"Sir," He Said

Hello. Yesterday I was irritated by a daft little man, so I wrote a thing for a spot of catharsis. Now I have it I thought I'd share it with you. It goes thusly:

“Sir,” He Said

“Sir,” He said, “I have a poorly thought-out opinion.”

“That’s nice,” Sir replied.

“I’d like to pretend it’s a question-“

“Oh?”

“And use it to take up a full five minutes of the class.”

“Not just now.”

“But I think speaking and saying something of value are the same thing!”

“I can’t really stop you at this point, can I?”

“No, Sir.”

“I didn’t think so”

“So I’d like to ignore the irritated expressions of my classmates,”

“Right.”

“And their mimes of eager suicide,”

“Good to know.”

“And proceed obliviously on my chosen path,”

“Okay.”

“Because their genuine desire to study this interesting thing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And their attempts to be educated in general,”

“Mmm.”

“Are less important than my belief that this sort of thing makes me seem intelligent.”

And then Sir did not hit him round the head with a shovel.

Not even a little.

Everyone was really disappointed.

One Hopes You're Well,
Yrs,
ADWoodward

Reflections on a Noisy Bar

Hello. I have uncovered a thing that I wrote almost a year ago. I had completely forgotten about it and thought I'd share it with you so you could do the same. It goes thusly:

Reflections on a Noisy Bar

Raucous voices

Sweet enjoyment

Out on the town with all the boys and

A selection of girls

Drinks are downed

Colours swirl

Cosmic highlights of mother-of-pearl

The crack of glass leads to angry voices

Blood drips down your shirt of choice but

It’s alright

That bloke’s a wanker

Let’s you and me go to the bank and

Buy a subway or KFC

No, you’re alright, mate

Your food’s on me

Let’s go back and watch the telly

We’ll just  enjoy some Stephen Fry

You know what, mate?

I fucking love you guys

Let’s do this again some time.

One hopes you're well,
yrs,
ADWoodward

Two Lions, One Perplexed, One Unconcerned

Hello. Terribly sorry I've not posted in a while; laziness / the fickle nature of inspiration and all that. I have written a thing which I'd like to share with you. It goes thusly:

Two Lions, One Perplexed, One Unconcerned

There, standing, lit in joy, he spied her face,

Free and unconcerned, stalking through the grass;

Laughing eyes and wicked grin flew and struck

Like stolen kiss and caused a grievous wound.

She spies him spying ‘cross the way and skips

Into that booming, bass-soaked Calydon.

His haunting huntress, playful prey, had gone,

But not so far as to be lost from sight –

Or rather, not lost until she decides,

Giggling in a hollow, to hide from him.

Now it is him who’s lost. Hope and fear both

Together beat his heart with prophecies,

Wanting and hating their revelation.

Then, darting from her den with battle-cry

His sunburst-girded lioness inflicts

With honeyed fangs another wondrous wound.

Paws come up to softly ward and embrace

And seek a place in shining, joy-gilt locks

To touch with nerve-ecstatic fingertips

But too slow one set, too fast the other

With mirthful glee away the she-cat flits

Quick through the vodka-dripping undergrowth

And leaves the male perplexed to stroke his mane

With sadly empty, clawless, tawny paws.

One hopes you're well,
Yrs,
ADWoodward

On Bread and Games

                Hello. We live in a democracy: a society wherein government rules only by the consent of the people who have the right to demand certain things from their rulers and throw them out of power if they deem those in power haven’t looked after their interests. I know, it’s terrible, isn’t it? Eugh, people getting a say in the fate of their own countries, yuk. This is not a good idea because, as anyone who’s been to a Weatherspoons on Curry Thursday can tell you, people are scum. They’re also sorely in need of a few elocution lessons, but that’s a topic for a different set of poorly-researched, opinions masquerading as an article. Today I’m concerning myself with how to minimise the damage this whole “Right of Nations to Self-Determination” thing can do to the plans of an aspiring oligarch.

                I recommend oligarchy rather than monarchy to solve our country’s problem with mob rule because there’s a lot of work involved in manipulating the fate of nations to suit one’s own needs; it is a complex and time-consuming exercise which will be made much easier with colleagues. The other reason is that the existing governmental system is one with power in several hands so by having a cabal rule your people by your side you can maintain a facade of not changing things too dramatically; this will allow you to strengthen your grip on the reins of power before anyone realises what you are doing. So, you will need a group you can trust to follow instructions. You either need people with shared goals and philosophy or some on whom you have some dirt which can be used to blackmail them. I advocate the latter because ideals might change when a person is given power, but blackmail will only become a more potent means of control once they are in the public eye.

                You will no doubt want to rush straight off to pull down the great pillars of your society and tear up its foundations to make room for your new solid gold swimming pool, but if you want to succeed hold on a minute. Grinding down the institutions of a people to make gravel for your driveway takes longer than one might thing – Rome’s constitution wasn’t irrevocably altered in a day, as they say – so you’ll need some sort of fig leaf or mandate to hide behind while you’re working. I recommend blaming the previous rulers. Whether you’re pretending to restore republican morality or tackle a deficit, you will be thankful for the ability to say “Well, I’m sorry, but this wouldn’t be necessary if they hadn’t messed things up quite so badly. Now bend over, bite the pillow and take your medicine. Oh, you like your medicine, don’t you? You need your medicine because you’re a sick society in need of reform, aren’t you? Oh, take the medicine! Take it! If you stop clenching then we can all be in THIS together, too!” Practice this sort of phrase and remember to vary it; you’ll seem far from genuine if you just repeat the same catch-phrase verbatim each time you’re challenged.

                This is quite enough for your to-do list for now, so I’ll leave you here. I don’t want to blind you with science and in any case I have a date with a bottle of gin. Don’t be scared if it seems like a lot of work, it’s all necessary to get the changes you see as being necessary. But in the interest of balance I will tell you that you can affect these changes another way. You can properly engage with the current imperfect system, organise your peers and lobby your representatives to actually earn their salary, constantly reminding them of problems and what you think needs changing, tell them they’ll lose your vote if they fundamentally change the health service, for example. I didn’t say the alternative method of changing society was any easier, did I? In any case, you’d better get cracking on finding the darkest secrets of your soon-to-be colleagues in office, or writing to your MP or whatever. If you don’t get started soon some other group with educated accents and shiny faces and vast wealth will get in and dismantle the country to suit the interests of their friends.

                Oh? They already have? Hmm. Well in that case make yourself a bacon sarnie, stick on “The Apprentice” and accept your fate like a good little subject. Pan ludique are all we, the ruled classes, really need anyway, innit?

One hopes you're well,

Yrs,

ADWoodward

The Song of the Fallen Queen

Hello. Terribly sorry I've not put anything up here for a little while; I was in the Caribbean. It was a lovely holiday, but this post has nothing to do with that. I thought I'd share with you another thing that was the basis for song lyrics for the play what I was in. this one is based on Euripides' Hecuba. It goes thusly:

The Song of the Fallen Queen

She is a mother and instinct is mighty;

It drove her in her offspring’s best interest,

Like the she-bear with her mountain-side rages.

When one’s child is threatened one’s brain disengages;

No logic, no calm analysis.

Pure action, driven by fear of paralysis.

Doing nothing has grave consequences

For her and her bundle of joy.

When her daughter or her little boy

Needs her she’ll pay no heed to logic,

Or safety, or the binding decorum of man-made laws.

For she knows the high price of the slightest pause:

The life of a child,

Her child.

Not moving, nor smiling, nor screaming, or crying

But still.

Dreadfully still.

And cold.

But if maternal instinct fails her

There’s one thought left to save her:

Punish the infanticide.

That might still the screams inside.

The heart-piercing note of a terrified child

Begging the feminine sentinel to appear

And say “It’s okay now, don’t cry, mummy’s here”

And make the hurting stop

And make them go away

And make everything alright again.

But it won’t ever be alright again.

She’ll never hold her child again.

And that is why she hurt the men

Who tore out her still-beating heart.

Foolish in naïveté

She believed them when they promised sweetly

That they would look after her child,

That they would stand in loco parentis,

And stand guard after her farewell kiss.

But they didn’t.

And now the rage has faded,

And her battle-lust is sated,

She stands by a photograph

Of an eight-year child old caught mid-laugh

And she knows –

More than anything she’s known before or since

That despite her just and cunning revenge

It will never be alright again.

One hopes you're well,
yrs,
ADWoodward

The Song of the Silent Prophet

Hello. Tonight is the last night of the play what I'm in; it's in The Courtyard Theatre, Shoreditch, and I'm sure you can still buy tickets on the door if you particularly want. The play tries (valiantly, I think) to make a feminist point and this poem is the basis of the lyrics to the last song of the play and tries to drive home said point. The myth on which the poem is based is that of Apollo and Cassandra and I'd like to share it with you. It goes thusly:

The Song of the Silent Prophet

Women, as I’m sure you know by now, are objects;

Objects to be bought and traded, pawed at and paraded,

Loaned and hired and at their most ideal, objects of desire.

Women have no voice – why would they need one?

They only need to stay where they’re put and when they’re called, to come.

One such object, a princess of Troy was put in a temple as decoration,

An ornament for mighty Apollo’s sordid delectation.

The petulant god wanted more than just to see her

He needed to own her – it was his right he was owed this prize

She got no say – why would she want one?

She should be honoured to have been chosen.

When she said yes, as doubtless she would,

He’d gift her with unseen sight -

A prize he knew she’d like.

Gods have very good taste.

But in his haste he failed to see

That his charms were not as sweet as he believed

And she said no.

To a god.

To a man.

And in his pique he sought to wreak

A terrible curse to bind her to tragedy

To put her in her place.

He took the gift and twisted it, made it grotesque;

Prophetic joys still filled her mind

But in place of hope-filled ecstasies

Her mind recoiled from haunting shades

There was no respite – why should she get one?

She tried to warn her kith and kin of all the nightmares she had seen

But they mocked her and ignored her and said her daydreams bored them.

Apollo in his gleeful spite had hid her truth from others’ sight

Until her own doom loomed before her

Not one man would heed her warnings.

He needn’t have bothered;

What sane man would have listened to her?

To a woman?

To a slave?

To an object?

One hopes you're well,
yours,
ADWoodward

The Ballad of Clytemnestra

Hello. At the moment I am in a very interesting play. It's about a son trying to free himself from the attentions of the furies - spirits of vengeance - who are haunting him because he killed his mother because she killed his father killed their daughter. Also the daughter kills the wife's new lover, but that's okay because no one likes him. It's on 7th, 8th & 9th of July at the courtyard theatre and if you'd like you can buy tickets for it here: http://www.thecourtyard.org.uk/whatson/261/the-women-screaming-beyond. I wouldn't be so vulgar as to use the sacred space of my blog just to be a commercial whore. I do have a thing for you to read as well. The play uses songs to do what choral odes did in Greek tragedy. I wrote poems which, with a little bit of tweaking by people who actually know something about music, became the lyrics for these songs. I would like to share one of these with you. This one is the ghost of the mother exhorting the furies to do their job and it goes thusly:

The Ballad of Clytemnestra

Hello there, Furies, how are you? I’ve been trapped down in the gloom

But I thought I’d come and ask you why - despite the solemn task that I

Gave you when I made you from rage and hatred -

Why is my son still breathing?

I wondered what was keeping you

And now I find you sleeping, you

Useless, idle twerps.

Don’t you know how I suffer?

But it’s not enough for you to just delay

No! You have to while away the day

While that matricidal little shit

Of a son of mine commits

His crime and spends his time

Changing the wallpaper in MY throne room

While I’m stuck, as I said, down in Hades’ gloom

Being snidely mocked by the shades of mediocre cocks.

So I thought I’d tell you

Why I swiftly sent you

To give me some peace at last.

I won’t let that weapon-wielding arse,

Agamemnon be vindicated in infanticide

Or let the git decide to put his brother’s wife before his own.

You lay there with your dreaming

When you should turn your minds to scheming

On how to give me one thing at which I won.

From the outset I was second-best

Like when Zeus came down to test

His pimping skills on our mother

And the Olympian begat

Another squalling brat

Whose life was heaven-blessed

While I, of mortal seed, was left

In Helen’s whorish shadow.

Every king and every prince of every place in Greece

Wanted her to have a piece

Of them inside of her

And maybe make a bride of her.

I was second-prize.

So just for once in my wretched life

Can’t things turn out as I wanted?

I want Orestes to be haunted

But you just had to have a nap!

I will not take this crap!

So stand up, get in line!

You’re my furies! Mine!

It was my rage that called you back

From slumber underneath the earth

My screams that gave you birth

And still I find you snoring!

You lazy, useless, slothful, toothless,

Awful, hopeless, gruesome, loathsome

Pathetic excuses for a spirit of vengeance,

I demand you find my son and make him pay

But most of all I’d like to say:

WAKE UP, YOU IDLE FUCKING CUNTS!

One hopes you're well,
yrs,
ADWoodward