Silly Poetry Friday 2

Goodness gracious gosh golly willikins! Is it Friday already? Time for another silly poem, folks! The weekend's almost here, so get a nice cuppa tea, sit yourself down and put on your very best silly hat.

This poem comes to you from the quirky and queer author and illustrator Mervyn Peake. You may know the man from his Gormenghast books, but did you know that he also wrote nonsense verse? Well, he did, and here's one of 'em:

CROWN ME WITH HAIRPINS

Crown me with hairpins intertwined
Into a wreath each hairpin lined
With plush that only spinsters find
At night beneath huge sofas where
The feathers, wool and straw and hair
Bulge through a lining old as time
And secret as a beldam's lair
Of ghostly grime.

Tired aunts who live on sphagnum moss
Are quite the best to ask, because
They are less likely to get cross
Than those less ancient ones who still
Peer coyly from the window-sill,
Until their seventieth year.
Go find an old and tired one,
Secure the hairpin; then have done
With your relations, dear.

Illustration by Mervyn Peake.

Comments

[Beth]

I love these lines!

"And secret as a beldham's lair
Of ghostly grime..."

[cipriano]

Terrific little poem!
I really loved reading Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy. I want to re-read it one day, actually.
His is sort of a sad life, if one is to ever read about it. The man had an incredibly wild imagination... if you ever want to disappear in the dimlit maze-like tunnels of a castle filled with forebode-ment, read the Gormenghast books.
-- Cip

[Patricia]

Cip, I've tried to read those books so many times, but I just couldn't get through them. I found them to be too dark and also too similar to fantasy genre books, which just are not my cup of tea. But I love Peake's nonsense, for sure!

Beth, I was immediately drawn to the word 'beldham' when I first read the poem. I kept thinking bedlam, but I knew it was something different, which of course, it is:

'An old woman, especially one who is considered ugly'.

Of course, a beldham could find herself in Bedlam...

[Heather (errantdreams)]

That's awesome! Not just silly; it has a very plush and twining feel.

[Alex Nick]

A little too "hairpinned" if you ask me, it is poetry just because it HAS to be poetry, not because it WANTS to be poetry. The text I just read does not inspire anything to me, makes me feel cold inside, this is not poetry, it's just someone playing with complicated words.

[Patricia]

Alex, you might want to lighten up and reread the title of this category of posting.

[Dorky Dad]

Sphagnum moss? Gosh, am I glad we live in a time when we're not expected to know what the heck that is.

[Alex Nick]

That is only my personal opinion, I do not want to impose my point of view to anyone, it's just that I don't believe it's poetry. For me, it's just a bunch of words poorly managed.

[Patricia]

Alex you might want to take some time and read the works of some well-known nonsense poets like Edward Lear, Odgen Nash and Lewis Carroll. You may find that their work too, is just a bunch of words, arranged for amusement and fun. That's why it's called nonsense poetry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonsense_verse