I am publishing here occasional verses that I have written over the years.
The first is a recent composition dedicated to the Woodland Trust, titled The English Names for Wood. It is now available for inspection at the Woodland Trust’s web site. It can be seen at:http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/campaigning/woodwatch/woodwatchers/Pages/theenglishnamesforwood.aspx
(Well, the Woodland Trust saw fit to remove the page, so I reproduce it here.)
The second is a light-hearted piece dedicated to that tireless fighter for the proletariat, Anthony Blunt: To The Ramparts!
And here is a piece on the slipperiness of artificial communities: ‘We‘.
While reading H. Montgomery Hyde’s Secret Intelligence Agent recently, I came across a passage that ran as follows: “Leaves in the army and BSC were not ungenerous, and I spent two of mine in Mexico where I had become interested in the lives of the ill-fate Maximilian and his equally unfortunate wife Carlota, who went mad, and lived on after his execution for fifty-nine years in placid insanity.” This fascination mirrored mine, since, several summers ago, when I was laid up with a recurrence of my back injury, I developed a similar interest in the short-lived Mexican Empire. I was prompted to write an epic poem about it, of my creations the one of which I am perhaps most proud. It was nominated for a couple of awards, and Clive James was generous enough to write of it, in the Times Literary Supplement: “Percy’s urgent trochees and dactyls summon up well the heroic impulses of that fractured epoch.” I am happy to present it here, the first time it has appeared on-line, I believe. (December 29, 2018)
Observations by an anonymous friend on an entry in Guy Liddell’s Diaries inspired me to pen the following ballad: ‘Diary of a Counter-Espionage Officer‘. (January 14, 2019)
I was reminded, by reading a citation of Christian Morgenstern’s ‘Der Werwolf’, that, in my teens, I had been inspired to try to imitate the German humorist. I recalled writing the attached verse, titled ‘Measly’. (November 11, 2022)