801

MAGGIE MAY
(Song by Rod Stewart)

Wake up Maggie, I think I've got something to say to you,
It's late September and I really should be back at school,
I know I keep you amused, but I feel I'm being used,
Oh Maggie, I couldn't have tried any more.
You lured me away from home just to save you from being alone,
You stole my heart, and that's what really hurts.

The morning sun when it's in your face really shows your age,
But that don't worry me none, in my eyes you're everything.
I laughed at all your jokes, my love you didn't need to coax,
Oh Maggie, I couldn't have tried any more.
You lured me away from home, just to save you from being alone,
You stole my soul that's a pain I can do without

All I needed was a friend to lend a guiding hand,
But you turned into a lover and, mother, what a lover you wore me out,
All you did was wreck my bed, and in the morning kick me in the head,
Oh Maggie, I couldn't have tried any more.
You lured me away from home, 'cause you didn't want to be alone,
You stole my heart, I couldn't leave you if I tried.

I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school,
Or steal my daddy's cue, and make a living out of playing pool,
Or find myself a rock and roll band that needs a helping hand,
Oh Maggie, I wish I'd never seen your face.
You made a first class fool out of me, but I'm as blind as a fool can be,
You stole my heart but I love you anyway.

COME BACK MAGGIE
(Eulogium about a loyal Dame)

Come back Maggie I think your poor country's in need of you,
It's mid-September, Blair's still PM and that ain't cool,
I know your 'Thatcher Years' are all viewed, by some, with tears,
Yet Maggie you couldn't have done any more.
You led us to victory, saved the Falklands from the Argies,
Just one cool dame with a handbag and a blue hat.

Years go by and take a toll, now you show your age,
But that don't worry me, no, in my eyes you're everything,
You laughed at Reagan's jokes, his love you didn't need to coax,
Oh Maggie you couldn't have done any more.
You ruled with a rod of iron, but you suited us all just fine,
We knew how we stood and that's what really counts.

All we needed was a loyal, guiding female hand,
But you turned into a heavy and momma you could frighten the bravest man!
Your country it came first, yet for power you had a thirst,
Oh Maggie you couldn't have tried any more.
No male ever bullied you, indeed the foot was in the other shoe!
(Gee, you'd make mincemeat of Bush and oily Blair!)

I suppose I may post my vote for young Cameron (Dave)
But deep in my mind I know he is not the one to save
Our kingdom from all its ills, his promises lie unfulfilled,
Oh Maggie, your ailing country needs you now.
You'd still be a femme fatale ,
A solid, loyal, unyielding gal,
So, iron maiden come back to make my day!

802

A Recipe for Eggs Benedict

INGREDIENTS

4 egg yolks
3.5 tablespoons lemon juice
A pinch ground white pepper
0.125 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon of water
1 cup butter, melted
1.25 teaspoon salt
8 white eggs
1 tspn distilled white vinegar
8 strips of Canadian-style bacon
4 English muffins, split
2 tablespoons of softened butter

METHOD

To Make Hollandaise Sauce:

1. Fill the bottom of a double boiler part-way with water. Make sure that the water does not touch the top pan.
2. Bring water to a gentle simmer.
3. In the top of a double boiler, whisk together all egg yolks, lemon juice, white pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and one tablespoon water.
4. Add in the melted butter to an egg yolk mixture 1 or 2 tablespoons at a time while whisking yolks constantly. If hollandaise begins to get too thick, then add on a teaspoon or two of hot water.
5. Continue whisking until all of the butter is incorporated in the mix.
6. Whisk in the salt, then remove from heat.
7. Place a lid on pan to keep sauce warm.
8. Preheat oven on broiler setting.

To Poach Eggs:

8. Fill a large saucepan with 3 inches of water.
9. Bring water to a gentle simmer, then add vinegar.
10. Carefully break eggs into simmering water, and allow to cook for 2 1/2 to 3 minutes. Yolks should still be soft in center.
11. Remove eggs from water with a slotted spoon and set on a warm plate .
12. While eggs are poaching, brown the bacon in a medium skillet over medium-high heat and toast the English muffins on a baking sheet under the broiler.
13. Spread toasted muffins with a line of softened melted butter, and top each one with a slice of bacon, followed by one poached egg.
14. Place 2 muffins on each plate and drizzle with hollandaise sauce.
15. Sprinkle with chopped chives and serve immediately.

Recipe for Disaster from Andrew's Cookbook

INGREDIENTS

1 US President
1 Pathetic British Hobgoblin
1 Little Australian Whippet
1 Saudi Child
2 Towers
4 United Airlines Planes
1 Fundamental Political Group
1 War Torn Nation
1 Oil Rich Nation
123 458 US Personnel
60 111 580 Unsuspecting Civilians

METHOD

To make super power:

1. Make two towers promoting values of hedonism to the world.
2. Elect to the Whitehouse a hotheaded madman whose famed feeble cowboy dad was pathetic.
3. Make sure he has a southern drawl and intelligence way less than a sock.
4. Add huge shot of 'short man syndrome".

To make Islamic Fundamentalist:

5. Raise newborn Saudi child.
6. Reject from rich family.
7. Transfer child to war torn nation.
8. Teach radical ideologies of the Koran on the way.
9. Allow teenage fellow to grow into western hating Muslim.

Creating the Conflict:

10. Get grown fundamentalist to coach young pledgees to be extreme Anglophobes.
11. Emigrate these foreign pledgees to Boston.
12. Let excitable pledgees integrate into US society.
13. Get pledgees to flight lessons.
14. Somehow get on and hijack United Airline flights.
15. Blow up awesome landmarks with the planes.

Starting the apocalypse:

16. Write emotive keynote speech with thoughts of revenge for the president.
17. Piggyback bedfellows (hobgoblin and whippet) to battle.
18. Release 123 458 "peacekeeping" troops to seize outmatched nation that happens to have bankrupt Muslim government.
19. Bomb thousands of weak gentle people.
20. Engineer transfer of awful bloodbath to overpopulated oil rich country.
21. Repeat bombing of thousands of weak gentle people.
22. Keep fighting non-winnable battle.


It is foreseeable that this battle will break Vietnam's record as the craziest war of all time.

803

[WARNING CONTAINS A LOT OF SWEAR WORDS AND SEXUAL REFERENCES]

A pianist with Tourettes Syndrome is walking the streets of Soho. In Dean Street he sees a cocktail bar with a sign saying: 'Jazz pianist wanted'.

"Fucking hell, get in there, you cunt!" he says to himself, and enters. "Get the fucking manager of this turdhole, you bollockbrained cocksucking cunt!" he says to the barman, who obliges, and the manager comes upstairs. "Can I help you?" he says to the pianist. "Yes you can, you fat piece of shit! I saw your poxy ad in the cunting window and I'm here to audition. Bloody tosser!"

The manager is put off by the man's rather discourteous manner, but his urgent need for a pianist forces him to agree to an audition. The first tune is a very uplifting jazzy number, and at the end, the barman says "Wonderful! What's that one called?"

"That's called Excuse Me Sir But I Just Jizzed In Your Wife's Eye".

"Oh! Very well..." says the manager "Can you play something a little less lively?"

"Motherfucking twat!" says the pianist to himself, under his breath, before playing a ballad which leaves the manager in tears, as he asks him the title.

"That one's When You Do A Bird Up The Shitbox You'll Get Crap On Your Nob-End".

"I see..." says the manager, "And, er...do you have any songs with less offensive titles?"

"Well, you stupid cunting prick...", he says, "there's always my mellow jazz number "Do You Want Me To Split Your Ringpiece?"...or even "I Don't Fucking Care If You're Sixty, You've Still Got Very Nice Jugs, Grandmother".

"Look..." says the manager, "You're a superb pianist, but your titles are a bit racy. I'll hire you on one condition...that you don't introduce your songs, and don't speak to the audience at all".

"Oh fuck it..." says the pianist, "Why not!".

The first night, everything is going superbly, and all the crowd are lapping up his repertoire. The only thing putting the pianist off is a quite utterly gorgeous blonde lady in a little black evening dress with a split up the side, revealing the top of her silk stockings, and a plunging neckline showing all her ample cleavage. At the break, the pianist has such a stonking hard-on that he goes to the john and knocks one out. Just as he comes, he hears himself being re-introduced, and so rushes back and finishes his set.

After the show the blonde comes over. "Hi!"' she says. "Hello" he replies...and she whispers in his ear "Do you know your cock is hanging out and spunk is dribbling onto your shoes?"

"Know it...?", he says, "I fucking wrote it!"

Stevie Wonder is playing his first gig in China, in Shanghai, and the place is just packed to the rafters. He plays 'Part Time Lover' and 'Ebony And Ivory', but to only lukewarm, awkward applause. In a bid to break the ice, the soul legend asks if anyone has a request. One Chinese fellow jumps out of his seat in the first row and shouts at the top of his voice: "You play a jazz chord!"

Shocked that this guy knew about the Fifties/early Sixties influences in his career, the blind musician nods, and starts, with gentle keystrokes, to play a sweeping E-minor scale on the piano with a moody, ethereal fretless bass accompaniment, then subtly swaying, goes into a beguiling, bluesy Ray Charles- style melody for about ten deliriously intense minutes, interspersing it with abstract reggae-tinged harmonic counterpoint, unusually-intricate myxolydian scales, excerpts from 'Songs In The Key Of Life', 'Talking Book', etc. When he finishes, the whole place goes wild. However, when the thunderous applause dies down, the Chinese chap jumps out of his seat again and shouts: "No no! You play a jazz chord!"

A little bit cheesed-off by this time, but being the true professional entertainer that you know he is, our sightless genius and his superb band dive straight into a staggeringly difficult, free-form improvisation with Stevie on the harmonica, based around 'Superstition' in the B-flat diminished-seventh chord, gradually segueing into 'Uptight (Everything's Alright)' and other chart- topping tunes from his back-catalogue such as 'Masterblaster', a tender 'My Cherie Amour', a keen 'Living For The City', and a raucous, boneshaking 'Sir Duke' on his huge Yamaha synthesiser...and Stevie really tears the place apart, the multi-coloured beads in his hair swinging around in the spotlight.

The exuberant crowd go bonkers again, but still the little Chinese guy jumps up yet again and shouts, more frantically now, "No no no! You play a jazz chord!"

By now, Stevie's utterly hacked-off, and cantankerously shouts "Hey you! Misstra Know-It-All! Enough's enough, OK! Why don't you get right up here and show me how to do it better yourself, you annoying little slanty- eyed yellow-skinned chinky monkey?"

"Sure!" says the Chinese guy. He gets up onto the stage, takes the microphone, and says "No, rook! Rike this, you see...", then starts singing:

"...a jazz chord, to say, I ruv you..."

804

[George Herbert (1593-1633) was fond of concrete poetry, that is, poetry whose shape describes the subject matter. This poem is called "The Altar" and it is shaped like an altar. It is the opening poem of his collected poems titled The Temple. An architectural entryway into a book that is very much shaped to be like a temple. My poem is about a broken heart (playing on Herbert's broken altar), a heart broken by a lover with a heart of stone (playing on Herbert's heart of stone). It is shaped like a heart, and its rhythm breaks down near the end, turning into a pool of blood below.]

A  broken   A L T A R,  Lord,  thy  servant  reares,
Made  of  a  heart,  and  cemented  with   teares:
Whose  parts  are as  thy  hand did frame;
No workmans tool hath touch'd the same.
A    H E A R T     alone
Is    such    a      stone,
As      nothing      but
Thy  pow'r doth  cut.
Wherefore each part
Of   my   hard   heart
Meets  in  this  frame,
To  praise thy  Name;
That,   if   I   chance   to   hold   my   peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
O  let  thy   blessed   S A C  R  I  F  I C E   be  mine,
And    sanctifie   this   A  L  T  A  R   to   be   thine.

=

The forlorn            heart's song
A broken heart doth     beat within my breast
Such sadness that a   maiden knoweth best
Who had her mad heart set upon thee
You creep, who dumpèd me
Please accept my tears
For all those years
   Shatter'd.
 As
    if...
 
...it mattered.
                                            This heart of mine is disconnected
So also is this poem
 
                                       My love was foolish, carefree.
Thy heart of stone, intermittent, feeble.
 
That heartache can reach to thy aorta: a hard death!
(I'm a cynic, irate. Na, na, na, na!)

805

[Christina Rossetti's poem 'Listening' is processed in a 'Holy Tango' fashion: It's anagrammed into 3 poems regarding 3 anagrams of her name, which also parodize the structure of her poems 'Death-Watches', 'Sappho' and 'When I Am Dead, My Dearest', respectively.]

Christina Rossetti
Listening

She listened like a cushat dove
That listens to its mate alone:
She listened like a cushat dove
That loves but only one.

Not fair as men would reckon fair,
Nor noble as they count the line:
Only as graceful as a bough,
And tendrils of the vine:
Only as noble as sweet Eve,
Your ancestress and mine.

And downcast were her dovelike eyes,
And downcast was her tender cheek;
Her pulses fluttered like a dove
To hear him speak. =

Christina Rossetti
Traits in Ostriches

One ostrich leers with vacant eyes,
Then heaves its beak and starts to peck
At everyone who wanders by
That arched and dauntless neck.
Even a nervous bull would seem restrained
Near something so insane.

The cloven feet are in demand,
Since our plain numskull does not fly,
Yet that whole tale of head-in-sand
Alleged a woeful lie.
Those souls are fools, yet like not being dead.
I love those knuckleheads.

Christina Rossetti
The Artist's Incisor

I cry at dawn, and feel so bleak
Each sour time I cut my cheek.
I sob all day and sob at dusk
To feel a yet uneven tusk.
O Blessed Lord! A spell resolve!
How has the dental mess evolved?
One fang so normal, and a twin -
Unruly dweller, on the chin!
I haven't left the desk in weeks,
An audience I do not seek,
Yet, as I pen the verses here,
I long to generate fresh leers,
To travel in a side-show clan
And use the tooth on tuna cans.

=

Christina Rossetti
I Can't Resist His Rot

Long past your death, Beloved,
You are enticing me.
I want to hold the sullen flesh
As sweet as ripened Brie.
Few understand love's forces,
The everlasting drives...
Ah, no, I'd see no a skeleton;
To me, you are alive.

I shall not feel the coldness;
I shall not heed a creak;
And I shall sense no nausea:
No reason to be weak.
The wet, uncovered casket
Emits the stench of skunk,
And yet, I want to cuddle by
My larva-laden hunk.