Sunday, December 06, 2009

Five Famous People Spotted in the British Library

Man, faded jeans and crumpled white shirt
Invented a code
Enabling computers of different races,
Religions and sexual persuasions
To talk to one another.

Woman, frizzy hair back from forehead
Low-slung scuffed leather bag
Wrote a series of mind-altering essays
On cytotoxic triterpenoids derivatives

Man, blue shirt, head down, muddy shoes
Turned conventional wisdom on its head.
Sells out at philosophical conventions
Obtuse and garrulous
Working on novel about Ba Jin Ba Jin

Man, Marcus Turuk (still wearing name badge
From yesterday’s meeting
With professor Huff and colleagues)
Inventor of over two hundred applications
For polycarboxlate cement

Man, Robbie Williams

9 comments:

Roger Stevens said...

I'm not sure about the last line. What do you think?

Russell CJ Duffy said...

Not sure I understand it? Did you see Robbie there then? It isn't an exclamation so therefore is it a statement? You being playful?

what do I know of poetry anyway?

Fekenham is still being revised. Now on chapter 42 so only twenty to go!

Roger Stevens said...

No, I didn't see any of them. Just making stuff up and being playful. I was trying to think of the last person you might see there. Someone suggested the last line should be someone less famous. I did write the poem IN the Bristish Library, whilst waiting for a fellow poet to turn up.

Roger Stevens said...

Hmmm... the Bristish library? Wonder where that is?

Wastedpapiers said...

Is it anywhere near the Brutish Library? That's where they dont use a date stamp on the book but on the face of the librarian.

Russell CJ Duffy said...

I think that the Bratish Library may be in Peckham. Not sure though.

Russell CJ Duffy said...

PS. Is waiting for a poet a:
1. song by The Velvet Underground
2. like waiting for a bus
3. a film by Roman Polanski

Roger Stevens said...

All three.

Wastedpapiers said...

Nothing for ages and then four come along at once!