ADRIAN MITCHELL
COME ON EVERYBODY
POEMS 1953-2008
Come On Everybody brings together poems from a dozen collections published by Adrian Mitchell over five decades, from Poems (1964) to Tell Me Lies (2008).
His poetry’s simplicity, clarity, passion and humour show his allegiance to a vital, popular tradition embracing William Blake as well as the ballads and the blues. His most nakedly political poems – about war, Vietnam, prisons and racism – became part of the folklore of the Left, sung and recited at demonstrations and mass rallies. His childlike questioning was a constant reminder from the 60s onwards that poetry is first and foremost an assertion of the human spirit.
A pacifist prophet who remained true to his heartfelt beliefs, Mitchell reported back for over half a century from a world blighted by war, compromise, double-talk and pragmatism without losing his innocence, integrity and impish sense of humour. Angela Carter described him as a ‘joyous, acrid and demotic tumbling lyricist Pied Piper determinedly singing us away from catastrophe’.
‘He has the innocence of his own experience…real inner freedom and the courage of his own music. Among all the voices of the Court, a voice as welcome as Lear’s fool… Humour that can stick deep and stay funny’
– Ted Hughes.
‘Nobody else writes like him. And it is becoming more and more evident that his achievement endures…Nobody has ever departed with such language for such a destination’
– John Berger.
‘Explosive energy, well-directed rage, undimmed idealism, a tremendous sense of how poetry can speak directly, and an innocence which is believable because it is wise’
– Andrew Motion.
‘This is Adrian Mitchell, the British Mayakovsky’
– Kenneth Tynan.
Cover picture & lettering by Ralph Steadman
Most people ignore most poetry
because
most poetry ignores most people
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Come On Everybody is a retrospective of Adrian Mitchell’s poetry drawn from these books, all published by Bloodaxe Books: Heart on the Left: Poems 1953-1984 (1997), Blue Coffee: Poems 1985-1996 (1996), All Shook Up: Poems 1997-2000 (2000), The Shadow Knows: Poems 2000-2004 (2004), and the posthumously published Tell Me Lies: Poems 2005-2008 (2009). Heart on the Left was itself a retrospective drawn from Poems (1964), Out Loud (1968), Ride the Nightmare (1971) and The Apeman Cometh (1975), published by Cape, and For Beauty Douglas: Collected Poems 1953-1979 (1982), On the Beach at Cambridge (1984) and Love Songs of World War Three (1989), published by Allison & Busby. The final poem, ‘My Literary Career So Far’, is previously unpublished. The poems are arranged in thematic sections which follow Adrian Mitchell’s own groupings in the original collections; the selection was made by Neil Astley with Celia Mitchell.
EDUCATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY WARNING
None of the work in this or any other of my books or plays is to be used in connection with any examination or test whatsoever. If you like a poem of mine, learn it, recite it, sing it or dance it – wherever you happen to be. But don’t force anyone to study it or vivisect it or write a well-planned and tedious essay about it. This is the first step in The Shadow Poet Laureate’s scheme to destroy the examination systems of the world, which have made true education almost impossible. Free the teachers and the children!
The Shadow reminds all students who are not happy that no law compels them to attend school – so long as it can be proved that they are being educated satisfactorily. (Contact Education Otherwise for information and help.) It is very hard for teachers and children to be happy in overcrowded schools. The Shadow would ask you to consider the ideal size for a school class. Most teachers agree with me that it would be about twelve. Even Jesus couldn’t manage thirteen.
ADRIAN MITCHELL
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
from HEART ON THE LEFT Poems 1953-1984
MY FAVOURITE ARCHIPELAGO
To You
Icarus Schmicarus
C’mon Everybody
To Nye Bevan Despite His Change of Heart
I Tried, I Really Tried
Nostalgia – Now Threepence Off
So Don’t Feed Your Dog Ordinary Meat, Feed Him Pal…
Time and Motion Study
Ode to Money
South Kensington Is Much Nicer
Reply to a Canvasser
Look at the View
The Observer
Song About Mary
We Call Them Subnormal Children
In Other Words, Hold My Head
A Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the Burial Party
Old Age Report
Now We Are Sick
Involvement
Divide and Rule for as Long as You Can
The Ballad of Sally Hit-and-Run
Dear Sir
English Scene
Under Photographs of Two Party Leaders, Smiling
Saw It in the Papers
Ten Ways to Avoid Lending Your Wheelbarrow to Anybody
Vroomph! or The Popular Elastic Waist
Leaflets
The Obliterating Prizes
Ode to Enoch Powell
The Blackboard
Question Time in Ireland
The Savage Average
Loose Leaf Poem
Back in the Playground Blues
The Swan
Farm Animals
On the Verses Entitled ‘Farm Animals’
Commuting the Wrong Way Round Early Morning
For My Son
Four Sorry Lines
Action and Reaction Blues
Screws and Saints
New Skipping Rhymes
Staying Awake
Bring Out Your Nonsense
Give It to Me Ghostly
Bury My Bones with an Eddy Merckx
Remember Red Lion Square?
Ode to Her
On the Beach at Cambridge
RELIGION, ROYALTY AND THE ARTS
The Liberal Christ Gives a Press Conference
Miserable Sinners
Sunday Poem
Quite Apart from the Holy Ghost
The Eggs o’ God
ROYAL POEMS
Another Prince Is Born
Lying in State
Poem on the Occasion of the Return of Her Majesty the Queen from Canada
My Shy Di in Newspaperland
THE ARTS
Goodbye
Jimmy Giuffre Plays ‘The Easy Way’
Buddy Bolden
Bessie Smith in Yorkshire
What to Do if You Meet Nijinsky
To the Statues in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey
Crusoe Dying in England
Whitman on Wheels
Canine Canto
Thank You Dick Gregory
For David Mercer
Hear the Voice of the Critic
The Ballad of the Death of Aeschylus
Gaston the Peasant
Lady Macbeth in the Saloon Bar Afterwards
To the Organisers of a Poetry Reading by Hugh MacDiarmid
Private Transport
What the Mermaid Told Me
A Blessing for Kenneth Patchen’s Grave
Discovery
There Are Not Enough of Us
Oscar Wilde in Flight
John Keats Eats His Porridge
Forster the Flying Fish
The Oxford Hysteria of English Poetry
What Is Poetry?
Autumnobile
Land of Dopes and Loonies
To a Critic
A
Sunset Cloud Procession Passing Ralph Steadman’s House
Ode to George Melly
For the Eightieth Birthday of Hoagy Carmichael
Happy Fiftieth Deathbed
The Call
Lament for the Welsh Makers
LOVE, THE APEMAN, CURSES, BLESSINGS AND FRIENDS
Good Day
Celia Celia
Footnotes on Celia Celia
September Love Poem
All Fool’s Day
Riddle
Take Stalk Between Teeth…
Top-Notch Erotic Moment Thank You
Coming Back
The Angels in Our Heads
Out
To a Godly Man
Hello Adrian
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF APEMAN MUDGEON
Apeman Keep Thinking It’s Wednesday
The Apeman Who Hated Snakes
The Apeman’s Hairy Body Song
Apeman Gives a Poetry Reading
Apeman as Tourist Guide
The Apeman’s Motives
Confession
Self-Congratulating, Self-Deprecating, Auto-Destructive Blues
I Passed for Sane
Sometimes I Feel Like a Childless Mother
The Institution
A Slow Boat to Trafalgar
A Machine That Makes Love…
Toy Stone
Unfulfilled Suicide Note
And Some Lemonade Too
It’s a Clean Machine
The Sun Likes Me
Self Critic
Adrian Mitchell’s Famous Weak Bladder Blues
A Ballad of Human Nature
This Friend
Birthdays
The Only Electrical Crystal Ball…
My Dog Eats Nuts Too
A Spell to Make a Good Time Last
A Spell to Make a Bad Hour Pass
A Curse on My Former Bank Manager
A Song for Jerry Slattery and His Family
Funnyhouse of a Negro
A Curse Against Intruders
For Gordon Snell – My Best, First and Finest Friend – on His Fiftieth Birthday
My Parents
Taming a Wild Garden
One More Customer Satisfied
To My Friends, on My Fiftieth Birthday
How to Be Extremely Saintly, Rarefied and Moonly
Loony Prunes
To Michael Bell
Beattie Is Three
SONGS FROM SOME OF THE SHOWS
Gardening
The Violent God
Calypso’s Song to Ulysses
The Children of Blake
Happy Birthday William Blake
Poetry
The Tribe
Medical
Ride the Nightmare
A Song of Liberation
The Widow’s Song
The Truth
Wash Your Hands
Lament for the Jazz Makers
Gather Together
The Pregnant Woman’s Song
Jake’s Amazing Suit
Secret Country
Cardboard Rowing Boat
OUR BLUE PLANET
The Castaways or Vote For Caliban
Quit Stalling, Call in Stalin
Remember Suez?
Written During the Night Waiting for the Dawn
Briefing
Ballade of Beans
From Rich Uneasy America to My Friend Christopher Logue
Official Announcement
Let Me Tell You the Third World War Is Going to Separate the Men…
Programme for an Emergency
Naming the Dead
Fifteen Million Plastic Bags
Order Me a Transparent Coffin and Dig My Crazy Grave
A Child Is Singing
The Dust
Veteran with a Head Wound
Life on the Overkill Escalator
You Get Used to It
Good Question
Byron Is One of the Dancers
One Question About Amsterdam
To the Silent Majority
The Dichotomy Between the Collapse of Civilisation and Making Money
Night Lines in a Peaceful Farmhouse
How to Kill Cuba
Family Planning
Open Day at Porton
Norman Morrison
Would You Mind Signing This Receipt?
For Rachel: Christmas 1965
Thinks: I’ll Finish These Gooks…
To a Russian Soldier in Prague
Goodbye Richard Nixon
Ceasefire
To Whom It May Concern (Tell Me Lies about Vietnam)
Peace Is Milk
A Tourist Guide to England
Sorry Bout That
Victor Jara of Chile
Astrid-Anna
Activities of an East and West Dissident Blues
Carol During the Falklands Experience
Chile in Chains
A Prayer for the Rulers of this World
One Bad Word
from BLUE COFFEE Poems 1985-1996
YES
A Puppy Called Puberty
A Dog Called Elderly
Questionnaire
Yes
Golo, the Gloomy Goalkeeper
Blood and Oil
Millennium Countdown
Trying Hard To Be Normal
Or
Cutting It Up
THE HAIRY ARTS
The Olchfa Reading
Booze and Bards
Poet
Poetry and Knitting
Explanation
The Wilder Poetry of Tomorrow
Hot Pursuit
Moondog
Deep Purple Wine
Parade
Edward Hopper
Mayakovsky and the Sun
The Perils of Reading Fiction
THE HAIRY ARTS
Dart River Bed
That June
Winter Listening
Winter Night in Aldeburgh
The Monster’s Dream
A Living Monument
Bird Dreaming
Sausage Cat
Epitaph for a Golden Retriever
For Golden Ella
Elegy for Number Ten
The Meaningtime
Understanding the Rain
A Cheetah, Hunting
Here Come the Bears
The Elephant
Elephant Eternity
JOIN THE POETRY AND SEE THE WORLD
Blue Coffee
Vauxhall Velvet
By the Waters of Liverpool
I Am Tourist
March in Vienna
London in March
The Postman’s Palace
Lerici, the Bay, Early on Saturday, May
Peace Memories of Sarajevo
For My Friends in Georgia
When the Government
The Boy Who Danced with a Tank
Sweet Point Five Per Cent
Ten Holes for a Soldier
YOUNG AND OLD
My Father and Mother or Why I Began to Hate War
Rainbow Woods
The Bully
To the Sadists of My Childhood
After Reading Hans Christian Andersen
As for the Fear of Going Mad
Grandfather’s Footsteps
The Sound of Someone Walking
Just a Little Bit Older
Keep Right on to the End of the Bottle
Ode to the Skull
My Orchard
Poem in Portugal
An Ode to Dust
Mid-air
Give Me Time – Autumn Is at the Gates
WAY OUT YONDER
Two Anti-Environmental Poems by Volcano Jones
Criminal Justice for Crying Out Loud – A Rant
Full English Breakfast
Moving Poem
Stuck Together Song
O Captain! My Captain! Our Fearful Trip Is Done
Icarus Talki
ng to His Dad
If You’re Lookin’ for Trouble You’ve Come to the Wrong Place
FOR LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
My Father’s Land
A Late Elegy for Jock Mitchell
Goodnight, Stevie
Brightness of Brightness
Maybe Maytime
Sometimes Awake
Thank You for All the Years We’ve Had…
An Open Window
Happy Breakfast, Hannah, on Your Eighteenth Birthday
A Flying Song
Reaching for the Light
Stufferation
Silence
BOTY
Boty Goodwin
The Forest and the Lake
A Flower for Boty
Good Luck Message to Boty Before Her Finals at Cal Arts
Telephone
Every Day
For Boty
Especially When It Snows
from ALL SHOOK UP Poems 1997-2000
THE YEARS SPEED BY
A Year Passes, as Years Do
Life Is a Walk Across a Field
UNDER NEW LABOUR
That Feeling
We Bomb Tonight
Education Education Education
The Druggards
Go Well
Shaven Heads
Walldream
Jesus Poems
THE CARNIVAL OF VENUS
Asymmetrical Love Song
Valances
Away
A Lucky Family
It Still Goes On
The Arrangements
Where Are They Now?
That About Sums It Up
Swiss Kissing
Safe Sex Swiss Kissing
My Friend the Talking Elevator of Tokyo
Love in Flames
Hospitality
ON THE ARTSAPELAGO
Poetry Is Not a Beauty Contest
If Digest
Desiderata Digest
If I Dare You, If I Double-Dare You
To a Helpful Critic
This Be the Worst
from Nine Ways of Looking at Ted Hughes
Cool / Hip
New Movie Regulations
AUTOBICYCLE
All Shook Up
In My Two Small Fists
The Mitchellesque Lineman
If Not, Sniff Not
Age 65 Bus Pass
Sorry Stuff
Student
Wishing
The Poet Inside
Not Much of a Muchness
Lighting Candles for Boty
February 12th, 1996
The Unbroken Heart
Advertising Will Eat the World
On the Deadophone
Apart from My Day Job