ED2013 Columns ED2013 Week1 Edition ED2013 Words & Events

Luke Wright: Fringe Poesy

By Luke Wright | Published on Tuesday 6 August 2013

Fringe favourite Luke Wright entertains you, the ThreeWeeks reader, with a weekly poem for Festival 2013. Enjoy the first below, then catch Luke’s show ‘Essex Lion’ at Assembly George Square.

At 4.48am Sentinel_poet wrote:
I type in fevered silence in the night,
defending fragile poesy from this blight
of ballad rap and mawkish sentiment,
the brackish sludge and reeking sediment
of media-friendly, level-entry dross,
stercoral whimsy, gauchely caked in gloss,
accessible and clumsy rhyming faeces
at this I aim my pixelated theses.
Beware blithe poetasters, for I slog
each night to slay your curdled claptrap on my blog.

Indeed on any page where doggerel lingers
no CAPCHA code is too nimble for my fingers.
These noble pinkies wield enormous power:
look on them bunkum bards and duly cower.
They’ll dole you out a witty rubbishing:
Get back where you belong – self-publishing!
I right the wrongs of writing gone arthritic
by those who seem to lack an inner critic
but always save the tersest of my scorn
for harlequins who stand up in pubs and perform!

Those egotists! I tell my Twitterati,
who said these half-wit boobies could be arty!
You have to go on courses, pay your dues!
You have to polish Sean O’Brien’s shoes!
Just like I did. You have to play the game
before the great and good will learn your name
and if they never do – well, that’s just tough.
It took those cliquey snobs quite long enough
to notice me, I’m still not in their club.
Each year a list is published and each year a snub!

Can no-one see the subtle Esperanto
contained within the twenty-thousand cantos
I’ve published (free of charge!) upon my blog?
Our noble art is headed for the dogs!
A duel attack: by rhyming stand-up comics
who wouldn’t know a haiku from a sonnet;
and tasteless masons backed by fawning hoards
who cook the books and fix all the awards.
And I, bereft of laughter and of prizes,
must fight them all each night, until the sun rises.

LINKS: www.lukewright.co.uk

Photo: Rich Dyson