At One with the World

 

   Keats and Chapman were ensconced in Neary's, the evening had been long and Chapman's demons were beginning to give voice, 'The problem is no one thinks about the big things anymore!'

   'I do' said Keats, 'It's your round'.

   'I mean philosophy!'

   'Oh' said Keats, 'It's your round'.

   'Everyone talks about causality, all they want to know is why did the chicken cross the road...'

   'Not me. It's your-'

   'but no one wants to know about the very core of things. For instance, what happens if the chicken is run over? Eh?' Chapman pressed the tip of his index finger hard into the varnish of the tabletop before them. 'What then? What happens if the chicken is so forced into the tarmac that it becomes indistinguishable from the road itself – no one one thinks about that!'

   'Some do. It's y-'

   'Who?!'

   'Henologists'

   Chapman saw that his rhetoric was falling on deaf ears and so, to Keats' audible relief, he stood up and signalled for two pints of Guinness. And seeing as he was up, he continued on to the gents to clear not so much his bladder as his head. 

   As he stood, gently swaying, at one of the monumental porcelain stalls that lined the wall his gaze settled on the copper piping that led down from the iron cistern perched above him. He had faced the piping countless times, but had never before appreciated the subtlety of its contours. He scrutinized the brass elbows and tees that enabled it to repeatedly ramify and permit water to sluice each stall. The copper and brass had been polished for so many years and with such assiduity that each bled seamlessly into the other. So close was his inspection that he slowly tipped forward his forehead coming to rest against the tiles above the stall. The cool of the ceramic spread through his skull, he closed his eyes and slipped into a reverie. He heard an echo of Keats' quip about henology and it made him smile and he felt his head merge with the tiles, and the wall, and everything.

Head Case

Chapman returned from O'Connell's cradling a package.

'What have you there?', asked Keats looking up from his perusal of 'Everything you need to know about Ratites', a volume he had discovered abandoned on a park bench earlier that evening.

'Tighe the barman gave it to me', said Chapman unwrapping the contents, 'He brought it back from his holliers in New Zealand. It's the skull of an extinct giant bird, a class of huge ostrich'.

'Is it really', said Keats never one to acknowledge a coincidence, 'What do you propose to do with it?'

'Use it as a memento Maori', quipped Chapman as he placed it on the mantlepiece. He stood back and looked wistfully at his gift, 'Tighe said it was found in a rock face somewhere south of Westport... I wonder where exactly'.

'The Cliffs of Moa?', volunteered Keats unhelpfully.

The Times They Are a-Changin'

   Keats and Chapman had just returned from the Abbey Theatre where they had enjoyed 'The Quare Fellow' an innovative piece by a young playwright called Brendan Behan. Keats slumped down at the kitchen table while Chapman retrieved from the dresser a bottle of Bushmills whose contents he felt would supplement nicely the Guinness imbibed at the play's interval. 

   'What wonderful acting!', declared Keats.

   'And that song, what was it? The Auld Triangle... ', Chapman looked to the ceiling in search of the words, but Keats beat him to it and sang emphatically, 'And the auld triangle went jingle-jangle, all along the banks of the Royal Canal'. He belted out a few more lines in approximate order, all the while keeping time by striking the worn oilcloth of the table with the flat of his hand.

   Chapman waited for the thumping to cease before setting the charged glasses down. As he stood poised he noticed that the vibrations were causing the large soup bowl that had long sat at one end of the table to be displaced. This vessel had rarely, if ever, contained soup, it owed its presence to a vague similarity with a fruit bowl and as such contained old keys and empty cigarette packets. Chapman contemplated the unfaded circle that was being slowly revealed by the bowl's jouncing.

   Keats asked Chapman why he was standing there like a tree as he, Keats, was dying of the thirst.

   Chapman nodded at the table, 'Look at the colours that have been preserved all these years under that soup bowl, the azures... the cobalts... they remind me of my childhood and the idyllic house we had that overlooked Bantry Bay... '

   'The sub-tureen-ean homesick blues', suggested Keats.

   'Sounds like a good name for a song!', added Chapman snapping out of his reverie, and they both laughed heartily at the unlikelihood of such a title.

Invoking the Broader Picture

'But Miss Scallop, lots of males lack external genitalia, fish for example.'

A Pedestrian Exchange

   Keats and Chapman were taking a stroll through Stephen's Green when Chapman noticed that Keats had developed a faulty gait.

   'Why the gimp, Keats?'

   'It's these brogues, they never did fit.'

   'But you have countless shoes at home, why wear this pair?'

   Keats stopped and drew up one leg as would a stork. Addressing the brogue brought within reach, he slowly ran his finger along the stitching that secured the sole to the upper, 'Because the others lack such stimulating welts.' There was a slight tremor in his voice.

   'Mmm, I sometimes think your liking for shoes borders on the unhealthy.'

   'Well,' said Keats catching up with his friend, 'the jury certainly felt so when I was tried for 'Public Fondling of Footwear'. The alienist I was obliged to see said I was suffering from 'retifism', a condition named after Nicolas-Edme Rétif, author of Le Pied de Fanchette.'

   'I remember now. Didn't your predilection lead you to be arrested on several further occasions?'

   'It did, one judge called me a multi-retificist, he seemed to find my compulsion amusing.'

   They arrived at the duck pond and sat down on their favourite bench. As the pigeons gathered so did Chapman's brows, 'You've got to admit, Keats, your case is unusual'. He lifted his right foot off the ground and pointed at it, 'You mean to say that this scuffed boot could drive you to distraction?'

   'Not anymore thanks be to God, but there was a time when it would have induced a certain longing.'

   'I see,' said Chapman lowering his foot. He extracted his handkerchief and stooped to polish the spurned boot.

   Keats was staring blankly at the Mallard-strewn waters, 'During one particularly maniacal episode I even became convinced I was metamorphosing into an item of footware, specifically a Louis XV court shoe.'

   'Interesting', replied Chapman who was now admiring the results of his handiwork and appreciating for the first time the sensual interplay of lacing and leather, 'but how could you be chaussure?'

A Neat Disorder

Two cowboys with a herd of cattle walk into a bar and order beer.

The barman says, not unreasonably, 'We don' serve yur kine in here'.

Birds of a Feather

   Under pressure to clear their slate at the Palace Bar Keats and Chapman found work sweeping up in a soft furnishings factory. As they shuffled between machines Chapman's eye was caught by an apparatus that blew flock into linen bags. He marvelled at its construction, 'Look, Keats, with one flick of a switch one can change the settings and go from filling cushions to filling bolsters!'.

   Keats carefully detached a wisp of ticking that had adhered to his tongue. 'I know some consider us inseparable, Chapman, but I never thought we'd graduate to pillow talk'.

Imperial Measurement

   From the depths of his copy of 'The Lancet' Chapman sighed emphatically and declared, 'The scientific world is plagued with sesquipedalia'.

   'You mean it persists in using long words when short words would do? How tedious', said Keats.

   Chapman pointed to an article in the magazine, 'It says here that a man, apparently ignorant of medical terminology, consulted a chiropodist rather than a urologist regarding a physical abnormality. Not knowing how to properly describe his affliction the man promptly revealed proof of his troublesome macrophallia. With astonishing insensitivity the consultant said, “But that's not a foot”, to which the hapless patient replied, “No, but it's a good eleven inches”. The poor fella; not only deformed, but humiliated'.

   'A misunderstanding that would not have occurred under the metric system', observed Keats in an effort to take his friend's mind off the injustice of it all.

   'That's true, he would have been referred to the appropriate specialist immediately'.

   'A shrink, presumably', said Keats.

   Chapman chortled, relieved that they'd managed to salvage at least a modicum of humour from such a distressing case of penile hypertrophy.

Literally Criticism

   Keats and Chapman were discussing the relative merits of various American short story writers. Seeing as they had both expressed admiration for Raymond Carver Chapman was surprised to hear his friend's impassioned condemnation of John Cheever. At the end of a lengthy tirade Keats declared, 'Cheever was a workaholic whose prodigious output took a toll on the quality of his writing. Take 'The Swimmer' for instance, I would rather read a... a...' he searched for the most tedious publication he could imagine, 'an accountancy manual'.

'So you're talking about a textbook over a Cheever', suggested Chapman, pleased with himself.

'I sometimes think you're only in this for the jokes', snapped Keats.

Golden Arches

   Keats and Chapman nursed their respective hangovers in the unforgiving glare of a McDonald's. They sat in silence, occasionally stealing glances at headlines in a neighbour's Irish Independent whose health supplement bemoaned the country's medical problems. When their order arrived and their fellow diner had lumbered away they fell to discussing, between gulps of Coca-cola and gobbets of Quarter Pounders with Cheese, diabetes mellitus.

   'It's a terrible affliction, Chapman. Scourge of the modern world'.

   'Nice name though', reflected Keats as his head began to clear.

   Chapman looked up from the discarded lettuce in his cardboard tray, 'You think? Doesn't 'diabetes' simply mean 'to pass through'? It can make you piss like a fire-hose'.

   'I was referring to its full name' replied Keats, somewhat testily. 'Mellitus' stems from 'honey-like'. It was an Englishman, Thomas Willis, that first applied it to diabetes - he tasted a patient's urine and found it sweet. His bold dégustation contributed greatly to our understanding of the disease'.

   'I suppose scientists often draw conclusions using a process of elimination', observed Chapman, before hurrying to the jacks.

Cheap Echomimesis

In an attempt to stay on the dry Keats and Chapman had spent the evening writing traditional verse into which they sought to incorporate the names of Japanese poetic forms. They read aloud their compositions, but found them disappointing and as a result the two friends were becoming irritable. Their self-enforced sobriety wasn't helping.

It was late when Keats put down his pen, cleared his throat and intoned,

'From a lofty bough

The dove bested the poet

With its own haiku'

Chapman frowned and said, 'Not bad, but the humour's a little heavy-handed'

'Unlike your use of 'tanka' in a limerick?', enquired Keats as they simultaneously reached for the Bushmills.

Swan-upmanship

   Keats and Chapman were keen birdwatchers. Furthermore, they prided themselves on their taxonomic acuity when it came to the class Aves and rarely missed an opportunity to flaunt their knowledge. Such opportunities were limited, however, as no one else solicited their often colourless explanations.
   Once, when they were plodding through the wetlands of Patagonia, their boots caked with mud, and discussing whether the name of the region really was derived from 'those of big feet', Keats spotted a large white bird swimming gracefully in the distance. Squinting through his monocular he pronounced with satisfaction, ' Coscoroba Swan'.
   'Coscoroba coscoroba',' confirmed Chapman resheathing his telescope, 'an interesting case; known as a swan, but bearing many characteristics of a goose'.
   Keats wondered aloud how his friend would categorize such an atypical waterfowl.
   'I would say it's a swan goose'.
   'What kind of an Anser is that?' asked Keats, confusingly.

Opilion

As I knelt,
Gathering dust,
A harvestman drifted by,
Its transient presence,
The familiar question,
Its apparition,
An answer.


SRP

Dysphoria

When calling by to see Chapman one afternoon Keats was surprised to find his friend in bed and looking forlorn. Various tablets whose packaging claimed they were good for the health were strewn around the room.

'What ails you, Chapman?'

'Difficult to say. I'd describe it as a sort of existential despair, though there must be a more exact term... '

Keats thought for a moment, 'Would taedium vitae fit the bill?'

'Possibly'

'How about ennui?'

'No, more acute than that. Could you pass me those vitamin pills?'

'Dysphoria?'

'Nah, dem two over dere', replied Chapman, betraying a certain return to form.

The Mourner's Ruse

The young of the Cinereous Mourner

Are cunning when caught in a corner,

So as to elude

Those thinking them food

They mimic less flavoursome fauna.

Link to article

The Butterfly Bush

Buddleja davidsii

The butterflies aren’t feeding

They're listening

To the theosophic whispering

Of Adam and Armand:

Two clerics in a bush

SRP

The Fishermen

After Baudelaire

Often, out of duty, an albatross

Would stoop to harry fishermen,

Forcing them to cut their lines,

Tear off their oilskins

And huddle on a slewing deck.

The monstrous mew would then alight

To prod his naked captives

With his Brobdingnagian bill

And berate them with his squawks

Until he felt they understood.

SRP

The Will to Live

(For J B)

   Keats was justifiably proud of his salad dressing; its liquid caress could invigorate the most flaccid of radacchios. Over the years he had become obsessive about perfecting its recipe and went to extraordinary lengths to procure the requisite mustard, vinegar and olive oil, some of which he would salt away so as to never run out. If any of these ingredients were not immediately at hand, as was often the case due to the shambolic state of his kitchen, he became filled with despair.

   Chapman witnessed one such culinary crisis when he looked in from the dining room to see how his friend's much anticipated vinaigrette was progressing. He saw assembled amid the chaos a salt cellar and pepper pot, a jar of moutade de Dijon and bottle of vinaigre balsamique... but where was the oil so crucial to the mix?

   Keats was searching high and low all the while bemoaning his lack of organisational skills and resultant failure to locate the missing component. Finally, having ransacked in vain every cupboard and shelf, he collapsed into a chair and wailed, “I can not go on like this!”

   “Sounds like you've lost the huile d'olive”, suggested Chapman, unhelpfully.

My laburnum blew down

Its fall exposed a high and creepered wall.

A neighbour, mourning her favourite tree,

Quietly took photos of its yellow sprawl.

I considered what all this meant to me.

Finally I had access to the eaves!

Could rip out tendrils that probed my soffit,

Get to the tresses of fluttering leaves

Garnishing my roof. And yank them off it.

Leaning a ladder on the leafy shroud,

Keen to wield my Spear & Jackson Cutter,

I edged my way as fast as fear allowed,

Grimly, assuredly, towards the gutter.

SRP

Three Ways of Looking at a Blackboard

With acceptance,

With dismay,

As palimpsest.