One of my favourite literary hobbies is developing ideas for original poetry collections and then creating, at the very most, one entry before abandoning the project altogether. Relentlessness is not one of my defining characteristics, except by its absence. The latest example is a series of poems, which should preferably be in the appropriate forms, in which the human or otherwise sentient creatures addressed or described in canonical works, reply to the original. There now follows the first example. It is © David Birkett, but any imaginative literary editor is welcome to dangle obscene or even slightly suggestive advances before me to develop an entire book.
Ozymandias
I met a spirit in the afterlife
Who said some arty, disaffected git
Had given me some some fey, poetic strife
About my so-called despotism. It
Behoves me to observe it's somewhat rich
For someone who was paid to wave a quill
To criticise my efforts, each of which
Was made to strengthen borders, or to fill
My people's mouths with food. The years were tough,
And yes, I hold my hands up to the crime
Of being not consultative enough.
You try to make the camels run on time.
That statue? Well, it was a P.R. thing
For even tyrants bow to Marketing.
I am (emoticon denoting level of excitement inconsistent with any widely-recognised level of personal dignity) off to the London Book Fair (technically, the London International Book Fair, but I've been so many times that I can be informal) tomorrow on behalf of Aurora Metro, so a blog based on this conclave of all things literary is not entirely unlikely. Stand G855, if you're passing.
Toodle-pip.
David
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