Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis

Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis

WENDY COPE

To Arthur S. Couch
and everyone else who helped

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

I

Engineers’ Corner,

All-Purpose Poem for State Occasions,

A Policeman’s Lot,

Reading Scheme,

A Nursery Rhyme (as it might have been written by William Wordsworth),

A Nursery Rhyme (as it might have been written by T. S. Eliot),

Waste Land Limericks,

Triolet,

Emily Dickinson,

Proverbial Ballade,

Advertisement,

Lonely Hearts,

On Finding an Old Photograph,

Tich Miller,

At 3 a.m.,

From June to December,

My Lover,

Rondeau Redoublé,

Message,

Giving Up Smoking,

Manifesto,

II

Mr Strugnell,

Budgie Finds His Voice,

Usquebaugh,

The Lavatory Attendant,

E Pericoloso Sporgersi,

Duffa Rex,

Strugnell in Liverpool,

Narrative,

God and The Jolly Bored Bog-Mouse,

From Strugnell’s sonnets

(i) The expense of spirits,

(ii) Not from the stars,

(iii) My glass shall not,

(iv) Not only marble,

(v) How like a sprinter,

(vi) Let me not,

(vii) Indeed ’tis true,

From Strugnell’s Rubáiyát,

Strugnell’s Haiku,

III

Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis,

Acknowledgement

About the Author

Copyright

I

Engineers’ Corner

Why isn’t there an Engineers’ Corner in Westminster Abbey? In Britain we’ve always made more fuss of a ballad than a blueprint … How many schoolchildren dream of becoming great engineers?

Advertisement placed in The Times by the Engineering Council

We make more fuss of ballads than of blueprints –

That’s why so many poets end up rich,

While engineers scrape by in cheerless garrets.

Who needs a bridge or dam? Who needs a ditch?

Whereas the person who can write a sonnet

Has got it made. It’s always been the way,

For everybody knows that we need poems

And everybody reads them every day.

Yes, life is hard if you choose engineering –

You’re sure to need another job as well;

You’ll have to plan your projects in the evenings

Instead of going out. It must be hell.

While well-heeled poets ride around in Daimlers,

You’ll burn the midnight oil to earn a crust,

With no hope of a statue in the Abbey,

With no hope, even, of a modest bust.

No wonder small boys dream of writing couplets

And spurn the bike, the lorry and the train.

There’s far too much encouragement for poets –

That’s why this country’s going down the drain.

All-Purpose Poem for State Occasions

The nation rejoices or mourns

As this happy or sombre day dawns.

Our eyes will be wet

As we sit round the set,

Neglecting our flowerbeds and lawns.

As Her Majesty rides past the crowd

They’ll be silent or cheer very loud

But whatever they do

It’s undoubtedly true

That they’ll feel patriotic and proud.

In Dundee and Penzance and Ealing

We’re imbued with appropriate feeling:

We’re British and loyal

And love every royal

And tonight we shall drink till we’re reeling.

A Policeman’s Lot

The progress of any writer is marked by those moments when he manages to outwit his own inner police system.