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Flotsam and Jetsam

~ Assorted odds and ends

Flotsam and Jetsam

Tag Archives: In Memoriam

Fifty Shades of Blue

27 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry

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In Memoriam

 

Blue blood, of course, not collar,

A king of cats, an Oxford Blue

Who loved our terrace

And after-snack sunbathing.

Or looking nonchalantly at Charlie,

Pawing an errant wasp,

And stretching languidly,

Musing on the important questions like ‘what’s for second dinner?’

 

Blue maybe, but never dull and gloomy,

We loved the raffish wiggle in your stride,

The aristocratic belly marked a destiny

For contemplation, not the drudge of work.

Your gourmet palette tuned to modern tastes,

You loved the smell of barbecues

And those who cooked them.

When stakes were high, they win who dare

It’s Blue by name but always medium rare.

 

September 16, 2013

Another Job for Cyril (1925 -2018)

05 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry

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elegies, In Memoriam

Who’ll scan my job and scout

The strategic challenges that lie ahead of me?

Who’ll be my hanging wing-man

And place the pencil cross with laser touch?

Who’ll choose the tools and chide

My lax preservation of lithium cells?

Who’ll patiently banish rust from contacts

And soon revive the power-tool’s insistent torque?

Who’ll select the bit to bite the wall’s recalcitrance?

And guide my angle of attack and steady, steady it

Against the white emulsioned concrete?

Who’ll be the matchstick man

To plug the mortar of my unreliable first attempt

And safely hang the artwork from its helix thread?

Another picture sorted in the gallery of life!

But one job you left undone before you went,

Was how to fill the hole you’ve left us with?

 

David Bernstein: The Philosopher of SPIV

16 Saturday Sep 2017

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry, The Uselessness of History

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David Bernstein, In Memoriam

DavidBernstein2-20170829060151191

Lines written in 1982 to celebrate the award of the Mackintosh Medal to David Bernstein – being also a brief exposition on the theories of Advertisement Effect in one canto

Nil posse creari de nilo. (Lucretius)

Lucretius wasn’t always right!

 

Sing, O muse of modern epic themes,

Of selling soapsuds, and of selling dreams:

Behold that world of commerce set apart,

An inexact science in a bastard art!

And in this nexus, let us list with care

Those philosophies which are practised there.

With surgeon’s skill and knife we will dissect

All admen’s Theories of Effect.

That sacred word, enough to make the client pay

His artwork and production bills with less delay.

First, in this field, the keystone of the arch

We sing, with pride, of Doctor Daniel Starch.

“All ads to be successful”, he nearly said,

“Must of course be seen and read

But more than that, before your chance has gone

It must be remembered to be acted on”

Great sage, O Starch, your greatness sits

In teaching us, good puff persuades in bits.

Another chap (Anon) reworked Dan’s law

And summed it up with letters four.

“Let our darling AIDA take her bow,

To gain attention and our interest now;

But after, when desire is raised in lieu

Her call to action entices you”.

Of all the men whom darling Aida met,

There stands a group especially in her debt.

The men of Procter, so the bards do tell

Liked her rubric and loved her well

Too much, in fact; consumed by lust

All Aida’s wisdom has been ground to dust.

For all the best becomes the worst at last

When madmen play the rules too hard and fast!

Day-after-recall’s not the best of tools

Except for client knaves or research fools!

Too much!

Let us sing of greatness once again:

Of Joyce and Channon, of Segeula’s men!

Of Rosser Reeve’s USP

Of charming, wily David Ogilvy

“At sixty miles an hour, all you’ll hear

Is the sound of chasing taxmen coming near.”

And last of all, we sing of D.E.B

(Who, it must be said, as yet employs me)

In his book, (so the one who’s read it said)

“All art, with science, is nice ‘n’ neatly wed”

And so, all admen who seek out effect,

With page one five five your eyes connect:

“All ads to convince must visible be,

And pregnant stand with identity

But without simple promise, they’ve far to go

Along that line to positive cash flow”

With words like these, he won old Tosh’s crown

So was it then for this,  that David wore that gown?

 

September 1982

 

Post Scriptum:

David died in August 2017 aged 88.

He had a profound effect upon so many people, especially me.

PCW

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poems of Place: Lunch with Tory

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in poems of place, Poetry

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In Memoriam, Loss, Luberon, Provence

abbaye-senanque2

We said it would be the Luberon,

Perhaps mid-September

When the crowds had left? Or mostly.

We’d find a table with a view:

Oppède Le Vieux, perhaps? Or better at Sénanque

In the hollow, amongst the purple

We’d drink Domaine Ott – barely pink, well chilled

But elegant like you

We’d banter with black olives

Or the tapenades with fig you liked

Then the smell of roast chicken would

Demand the group’s attention

And with it, we’d bring out salad leaves,

And beef tomatoes, the primed burrata.

After, some would contemplate the madelaines

And lavender honey ice creams lying in wait.

But then comforted and comfortable,

We’d pause and think of you –

And feel once more the warmth you brought.

For JSA, The Insect Man and Me

08 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry

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Chateauneuf, In Memoriam, Merioneth, Naseby, Provence

Naseby, 2008

A Maytime full of memory,
Of Eurostar and travellers’ tales:
A Provence of insect men not Mayles,
Of Vieux Télégraphe and the other red-nosed,
Big hearted vignobles of Chateauneuf
Captured on a postcard

A tour of the terroir Anderson – proud and comfortable –
Garden, sèjour and library;
A meeting with Mother; sherry proffered but pended,
A lunch of local hams and cheeses, of Harborough curd tarts,
The essence of gentility,
And thence, the battlefield tour.

The Colonel and his Lady
In the Vanguard of our party,
Facing up to the New Model wind
And the opportunism of dragoon’ed trees swaying
Against the cavalier horizon

And at a parallel moment,
Somewhere else in the cloisters of history,
Stand some Moss Close boys in the Lichfield Street flat,
Searching for forgotten Merioneth roman roads,
And there in Tomen Y Mûr’s shadow,
John points out the road for us,
Our faces beam.

Veritas Filia Temporis!

Conversation with a Ricardian

24 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry

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In Memoriam, Richard IIII

For DCW (1936- 2013)

I wonder what you would have thought

Of this glorious summer of the Car-Park-King?

From the start, I know your instinct would have told you

This was indeed your long lost son of York.

And what would you have made of

The Minster versus Leicester cause celèbre?

No doubt you would have declared for heroic Ebor,

But are no less content to see him lie in honour

Close to where he fell.

But what-oh-what would you have said about

The last Plantagenet’s blond, angelic locks?

Brimming prouder by the family scoop that brought the news,

I see you smiling in your chair.

In life’s simple rhythms, we stumble upon

Enthusiasms we share with people we have lost,

Which in their bitter sweetness, create

The urge for conversation, consolation or both.

Tant Le Desiree

An Elegy for Rex Audley (2005)

22 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry

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In Memoriam

The Gentle Giant chronicler of wry has gone
But has a bigger canvas now to draw upon;
On Heaven’s foibles he trains his wit,
And on puffed angelic vanity makes the hit;
That mildly wicked streak and glinting eye
Finding all the humour in infinity.
Even paradise has its funny side: he’ll show
The jumped up Cherubs, lampooned to go.
Through all his years, despite life’s late trials
He remains the Gentleman of Droll, the King of Smiles.

And in our hearts, his art does yet extend
So in this we know, there is no Audley End.

From Anderson to Zest

30 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry

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In Memoriam

 

A Lexicon of JSA- for his birthday

 

A       The Andrew Scholar of Canterbury Quad

B       The Castellan of Blackroot

C       The Colonel of Cadets

D       The Denizen of D2

E        A Fully Paid Up Member of The British Empire

F        Fingers in Pies (Lots of)

G       Little Green Books (Essential Reading Matter)

H       The History Man who married his History Woman

I        The Inspiration of our Enthusiasms

J        The Jovial Master of Connections

K       The Keeper of the Archives

L        The Lichfield Street Archaeologist

M       The Governor of Mayfield

N       Naseby’s New Model Neighbour in the Saab

O       The Catalyst of Equal Opportunity

P       The President of Pipes

Q       The Distiller of News from all Quarters

R       The Clubbable Rotarian

S        The Commissioner of Scouts

T       The Merchant Taylorian

U       The Unsurpassed of Self Deviating Narratives

V       The Vade-Mecum of Marian Life

W       The Walsall Observer

X       The Defining Standard for EXtra Mural Activities

Y       The Serial Yomper of Cader Idris

Z       The Very Zest of Men

For Ceders

26 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry

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In Memoriam, Loss

If kind thoughts were currency, you would indeed be rich, old friend,

But all that tax would piss you off big time, we both know.

If saucy, earthy thoughts were subject to capital gains, you would be clobbered,

But you wouldn’t care: you would pay and willingly.

The ordinary, instinctive pleasures of life were more than sufficient for your big heart;

The thanks and smiles of friends; the gossip and the comedy of people getting up themselves.

 

But, stay friend, before you go, did I tell you what you meant to me?

That rarest gem of a loving father, a devoted mate and faithful friend who could drive surprisingly fast when the pressure was on and the flight was closing,

A one man charity service with an ever full Passat of needy people or stuff for needy people,

A proper gentleman in his posh overcoat against the cold on late night pick- ups,

A brilliant raconteur with a wicked turn of phrase and an eye for the humanity’s funny side,

That sympathetic attitude which made your famous undercover work and promotion a little tricky,

The world’s best dog walker and putter- up of shelves for the hopelessly inept like me.

 

Dearest Ceders, you would hate all this fuss, but this is one party you can’t escape, I’m afraid,

Today you are our shining, brilliant Celtic star, and we your loving support cast are basking in your light.

Just this once, my friend, you must take your bow…………………..

 

Pavane in D Minor

13 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry

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In Memoriam

 

For Andy and for all who loved him and his music.

It’s just like when someone

Leaves the party before you,

And bereft you stand, the words

You’ve always wanted to say,

Rehearsed but still enveloped,

Inside your head.

 

Or when that friend who joined

Your trip to manhood, and you

Choose diverging roads,

And as he leaves, you hear

That minor third, and fear

What-if you’ll lose sight

Across the miles or years

of forever?

 

But more for me it’s like

A loop that never ends,

Of Paradise Lost and Found but Lost again

As he who made your words soar

And touch the sweet spot of tragic happiness

Has left us,

Has left us,

Has left us with that music.

 

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Recent Posts

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  • Fifty Shades of Blue
  • The of Power Place: A Seasonal Story
  • A Love Song to a Merry Wife of Waitrose*
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  • Poems of Place: 60611
  • Poems of Place: At the M&S Café, Walsall
  • The Uselessness of History? Historian, Engineer, Brand Man
  • Another Job for Cyril (1925 -2018)
  • Poems of Place: The Halt, 1967

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