Poem: A Defense Of Moderation

The well-mannered man, of high-etiquette born,
May see in the mirror morality’s form
And not merely ornaments gaudily worn.

At a feast such as this, ’twas an honor to dine,
But I’ll have no more capon nor mutton, nor wine,
And as for dessert, I shall have to decline.

For temperance decries the unbound appetite,
So I’ll push back my plate to Good Breeding’s delight,
And please, my good man, only one fist tonight.

Only one fist tonight.  One’s enough for a king,
For to stuff oneself so’s an indelicate thing.
Only one, gently done, and do take off your ring.

I believe to demand any more as a guest
Strikes one as crudely ham-handed, at best.
Come, come, only one? Then we’ll give it a rest.

I graciously thank you, but only one fist.
Go light on the butter, and stop at the wrist.
Just where the fist meets the wrist.  I insist.

It’s quite the finale!  Enough is enough.
You’re right up my alley, but really, I’m stuffed.
There are pygmies in Borneo who starve in the buff.

See! The night has grown long, and I fear I must leave,
Tho’ I know you’ve a smatt’ring of tricks up your sleeve.
Leave the rest for your dog.  He looks thin.  And bereaved.

Poem: His Great Undoing

(A sort of Sampson and Delilah?)

Cried Samuel McGee to Delia his wife,

“Thou ornery tart, lay off with the knife,

For you’ll not be a-trimming my great gnarly bush, 

For the bush makes a man, and a man you’ll not push.  

I’ve an acre of thicket, that spreads o’er me nubs.

I’ve a blackforest ham that looms in the shrubs.

And if ya don’t like it, there’s plenty who do,

Ya shrew of a woman, ya vex me anew!”

Quoth Delia his wife, “Go off with ya, then,

To your whore in the town, if she’ll have you again.

It’s too great a bush! It clogs at my throat,

I have to drop breadcrumbs to find me way out.

It’s musty and mildy and reeking of skunk.

It’s seepy and weepy and matted with spunk.

Yet atop your dim head, you be  bald as an egg.

If ya walked upside down, I might take you to bed.”

“Ya hateful old bitch!” cried Samuel McGee.

Your wish is my oath, and I’ll rid you of me.”

And he dashed to the stable to saddle his mare,

But she pinched as he turned, and procured but a hair,

A single black hair, from his backside that fled

And she pinned the lone hair to the foot of her bed.

Unknowing, he rode to his lass in the town.

Every furlong he passed was a furlong unwound.

And reaching his mark, he sprang through the door,

“Ahoy, little wench, aye, ya saucy young whore,

I’ve a hogshead for thee, and a hectare about!”

And he pulled down his breaches, but what petered out

But a wee shrunken piglet, pink, nude, and blind

Blinked at the lady. And the lady declined.

“Get your bald little wiggler on back to your mate.

If it’s nudeness I craved, then I’d straddle your pate.”

So humbled, he mounted his dutiful mare

And plodded on home while he gathered his hair

In a great twining spool o’er meadow and heath,

Till he stood before Delia, a-flossing her teeth.

“So soon are you back? You look a might thin.”

And she put up the back of her hair with the pin.

And seizing his bundle, she rose from the bed,

And she plopped the great bush on his sorrowful head.

“Much better!” cried she, “there’s my blackforest ham!

Now get in this bed, you great fool of a man!”

Poem: A-Cunting We Shall Gae

This poem I did not write; rather, I discovered it amidst my family's archives.  It was written by my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather Ignatius Loyola Holmes, in the year 1227, somewhere in Scotland.  As you can see, it is written in the Anglo-High-Middle-Germanic-Descending-Derivative dialect, but I'm certain you can follow along.

A-Cunting We Shall Gae

O, will ye gae a-cunting, lad,

Along the cuntly shore?

For cunting have I ganged the dae,

I cannae cunt nae more.

But take ye up thy nonad rood

And beat yon quim bush nigh,

And plunge thy mandy potinkins deep

Till doon they cuntly lie.

Till doon they cuntly lie, me lad,

With great and fulsome cream,

For cunting is as cunting does,

Whate’re that cunting means.

But if a maid thou lovest,

Piss thyself nae to her face.

Piss not the shower golden-hued

That reeks of great disgrace.

What’s more, it burns thine eyes so well,

A fire a-hot as sin.

I know, for once I blew a yak.

(I’ll not do that again.)

And let us not e’er speak of Sanchez,

Dirty ‘neath the nose.

Why any man would smirch one so

I’m sure I’ll ne’er know.

And ne’er go a-gerbelin’, son,

What’s that shite all about.

If any maid requires that,

Ya slip rod stewart out.

There’s some sick and twisty perverts ‘bout,

And that you’ll learn ‘ere long.

So wrap that shite in lambskin, else

The plague will eat your dong.

Welcome all!

Cheers! Welcome to this, the first official blog of me, Arthur Greenleaf Holmes, sixteenth century and, until recently, anonymous poet. I should like to begin by thanking Nigel Bunshaft for discovering my cache of writings that I'd hidden beneath the floor of my cottage. It took nearly 450 years to be discovered, but who's complaining? A toast to you, Bunshaft! May you die with your pants around your ankles!

Now then. Hmm? What's that? You wish to know my story? Well, you lucky, lucky bastards, I will be only too charmed to tell thee. But before we begin this journey, let me address this palpable discomforture permeating the room. You are no doubt wondering how a 16th century poet may nevertheless speak to you through a blog. Do I yet live? Or do I speak from beyond the grave? Shall I don a bedsheet and run around the room like a nervous Orthodox virgin?

I assure you, I am quite dead. To paraphrase Chuck Dickens, there is no doubt whatever about that. Old Arthur is as dead as a door-nail. Therefore, I must speak from beyond the grave, right? Poppycock. I speak from beyond nothing, save the bottom of a beer glass. I am here. I speak. That is enough, I say. Think of it thusly: that I exist in a sort of ever-articulating past. My present is your past, and who should blame the two for enjoying each other's company. Right? Quite right.

This affords me some pleasures. As I'm sure my recently discovered writings will elicit critical analysis of my life and art from academics and historians, I would like to invite their scrutiny. Go ahead. Analyze my writings, critique away, and I shall post them here. I do, however, reserve the right to discard any and all essays as excrement.

Anyway, without further ado, here is my biography, briefly. I didn't write it, but most of it seems accurate enough:

"Arthur Greenleaf Holmes was born in Dorchester, England, sometime between the years 1547 and 1552, a period later to be known as “The Gay 90’s.” He was the eldest of three children; the youngest, Edmund, lost his eyesight at an early age, and then proceeded to lose the rest of his lower body over the following thirteen years of his life, until cruel fate had whittled him down to nothing but a head. Nevertheless, it was the older sister Babette who suffered from depression, while Edmund apparently possessed an indefatigable spirit, right up until the time he was eaten by a German debate team. Babette sank into despair and lunacy, and later convinced herself that she was a prime number. She died at the age of twenty-nine while attempting to make herself divisible by two.

Strangely, less is known of Arthur’s childhood. While his siblings certainly encountered their share of travails, there is very little to suggest that Arthur’s experiences were especially tragic. Indeed, the most that could be said of his youth is that it was framed by confusion—his father was a wetnurse, and his mother, a cowbell. Most of his early work (referred to by scholars as “The Juvenelia”) takes the form of simple pastorals and flower odes, with an occasional lamentation at what was an extremely late-arriving puberty (“Mother, Shall My Stones Drop?”)

Then, a turning point. One day in the life of Arthur Greenleaf Holmes was to change his life—and writings—forever. He was perhaps 24 when a series of highly improbable and devastating events transpired, all on the same day. After receiving word that his father had died in a mellon-balling accident with an epileptic, and his first book of poetry had been rejected on the grounds that it was entirely too “asexual”, he returned home to find his wife in bed with a hairstylist from Canterbury and his mailbox vandalized once again by Ricky Watts, a local hooligan. It was then that his testicles finally dropped with such force that it ruptured one of his eardrums, at which point Arthur plunged into town and drowned his sorrows in the physical solace of a prostitute, a banker, and a goat named Fanny. His improved mood was short-lived, as Arthur contracted what is described as “The STD triptych”: Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, and an indeterminate third malady which he referred to, cryptically, as “Trench Sac.”

It was to color his poetry forever. First, the slyly skeptical “Lower Pub Canto”, which questions the worth of marriage vis-à-vis drinking. Then, the groundbreaking “I Bought A Cheese And Thought Of You,” widely regarded as Holmes’s arrival as a major literary force. A string of successes followed: “The Wyfe Addresseth Her Husband,” “The Wee Irish Guy” the projectionist poem “Clap For My Sister: An Ode To Chlamydia,” “I Built My Love A Menstrual Hut” and finally, the mammoth “Ode To An Extremely Provocative Knothole.” By now, Holmes was accepting invitations to London, and performing for Queen Elizabeth herself, much to the dismay of Raleigh.

None of this would ever have seen the light of the twenty-first century had his writings not been discovered by Philip Bunshaft in 2007. Bunshaft, an English violin-maker and handyman, purchased a small tudor cottage with the intention of restoring it when he discovered the cache of poems, letters, and journal entries in a small wooden box. He sent the entire collection to a friend who taught English Literature at a college in England, and within months, the world of renaissance studies was abuzz with excitement."

Blah, blah, blah. Well, enough of my backstory. I suppose you'll want to see some of these poems. So, over the course of our journey together, I shall post them as I feel so inclined. But be warned: I am no feel-good milquetoast of a poet. If my words offend, as I'm sure they shall, well.....funny, I haven't the slightest idea how to end this sentence.

Ta-ta!

Arthur Greenleaf Holmes

Poem: Tavern-Floor Tina

A bit of advice: avoid brothels with a sign outside that reads, "No condoms?  No problem!" 

Tavern-Floor Tina, thou fen-sucking whore,
With a mouth to be damned and a tongue to abhor.
When your meat meets her mouth, well, it's meat-mouth galore.
Oh, Tavern-Floor Tina, there's a worm in your core.

She'll give you a wink and she'll drag you upstairs
And before you can think, you'll be caught unawares
Elbow-deep in the pink, with two thumbs up your rear.
Oh, Tavern-Floor Tina, your sink's full of hair.

She'll give your poor bone ev'ry pound that she's got,
Then she'll slather your dome till your tonsils are hot.
You'll need time all alone just to burp up the clot.
Oh, Tavern-Floor Tina, I'd just as soon not.

--Arthur Greenleaf Holmes

Letter: Arthur To His Sister Babette, From Ireland, 1587

Dear Babette,

This letter I compose from a pub in Donegal; aye, Babette, I have traveled to Ireland alone. My muse bade me arise and leave for this bobbing emerald, and when may a poet ignore the advice of his muse? This land, so full of the dead. The very earth heaves with the clamour of their bones, and tis a wonder that the living find a place to lay their heads.

I have journeyed from Kilkenny to Killarney, to Galway, Dingle, Doolin, Doodle, Dangle, Piddle, Paddle, and Shmingle. I would that I may stay longer, so great is my affection for this land. The only disquieting incident did come in the towne of Doodle, which is a towne beset by hordes of amourous dogs. I have composed this poem:

Oh, the poodles of Doodle are villainous beasts.
They'll hitch to thy leg, and they'll hump without cease.
They don't ask permission, the lecherous sinners.
Oh, ye poodles of Doodle! At least buy me dinner.

I then journeyed north, to Donegal, where I met the most fanciful man. A wee sprite of a fellow, I engaged him in a lively conversation, and thereupon I began the first lines of a new poem. Thou knowest me well enough to expect its arrival in but a short while.

And Edmund? Is he responsive?

--Arthur, 1587

Poem: The Wee Irish Man

The Wee Irish Man

As I went down to Donegal one morning for to spy
The restless sea entangled with the vex’d and furied sky,
I saw a little Irish man, a-dancin’ in the glen.
Tell me, little Irish man, and then tell me again.

I see a sack a-hangin’ there, a-danglin’ by your side.
Prithee, little Irish guy, do tell what be inside!
What be this inside me sack? A Mumbly-Sprite, for sure!
It wiggles, woggles, does a jig, then knocks you to the floor!

And here’s a Katie-Bar-The-Door, no bigger than a sigh.
Have a Whoops-The-Baby, too. Don’t let it hit your eye!
A Stick-It-In-Your-Kumquat makes a thought-provoking gift.
A Fudgie-In-The-Manhole gives thy pants an extra lift!

Slap me with a clam pie and yodel up my skirt.
Pump it twice and let ‘er rip! Stand back before it squirts!
Munch my muffin! Fluff my pillows! Flog the naughty elf!
Cup the dumplings! Burp the turnip! With friends or by yourself!

Bibble me with buttered corn, ring the dingle bells!
Grip it tight with all your might! Enjoy its many smells!
Wiggle Willy in the bush! Play the meat-flap reed.
Shtump the pumpkin! Jerk the gherkin! Make the page-boy bleed!

On and on he raved until I slowly backed away.
I left him in that glen and he may still be there today.
So please avoid the Irish guy, I’m sure he’s workin’ blue.
He’s filthy, crude, and just plain wrong. And he’s a rapist, too.

--Arthur Greenleaf Holmes, 1587