Poetry

Epic and Autobiographical (AVersified Finale) An Autobiographical Narrative: 1990s 1

by Carl Halling
08/20/14
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A Perfectly Foolish Young Man I Wanted Part Two Book Five Epic and Autobiographical (AVersified Finale) An Autobiographical Narrative: 1990s 1

In the early part of autumn 1990,

I began a course known as the PGCE

Or Post Graduate Certificate in Education

At a school of higher education

In the pleasant outer suburb of Twickenham,

Becoming resident in nearby Isleworth.

I began quite promisingly as I saw it

Even though my heart

Was not really in the course

But I genuinely saw the benefits

Of successfully completing it,

And as might be expected,

Excelled in drama and physical education.

I rarely drank during the day,

But at night I was sometimes so drunk

I was incoherent.

The following versified piece

Serves a testimony to this sad truth.

Its original was a letter

Typed to a close friend in about 1990,

Some three years or so

Prior to my coming to saving faith

In the Lord Jesus Christ.

And concerning a series of accidents

I'd recently suffered.

However, it was never finished, nor sent.

When it was recovered,

It was as a piece of scrap paper,

A remnant from a long lost past.

It was subsequently edited and reassembled,

Before being subject

To some kind of versification in 2006.

And then some half decade later,

Further work was performed on it,

But it was still pretty threadbare for all that.

Incident in St. Christopher's Place

Dear, I haven't been in touch

for a long time.

Sorry.

The last time I saw you

Was in St. Christopher's Place.

It was a lovely evening...

when I knocked that chair over.

I am sorry.

Since then,

I've had not a few accidents

Of that kind.

Just three days ago,

I slipped out in a garden

At a friend's house...

And keeled over, not once,

Not twice, but three times,

Like a log...clonking my nut

So violently that people heard me

In the sitting room.

What's more,

I can't remember a single sentence

Spoken all evening. The problem is...

An Autobiographical Narrative: 1990s

The following oddity, recently versified,

And even more recently

Afforded a fresh new title,

Is one of only a handful of works of mine

Exhibiting the absurd

And affected writing style

I briefly adopted in the very early 1990s,

And which was typified

By an obsessive use of

Such archaisms as "tristful" and "pheere",

Although how much of it's

been based on something

I concocted more than two decades ago,

And how much of

More recent origin

I'm afraid I'm unable to say for certain.

Who Had He Not Sought Such Fatal Lethe

The playwright was most effective

As the dramatic illuminator

Of his own tristful destiny

As well as those of his kinfolk.

And of the two plays that treat

Of the tragic Tyrones

One features James,

His wistful pheere Mary,

And his two troubled offspring

A quartette of characters

Based respectively

Upon O'Neill's father James,

His mother Ella,

O'Neill himself,

And his elder brother, Jamie

Who had he not sought

Such fatal Lethe

Might have evolved into

A great actor like his father,

Or a writer like his brother,

Such was the luminous

Brilliance of his early promise.

How richly blessed he'd been

At birth with charm and intellect.

While part of the

Minim Department

Of Notre Dame University,

He was a favoured prince

Destined for a future

As a Catholic gentleman

Of exquisite breeding

And learning; and then

A prize-winning scholar

At Fordham, from which

He came to be expelled

For a foolish indiscretion.

While the other is an account

Of poor Jim Tyrone's

Last attempt at securing

Some kind of earthly felicity,

Through his love for Josie, a

Woman with a heart as vast

As the sorrows of his life,

A Moon for the Misbegotten.

Photo taken: 1980s? Early '90s?