The Poetry of Daniel Harrison

An Evening with a Bad Idea

That stingy little troll
I grow so tired of him
Crouching by the gates of id
Pulling leaf after leaf
From the sketchbook of profundity
He grants me a glimpse
Then feeds each masterpiece
To the flames of synaptic oblivion
“Don’t worry Bub”, he says, ”I got a million of ‘em”
Shadowy, irksome Durante

He knows that as a child
They nicknamed me ‘Gizmo’
And that I detested it
He loses no opportunity to remind me
Of late he refers to me as
“Mister-nearly-had-one-good-idea-last-year”
I hate that too
And not because he’s right
He could have helped
But let me twist in the breeze

“Hey, how about this, Giz?
A poignant, poetic look at bonny Prince Charles
The man who will never be king
Chuck’s about your age and ignored the world over
You could rhyme ‘bad royal solo’
With ‘plays too much polo’
Or perhaps ‘his profile in coin’
With ‘kick in the groin‘
Or cook up a line about him and Camilla
Do something that rhymes with flotilla”

“Stupid? Okay…
How about ‘Canada as northern whore of the world’?
There’s lots of ways you could go here
A moaning diatribe about your homeland,
Perpetual understudy in the great global play,
Cannon fodder for British high command,
Not to mention cold, inferior backdoor to America
Or shameless over-promoter of questionable tradition
Well, whatcha think ‘mo?… Hey, wake up!
You’ve got put in some of the effort”

“Too inaccessible for the Yanks, maybe?
Well, did you ever consider…
Not one person in a hundred can tell you
Precisely the day Easter occurs
Why is that? Would you like me to tell you?
Of course you would. Learn to do your own groundwork!
But don’t shy away from ‘non-sectarian conspiratorial poetry’
A potential new field is sitting wide open
While you putz around on the sidelines
Show ‘em what you’ve got… world’s yer oyster, Bucko!”

The gnome is particularly cruel this evening
He hunches greedily over a bagful of brilliant stuff
Delighted by my creative impotency
The urchin owes me nothing
We both know I have no business in his workshop
He sat friendless in the gloom.
While I dallied through forty years of self indulgence
He laboured on fine jewellery
As I let vintage wine go to vinegar