped inside for ages,

By this hinge swung open were set free?
My father’s hand has jotted in the margins
its own blunt text of what must be
lecture notes, and planted his place marker

Like a flag among “The Dry Salvages”—
a UC “schedule card,” a blank
grid for weekly classes, and on the back,
O fees and late fees time alone assuages—

We know the longhand’s labored look
was mine, but why that child should scrawl
a phrase so apt for now’s beyond recall:
on opening a long unopened book.

Source: Poetry magazine (September 2009)

[DL]

Don, This is terrific. Thank you! May I post it on the blog (not as just a comment but as a feature)? Will credit the magazine, of course. I don't have the issue, but would like to run the contributor's note and would be grateful for it.