Come on Everybody Read online

  ADRIAN MITCHELL

  COME ON EVERYBODY

  POEMS 1953-2008

  Come On Everybody brings together poems from a dozen collections published by Adrian Mitchell over five decades, from Poems (1964) to Tell Me Lies (2008).

  His poetry’s simplicity, clarity, passion and humour show his allegiance to a vital, popular tradition embracing William Blake as well as the ballads and the blues. His most nakedly political poems – about war, Vietnam, prisons and racism – became part of the folklore of the Left, sung and recited at demonstrations and mass rallies. His childlike questioning was a constant reminder from the 60s onwards that poetry is first and foremost an assertion of the human spirit.

  A pacifist prophet who remained true to his heartfelt beliefs, Mitchell reported back for over half a century from a world blighted by war, compromise, double-talk and pragmatism without losing his innocence, integrity and impish sense of humour. Angela Carter described him as a ‘joyous, acrid and demotic tumbling lyricist Pied Piper determinedly singing us away from catastrophe’.

  ‘He has the innocence of his own experience…real inner freedom and the courage of his own music. Among all the voices of the Court, a voice as welcome as Lear’s fool… Humour that can stick deep and stay funny’

  – Ted Hughes.

  ‘Nobody else writes like him. And it is becoming more and more evident that his achievement endures…Nobody has ever departed with such language for such a destination’

  – John Berger.

  ‘Explosive energy, well-directed rage, undimmed idealism, a tremendous sense of how poetry can speak directly, and an innocence which is believable because it is wise’

  – Andrew Motion.

  ‘This is Adrian Mitchell, the British Mayakovsky’

  – Kenneth Tynan.

  Cover picture & lettering by Ralph Steadman

  Most people ignore most poetry

  because

  most poetry ignores most people

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Come On Everybody is a retrospective of Adrian Mitchell’s poetry drawn from these books, all published by Bloodaxe Books: Heart on the Left: Poems 1953-1984 (1997), Blue Coffee: Poems 1985-1996 (1996), All Shook Up: Poems 1997-2000 (2000), The Shadow Knows: Poems 2000-2004 (2004), and the posthumously published Tell Me Lies: Poems 2005-2008 (2009). Heart on the Left was itself a retrospective drawn from Poems (1964), Out Loud (1968), Ride the Nightmare (1971) and The Apeman Cometh (1975), published by Cape, and For Beauty Douglas: Collected Poems 1953-1979 (1982), On the Beach at Cambridge (1984) and Love Songs of World War Three (1989), published by Allison & Busby. The final poem, ‘My Literary Career So Far’, is previously unpublished. The poems are arranged in thematic sections which follow Adrian Mitchell’s own groupings in the original collections; the selection was made by Neil Astley with Celia Mitchell.

  EDUCATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY WARNING

  None of the work in this or any other of my books or plays is to be used in connection with any examination or test whatsoever. If you like a poem of mine, learn it, recite it, sing it or dance it – wherever you happen to be. But don’t force anyone to study it or vivisect it or write a well-planned and tedious essay about it. This is the first step in The Shadow Poet Laureate’s scheme to destroy the examination systems of the world, which have made true education almost impossible. Free the teachers and the children!

  The Shadow reminds all students who are not happy that no law compels them to attend school – so long as it can be proved that they are being educated satisfactorily. (Contact Education Otherwise for information and help.) It is very hard for teachers and children to be happy in overcrowded schools. The Shadow would ask you to consider the ideal size for a school class. Most teachers agree with me that it would be about twelve. Even Jesus couldn’t manage thirteen.

  ADRIAN MITCHELL

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  from HEART ON THE LEFT Poems 1953-1984

  MY FAVOURITE ARCHIPELAGO

  To You

  Icarus Schmicarus

  C’mon Everybody

  To Nye Bevan Despite His Change of Heart

  I Tried, I Really Tried

  Nostalgia – Now Threepence Off

  So Don’t Feed Your Dog Ordinary Meat, Feed Him Pal…

  Time and Motion Study

  Ode to Money

  South Kensington Is Much Nicer

  Reply to a Canvasser

  Look at the View

  The Observer

  Song About Mary

  We Call Them Subnormal Children

  In Other Words, Hold My Head

  A Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the Burial Party

  Old Age Report

  Now We Are Sick

  Involvement

  Divide and Rule for as Long as You Can

  The Ballad of Sally Hit-and-Run

  Dear Sir

  English Scene

  Under Photographs of Two Party Leaders, Smiling

  Saw It in the Papers

  Ten Ways to Avoid Lending Your Wheelbarrow to Anybody

  Vroomph! or The Popular Elastic Waist

  Leaflets

  The Obliterating Prizes

  Ode to Enoch Powell

  The Blackboard

  Question Time in Ireland

  The Savage Average

  Loose Leaf Poem

  Back in the Playground Blues

  The Swan

  Farm Animals

  On the Verses Entitled ‘Farm Animals’

  Commuting the Wrong Way Round Early Morning

  For My Son

  Four Sorry Lines

  Action and Reaction Blues

  Screws and Saints

  New Skipping Rhymes

  Staying Awake

  Bring Out Your Nonsense

  Give It to Me Ghostly

  Bury My Bones with an Eddy Merckx

  Remember Red Lion Square?

  Ode to Her

  On the Beach at Cambridge

  RELIGION, ROYALTY AND THE ARTS

  The Liberal Christ Gives a Press Conference

  Miserable Sinners

  Sunday Poem

  Quite Apart from the Holy Ghost

  The Eggs o’ God

  ROYAL POEMS

  Another Prince Is Born

  Lying in State

  Poem on the Occasion of the Return of Her Majesty the Queen from Canada

  My Shy Di in Newspaperland

  THE ARTS

  Goodbye

  Jimmy Giuffre Plays ‘The Easy Way’

  Buddy Bolden

  Bessie Smith in Yorkshire

  What to Do if You Meet Nijinsky

  To the Statues in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey

  Crusoe Dying in England

  Whitman on Wheels

  Canine Canto

  Thank You Dick Gregory

  Lullaby for William Blake

  For David Mercer

  Hear the Voice of the Critic

  The Ballad of the Death of Aeschylus

  Gaston the Peasant

  Lady Macbeth in the Saloon Bar Afterwards

  To the Organisers of a Poetry Reading by Hugh MacDiarmid

  Private Transport

  What the Mermaid Told Me

  A Blessing for Kenneth Patchen’s Grave

  Discovery

  There Are Not Enough of Us

  Oscar Wilde in Flight

  John Keats Eats His Porridge

  Forster the Flying Fish

  The Oxford Hysteria of English Poetry

  What Is Poetry?

  Autumnobile

  Land of Dopes and Loonies

  To a Critic

  A
Sunset Cloud Procession Passing Ralph Steadman’s House

  Ode to George Melly

  For the Eightieth Birthday of Hoagy Carmichael

  Happy Fiftieth Deathbed

  The Call

  Lament for the Welsh Makers

  LOVE, THE APEMAN, CURSES, BLESSINGS AND FRIENDS

  Good Day

  Celia Celia

  Footnotes on Celia Celia

  September Love Poem

  All Fool’s Day

  Riddle

  Take Stalk Between Teeth…

  Top-Notch Erotic Moment Thank You

  Coming Back

  The Angels in Our Heads

  Out

  To a Godly Man

  Hello Adrian

  THE COLLECTED WORKS OF APEMAN MUDGEON

  Apeman Keep Thinking It’s Wednesday

  The Apeman Who Hated Snakes

  The Apeman’s Hairy Body Song

  Apeman Gives a Poetry Reading

  Apeman as Tourist Guide

  The Apeman’s Motives

  Confession

  Self-Congratulating, Self-Deprecating, Auto-Destructive Blues

  I Passed for Sane

  Sometimes I Feel Like a Childless Mother

  The Institution

  A Slow Boat to Trafalgar

  A Machine That Makes Love…

  Toy Stone

  Unfulfilled Suicide Note

  And Some Lemonade Too

  It’s a Clean Machine

  The Sun Likes Me

  Self Critic

  Adrian Mitchell’s Famous Weak Bladder Blues

  A Ballad of Human Nature

  This Friend

  Birthdays

  The Only Electrical Crystal Ball…

  My Dog Eats Nuts Too

  A Spell to Make a Good Time Last

  A Spell to Make a Bad Hour Pass

  A Curse on My Former Bank Manager

  A Song for Jerry Slattery and His Family

  Funnyhouse of a Negro

  A Curse Against Intruders

  For Gordon Snell – My Best, First and Finest Friend – on His Fiftieth Birthday

  My Parents

  Taming a Wild Garden

  One More Customer Satisfied

  To My Friends, on My Fiftieth Birthday

  How to Be Extremely Saintly, Rarefied and Moonly

  Loony Prunes

  To Michael Bell

  Beattie Is Three

  SONGS FROM SOME OF THE SHOWS

  Gardening

  The Violent God

  Calypso’s Song to Ulysses

  The Children of Blake

  Happy Birthday William Blake

  Poetry

  The Tribe

  Medical

  Ride the Nightmare

  A Song of Liberation

  The Widow’s Song

  The Truth

  Wash Your Hands

  Lament for the Jazz Makers

  Gather Together

  The Pregnant Woman’s Song

  Jake’s Amazing Suit

  Secret Country

  Cardboard Rowing Boat

  OUR BLUE PLANET

  The Castaways or Vote For Caliban

  Quit Stalling, Call in Stalin

  Two Good Things

  Remember Suez?

  Written During the Night Waiting for the Dawn

  Briefing

  Ballade of Beans

  From Rich Uneasy America to My Friend Christopher Logue

  Official Announcement

  Let Me Tell You the Third World War Is Going to Separate the Men…

  Programme for an Emergency

  Naming the Dead

  Fifteen Million Plastic Bags

  Order Me a Transparent Coffin and Dig My Crazy Grave

  A Child Is Singing

  The Dust

  Veteran with a Head Wound

  Life on the Overkill Escalator

  You Get Used to It

  Good Question

  Byron Is One of the Dancers

  One Question About Amsterdam

  To the Silent Majority

  The Dichotomy Between the Collapse of Civilisation and Making Money

  Night Lines in a Peaceful Farmhouse

  How to Kill Cuba

  Family Planning

  Open Day at Porton

  Norman Morrison

  Would You Mind Signing This Receipt?

  For Rachel: Christmas 1965

  Thinks: I’ll Finish These Gooks…

  To a Russian Soldier in Prague

  Goodbye Richard Nixon

  Ceasefire

  To Whom It May Concern (Tell Me Lies about Vietnam)

  Peace Is Milk

  A Tourist Guide to England

  Sorry Bout That

  Victor Jara of Chile

  Astrid-Anna

  Activities of an East and West Dissident Blues

  Carol During the Falklands Experience

  Chile in Chains

  A Prayer for the Rulers of this World

  One Bad Word

  from BLUE COFFEE Poems 1985-1996

  YES

  A Puppy Called Puberty

  A Dog Called Elderly

  Questionnaire

  Yes

  Golo, the Gloomy Goalkeeper

  Blood and Oil

  Millennium Countdown

  Trying Hard To Be Normal

  Or

  Cutting It Up

  THE HAIRY ARTS

  The Olchfa Reading

  Booze and Bards

  Poet

  Poetry and Knitting

  Explanation

  The Wilder Poetry of Tomorrow

  Hot Pursuit

  Moondog

  Deep Purple Wine

  Parade

  Edward Hopper

  Mayakovsky and the Sun

  The Perils of Reading Fiction

  THE HAIRY ARTS

  Dart River Bed

  That June

  Winter Listening

  Winter Night in Aldeburgh

  The Monster’s Dream

  A Living Monument

  Bird Dreaming

  Sausage Cat

  Epitaph for a Golden Retriever

  For Golden Ella

  Elegy for Number Ten

  The Meaningtime

  Understanding the Rain

  A Cheetah, Hunting

  Here Come the Bears

  The Elephant

  Elephant Eternity

  JOIN THE POETRY AND SEE THE WORLD

  Blue Coffee

  Vauxhall Velvet

  By the Waters of Liverpool

  I Am Tourist

  March in Vienna

  London in March

  The Postman’s Palace

  Lerici, the Bay, Early on Saturday, May

  Peace Memories of Sarajevo

  For My Friends in Georgia

  When the Government

  The Boy Who Danced with a Tank

  Sweet Point Five Per Cent

  Ten Holes for a Soldier

  YOUNG AND OLD

  My Father and Mother or Why I Began to Hate War

  Rainbow Woods

  The Bully

  To the Sadists of My Childhood

  After Reading Hans Christian Andersen

  As for the Fear of Going Mad

  Grandfather’s Footsteps

  The Sound of Someone Walking

  Just a Little Bit Older

  Keep Right on to the End of the Bottle

  Ode to the Skull

  My Orchard

  Poem in Portugal

  An Ode to Dust

  Mid-air

  Give Me Time – Autumn Is at the Gates

  WAY OUT YONDER

  Two Anti-Environmental Poems by Volcano Jones

  Criminal Justice for Crying Out Loud – A Rant

  Full English Breakfast

  Moving Poem

  Stuck Together Song

  O Captain! My Captain! Our Fearful Trip Is Done

  Icarus Talki
ng to His Dad

  If You’re Lookin’ for Trouble You’ve Come to the Wrong Place

  FOR LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP

  My Father’s Land

  A Late Elegy for Jock Mitchell

  Goodnight, Stevie

  Brightness of Brightness

  Maybe Maytime

  Sometimes Awake

  Thank You for All the Years We’ve Had…

  An Open Window

  Happy Breakfast, Hannah, on Your Eighteenth Birthday

  A Flying Song

  Reaching for the Light

  Stufferation

  Silence

  BOTY

  Boty Goodwin

  The Forest and the Lake

  A Flower for Boty

  Good Luck Message to Boty Before Her Finals at Cal Arts

  Telephone

  Every Day

  For Boty

  Especially When It Snows

  from ALL SHOOK UP Poems 1997-2000

  THE YEARS SPEED BY

  A Year Passes, as Years Do

  Life Is a Walk Across a Field

  UNDER NEW LABOUR

  That Feeling

  We Bomb Tonight

  Education Education Education

  The Druggards

  Go Well

  Shaven Heads

  Walldream

  Jesus Poems

  THE CARNIVAL OF VENUS

  Asymmetrical Love Song

  Valances

  Away

  A Lucky Family

  It Still Goes On

  The Arrangements

  Where Are They Now?

  That About Sums It Up

  Swiss Kissing

  Safe Sex Swiss Kissing

  My Friend the Talking Elevator of Tokyo

  Love in Flames

  Hospitality

  ON THE ARTSAPELAGO

  Poetry Is Not a Beauty Contest

  If Digest

  Desiderata Digest

  If I Dare You, If I Double-Dare You

  To a Helpful Critic

  This Be the Worst

  from Nine Ways of Looking at Ted Hughes

  Cool / Hip

  New Movie Regulations

  AUTOBICYCLE

  All Shook Up

  In My Two Small Fists

  The Mitchellesque Lineman

  If Not, Sniff Not

  Age 65 Bus Pass

  Sorry Stuff

  Student

  Wishing

  The Poet Inside

  Not Much of a Muchness

  Lighting Candles for Boty

  February 12th, 1996

  The Unbroken Heart

  Advertising Will Eat the World

  On the Deadophone

  Apart from My Day Job