Blazing Fruit

• r0b
• 13 years ago
• Categories: climate change, Media
• Tags: poetry, roger mcgough

Apropos of nothing in particular, one of my favourite poems:

BLAZING FRUIT

(or The Role of the Poet as Entertainer)

by Roger McGough

During dinner the table caught fire.

No one alluded to the fact

and we ate on, regardless of

the flames singeing our conversation.

Unaware of the smoke

and the butlers swooning,

topics ranged from Auden

to Zefferelli. I was losing

concentration however, and being

short on etiquette, became tense

and began to fidget with the melting cutlery.

I was fashioning a spoon

into a question mark

when the Chablis began to steam

and bubble. I stood up,

mumbled something about having left the gas running

and fled blushing

across the plush terrain of the carpet.

The tut-tut-tutting could be heard above

the cra-cra-cracking of the bone china.

Outside, I caught a cab

to the nearest bus stop.

While, back at the table,

they were toying with blazing fruit

and discussing the Role of the Poet as Entertainer,

when the roof fell in.

(poem from Holiday on Death Row by Roger McGough (Jonathan Cape, 1979).

All of my posts for March will finish with this note. While life goes on as usual outside Christchurch, let our thoughts be with those who are coping with the aftermath, with the sorrow of so many who were lost, and with the challenges ahead.