To Zephyrus, The West Wind

 

Psyche you bore, not too heavy a load
Took her to Cupid, the Ancients did sing.
The best way to fly, for her just the thing,
Not your fault the pain that thenceforward flowed.
Pilgrims afoot on the old frog and toad,
Geoffrey heaped praise on you, herald of Spring.
Writers a-plenty have blessed what you bring -
Young Percy the poet wrote you an ode.
For some reason things do not seem the same
This western wind now’s an icy, cold blast
Why did it all go so horribly wrong?
That wretched jet stream is what we must blame.
Mild, gentle breezes – a thing of the past?
Poor Zephyrus – have you sung your last song?

© John Welford

Cleaning Day

 

One day a week the house gets clean
It’s called the Saturday routine.
We execute our careful plan
To get as close to spick and span
As can be done when short of time
For getting shot of filth and grime.
The problem is our canine beast
Who is no help, to say the least.
A joy in every other way
She simply must be kept at bay
When Mr Dyson’s fine machine
Is used in our attempt to clean
Domestic floors of dirt and dust.
You see, you simply cannot trust
That, spurred by its persistent drone,
She will not treat it like a bone
That must be grabbed, and, what is more,
She’ll even lift it off the floor.
When she’s around, a task like this
Will always be less hit than miss.
It takes an age, need I mention,
If the task has dog’s attention.
And that’s why Sue, my lovely wife,
Does what she can to make my life
Easier far, without more talk,
By taking doggy for a walk.
About two hours is what I need
To give due credit to the deed.
But on that day the rain was such
She simply couldn’t grant that much.
“This is not a passing shower,
We’ll be gone for just an hour”.
And off they went, a bit less keen
Than what is regularly seen –
The pair seemed equally averse,
Both seemed to fear it might get worse.
(The way we work this, by the by,
At least means my good self stays dry).
But now I had – it’s not much fun -
To get two hours’ work done in one.
The downstairs rooms are always first
Their muddy tiles, of course, are worst.
The furniture is moved aside
So no unwanted dirt can hide.
The Dyson sucks up what is loose
And then the steamer’s put to use.
When all is shifted once again,
The other half is treated, then
The room’s restored to how it was.
The work goes faster next, because
The other rooms have carpets, so
The task is nothing like as slow.
That day, ‘bout which this tale is told,
Was going well, I make so bold
To state I reckoned I could crack
The lot before dear dog came back.
Upstairs, not much was left to do,
Just bedrooms, office, bathroom, loo.
The final task would be the stairs
After which, no further cares.
A maxim you must never shirk
Is, when you have a lot of work,
Less speed results from excess haste,
But if you have no time to waste
Common sense through window flies
And deeds become more dumb than wise.
So that is why that morning, when
I went to clean my office den,
(I should have taken lots more care)
I roughly pushed aside my chair.
The table corner that it bumped
Was where I thoughtlessly had dumped
A ton of interesting stuff -
As if I did not have enough -
For which no shelf space could be found
Thus forming an unstable mound.
But gravity then took its course
(A somewhat overrated force).
I should have known, for ill or good,
The merest, slightest, knock just would
Precipitate an avalanche,
Depositing thereby a tranche,
A heap, exactly as it looks,
Of unread mags and unsold books.
I rushed the job, I must confess,
Resulting in a lot more mess.
I then did something just as naff –
A stupid time-consuming gaffe –
I took a photo of the scene,
The very one that’s on this screen,
I thought I’d have a tale to tell
That I could write, if all went well.
I quite forgot, was unawares,
I hadn’t finished with the stairs.
Instead, with office aids in sight,
I stopped the task, began to write,
And then the sound – I’m sure I swore –
Of someone opening our back door.
Oh dear – of course my hour was up
And back came Sue and former pup.
The latter, wet with muddy paws,
Was overjoyed to be indoors.
I ran downstairs to greet the pair
And hear whatever Sue might care
To tell of what the two had seen
While I was getting homestead clean.
But that was when I had a shock -
My efforts, racing ‘gainst the clock,
I saw were plainly up the spout
Of that there was no likely doubt.
Dog, as soon as she was able,
Gave us an Augean Stable.
The muck from up to three miles wide
Had been deposited inside.
Worse than prior to when I’d started,
Mud, not there before we parted,
Was coating every kitchen tile -
I found it hard to force a smile.
With further shakes of sodden hair
More globs of grime were plastered where
They joined, to make the scene complete,
The fall-off from her filthy feet.
Those paws were all it took to spoil
The fruits of muggins’s strain and toil.
You take a deep breath, count to ten -
In seven days’ time you try again.

© John Welford

Macbeth Demands a Recount

 

Macbeth, recently defeated and beheaded at the hands of Macduff, duly arrived on the bank of the River Styx to be rowed across to Hades by Charon the ferryman. However, he proved to be a reluctant passenger, not least because he saw no reason to give the infernal boatman his usual fee.

“No cash, no deal”, Charon said.

“Don’t you talk to me about deals”, Macbeth replied. “I know more about deals that you’ll ever know. I wrote the book about deals – or at least my ghostwriter did.”

“But if you don’t pay me you don’t get across”, said Charon. “You have to wander about for a hundred years before you get a free ride.”

“Don’t you talk to me about free rides …”

“And besides that”, Charon interrupted, “Your nearest and dearest should have left a coin on your tongue as my payment, so where is it?”

“I ran out of any nearest and dearest early in Act Five”, said Macbeth. “Besides which, somebody cut my head off, so any coin would probably have fallen out of the hole where my neck used to be.”

“Yes, I see that,” said Charon. “Incidentally, somebody did a terrible job trying to stitch it back on so you could get down here. Don’t nod too vigorously or it’ll be off again”.

“Of course, I shouldn’t be here at all”, said Macbeth. “When I get to see your boss I’m going to demand a recount.”

“A recount?”

“Sure thing. When everything is looked at properly, everyone will see that I won that battle by a landslide.”

“I don’t think so”, said Charon. “According to what I’ve been told, Macduff and Malcolm won it by a woodslide.”

“You mean that terrible ‘Birnam Wood shall come to Dunsinane’ trick? You just wait till I take that little number to your Supreme Court. My mate Bill Shakespeare has been packing the bench for years with loads of guys who’ll back me up – Othello, Lear, Julius Caesar, even Falstaff if they’ve managed to keep him off the booze.

“I’m telling you”, he continued. “It’s all a witch hunt. And talking of witches, I’ll bet they were all in it too.”

“In what?”

“The conspiracy. They all wanted me dead right from the start. I could tell just from what they were putting in that foul cauldron of theirs.”

“Such as?”

“Wool of bat for starters. They clearly wanted me to catch Covid-19. And ‘eye of newt’? I’m positive they slipped in a fake newt. Those crones made a whole heap of forecasts that they knew could not possibly happen, unless they fixed it, so what did they do?”

“Tell me.”

“Isn’t it obvious? They fixed it! All that ‘man who is not born of woman’ nonsense, and they reckoned that because Macduff’s mum had a Caesarian that meant that he wasn’t properly born. What codswallop. And these people get paid huge sums of money …”

“Do they?” Charon asked.

“Of course they do. All these mystical types get paid a fortune so they can swan around on jet-powered broomsticks and live the life of Riley. They take all-expenses-paid luxury holidays in England, you know.”

“Can’t say I did, to be honest.”

“That’s why I had that wall built, you know.”

“Wall?” Charon looked bemused.

“Between Scotland and England. To stop hordes of foreigners pouring in and witches pouring out – but I’d forgotten that it doesn’t work if you’re on a broomstick.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong”, said Charon, “but I thought it was Emperor Hadrian who built that wall?”

“More lies”, said Macbeth. “Nobody gives me the credit for everything I’ve done for this country. Nobody!”

“But you’re dead now”, said Charon, “so it doesn’t matter.”

“That reminds me”, said Macbeth, “Another thing about that conspiracy. There were dead people who were allowed to get in on the act. If you’re dead, you can’t be allowed to affect the outcome of any future power struggle, and yet there was Banquo, who I am absolutely positive was dead – due to the fact that I had him killed – turning up at one of my parties. There he was, bold as brass! I tell you, it’s just not right, and I demand a recount!”

“Just get in the boat”, said Charon. “I’m breaking the habit of a lifetime and giving you a free ride. If I charged you, I bet you’d only claim it as tax-deductible.”

© John Welford

1,6,3,1,4

Not him or her, don’t look too far
For pronoun perpendicular.
Ocular orb, a town near Diss,
You surely must be getting this.

 

I had it once but here’s the score
I do not have it anymore.
I wonder where it might be hid -
In haven to support its bid?

 

It is as plain as plain could be
The holy Deutsch divinity
It is exactly as you heard
You must omit the fourth or third.

 

Beef or mutton? Go one higher
It’s horsy food that you desire.
Played on banjo, flute or sung?
Three major sharps but minor none.

 

You only have the downstairs floor
Is the rope inside a drawer?
Mystery solved? No need to fuss
You simply leave off Homer’s cuss.

© John Welford

Cerberus Takes a Break

 

As old dogs go, there won’t be many – if any - who are older than me. The name’s Cerberus, and I’ve been the guard dog of Hades for eternity. I have my den on the bank of the River Styx, right next to where Charon the boatman lands the shades of the departed. I am well aware that there has been much speculation up top about exactly what I look like, namely how many heads I’ve got and whether or not I’ve got serpents coiled round my neck, but I know what I am and you lot can just carry on guessing – until such time as you meet me for real, that is.

I really enjoy my work, which is basically letting the departed know what they’re in for down here. If you’ve led a decent sort of life, you just get a growl or two, but the real nasties are in for a somewhat less pleasant experience. The word “shade” should not be taken too literally – when my jaws are fastened round your ankle the pain is far from imaginary! I just love hearing the screams when my teeth crunch on bone, and I’ve crunched some real beauties in my time.

Let me see, there was Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Donald Trump – oh no, that last one’s not dead yet, is he? Don’t worry, I’ll be ready for him when he is. And the same goes for Nigel Farage.

I really love it when an American tele-evangelist comes my way. Do you know the type I mean? These are the guys who con vast numbers of people into parting with their cash so that the evangelist can live a life of luxury and buy a fleet of private jets, by promising their “flock” that they will have their diseases cured and take a short-cut to Heaven when they pop their clogs. You should see the expression on the face of the average tele-evangelist when Charon deposits one at my side of the River Styx – you might almost think they had other ideas about where they would end up.

Anyway, the reason I’m writing this note is to tell you that I’m about to take my annual leave. Charon decided some time ago that letting me nip upstairs to your world every now and then was in his best interest. Although, as I said, I love my work, the diet of nasty people’s ankles is ever-so-slightly monotonous and I can get a touch crabby without a bit of variety. It was when he found me chewing a hole in his boat that he suggested I take a break every now and then. So this is fair warning that Cerberus, the dog from Hades, is about to get some fresh air.

I will confess that I tend to gorge myself when I’m on my hols. I apologise to the world’s foxes for the blame they get for raiding hen houses and slaughtering the inmates – half the time that’s me having an extended chicken supper.

And all that extra food produces masses of extremely sticky and smelly dog poo. I tend to perform wherever I can guarantee the presence of a human foot within the next half hour.

But my chief delight on being free to charge all over the place is to make the acquaintance of as many lady dogs as I can and leave them in the family way. I tend to choose partners that look a bit like me to start with, so my genetic material stands a good chance of producing pups with a similar attitude to mine. All those dogs that people describe as “hell hounds” are usually exactly that - their daddy was the original hound from hell.

Did you ever wonder how Arthur Conan Doyle got the idea for the Hound of the Baskervilles? One of my offspring gave him a nasty shock one night down a back alley in Edinburgh, that’s how!

I try not to make these trips into a busman’s holiday – scaring people to death is an occupational hazard, and I’m sorry to say that one look at me quite often has that effect. That is why I try to stay out of sight as much as possible, and I always prefer it if people get their first view of me when I’m on duty down below. On the other hand, I have been known to deliberately seek out the occasional tele-evangelist for the sole purpose of hastening the inevitable.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a deputy in Hades, so my holiday absence means that the work tends to pile up and I have a really busy time of it when I get back. That is why these breaks, necessary though they are, have to be on the short side. No matter – there’s still plenty of life in the old dog, as many a lady rottweiler can testify!

 © John Welford

Should She Open It?

 

Queen Cleopatra had a problem. Her birthday was coming up in a week’s time and a host of presents had already arrived at her palace in Alexandria. She knew that most of them would be from Mark Antony, who was away fighting various battles, and she also knew that it would be a pity to spoil the surprise by opening them early.

On the other hand, she was curious and excited beyond measure, knowing that the love of her life was always both generous and original in his present giving. Last year he had excelled himself with the do-it-yourself pyramid-building kit, consisting of all the stones individually wrapped, together with at least three slaves per stone to do the actual shifting and lifting. Shouting at the slaves counted as do-it-yourself as far as the average Egyptian monarch at that time was concerned.

But this year there was one box that excited her curiosity more than any other. Like most of Mark Antony’s presents it had come courtesy of the Nile delivery service, and it always amazed her just how much spare papyrus the people at Nile would cram into all their crates whatever the size of the object within. One year she had received a crate that was an exact cubit cube that contained an exquisite lapis lazuli jewel in the shape of a scarab that fitted into the palm of her hand. She sent all the spare papyri to the Alexandria Library in case they could put them to any use.

But she was sure that this box now in front of her was making a noise. She had given Mark Antony a few hints along the lines of giving the palace a complete makeover – maybe a fresh coat of paint, a new set of hieroglyphic inscriptions and the occasional pot-plant on a stand for the room corners. Could this crate possibly contain some sort of water feature, and could it be leaking? That was the best guess she could arrive at, given that it sounded like water escaping through a small hole. It was definitely a hiss.

So that was her dilemma – should she open the box or not? She hated to spoil the birthday surprise but on the other hand if water was hissing out of a crack it would soon make a mess all over the floor. The decision was made. She opened the box.

It turned out to be the last decision she ever made, and it was easily her worst of many. As soon as it was free, a huge cobra snake sprang from the box and fixed its jaws in her neck. The venom did its work quickly and Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, was no more.

 

A Few Weeks Before

 

Mark Antony was having a very busy day. One problem with fighting battles, apart from the distinct possibility of getting yourself killed in the process, was all the planning they entailed. Orders had to be sent to all quarters to make sure that the various aquiliferae, signiferae, optii, and tesserariae were in place and doing their jobs properly. He was so glad that he had learned plenty of Latin at school so that he knew what he meant even if nobody else did, and his cases agreed whether or not his underlings did so.

One added complication this time was Cleopatra’s impending birthday. It would be very bad form to forget, and at least he was sure that Nile would deliver everything he ordered on time. If only he could use them to order victory in battle – presumably the troops sent by Nile would have to fight their way out of a papyrus bag before they fought anyone else.

At least he knew what to order from Nile, given the broad hints that Cleo had been dropping for months past. He had a mental list of everything, from several gallons of magnolia paint to all the various houseplants. Being a Roman, he obviously knew them all by their Latin names, but he had to assume that the people at Nile might not and thus dictated his orders to his scribe accordingly.

He therefore had to translate Pennisetum setaceum to fountain grass and Chlorophytum comosum to spider plant. It did not come naturally to him, but it would be terrible to get this sort of thing wrong.

The scribe was having an awful time. As messengers flew in and out of the office, bringing news of troop movements and equipment shortages that had to be sorted out yesterday, he was being given orders by his boss that had to be written out in double quick time. Almost as soon as he started on one message he had to break off and grab a new piece of papyrus to scribble away at another one.

It also did not help that the messages seemed to alternate between instructions to a Praefectus Cohortis relating to troop displacements and to the Nile delivery service for a maidenhair fern to be sent to Queen Cleopatra.

And that was where things came unstuck. The scribe had only just started on a Nile order for an aspidistra when Mark Antony barked out that he was to drop that and write out an urgent requisition for extra dolabrae to be used for digging trenches. Thus it was that when the postal clerk arrived to collect the completed messages he left with one that was far from complete. Unfortunately, the scribe had only written the first three letters of the word aspidistra, and the result was what did for Queen Cleopatra – according to William Shakespeare, anyway.

 © John Welford

William Shakespeare Seeks a New Direction

 

It was early in 1593, during one of Will Shakespeare’s frequent home visits to Stratford after he had based himself in London, that the subject of his ongoing career came up in the conversation.

“So how’s the playwrighting going?” asked his wife Anne.

“It could be better”, Will replied. “I’ve done four history plays, to wit three Henry VIs and Richard III, and I’ve just tried turning my hand to comedy.”

“That sounds promising,” said Anne. “Everybody likes a good laugh.”

“I agree”, said Will, “but they seem to get more giggles watching Richard III than The Comedy of Errors”.

“Bit of a flop then?”

 “Could be. And then there’s the fact that it needs two sets of identical twins – finding one set of twin actors in London is bad enough, but two?”

“So what’s your plan, Will?”

“I’m thinking of jacking in the theatricals lark”, Will replied. “I need a new direction for my talents, so I’m planning on retraining for a completely new career.”

“Which is?”

“Hitman.”

“You what?”

“Hitman. Paid assassin. There must be plenty of opportunities with all the plots against Queen Elizabeth. Her spies are very good at tracking down the baddies, but they need people to do the actual job of bumping them off. I could do that.”

“But you’ve never killed anyone”, said Anne.

“I've had a few murders in my plays”, said Will. “Richard III was full of them. But you’re right – I need a proper training course in dagger skills and that sort of thing. I’ll have a word with some of my fellow playwrights when I’m next in London – I’m sure they could point me in the right direction.”

So that was what he did. A few weeks later he was to be found at a pub in Deptford, knocking back the ale with Thomas Kyd, Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe. This was a regular get-together when they were all in town. They quite often took part in the pub quizzes and played a game or two of darts before they got too drunk to aim properly and were a danger to any passer-by.

They were all a bit surprised that Will Shakespeare was proposing to give up writing plays, as they all reckoned that he could make a proper go of it if he really took it seriously, but saw no problem with him becoming a paid assassin. Tom Kyd and Kit Marlowe had both written plays that contained a vast amount of violence, not to mention many and various ways of doing somebody to death. If Will wanted a few tips, he had come to the right people.

“Mind you”, said Kit, “You’ll probably want to be a bit less imaginative than some of my characters were. The red-hot poker up the backside technique, as in “Edward II”, although doubtless highly satisfying – for the hitman that is, not the victim – might be a trifle impractical for real purposes. I recommend sticking with daggers – in both sense of the phrase.”

“As it happens,” said Tom, “I just happen to have one of my stage daggers with me. You know – the sort that has a retractable blade. They look so effective when combined with copious amounts of pig’s blood. If I don’t get half the front row passing out with shock I always reckon I’ve failed.”

“You could practice on Kit”, said Ben. “Suppose he’s your target. Just creep up behind him and stab him in the neck. You OK with that, Kit?”

“No problem”, said Kit. “That’s a really good stage dagger, by the way. It looks just like the real thing.”

So Will followed Ben’s instructions and duly plunged the dagger into Kit Marlowe’s jugular. Kit’s response was immediate. He gave a loud cry and slumped forward, with blood spurting all over the place.

“Wow!” said Ben. “That’s just brilliant. I never realized you were such a good actor, Kit. And where did you get all that pig’s blood from? It’s very realistic!”

“Just one little thing, Tom”, Will said. “Didn’t you say that the blade was supposed to retract into the handle? I’m not completely sure that it did.”

“Whoops”, said Tom. “I think you’re right. I might have to take this dagger back to the shop I bought it from. They seem to have sold me a dud. It’s a shame about Kit, though”.

“How can you tell a stage dagger from a real one?” Ben asked.

“Easy”, said Tom. “Stage daggers always have a green band round the handle.”

“This one has a red band.”

“You sure?”

“Certain”, said Ben. “That band is red.”

“Well, what do you know?” said Tom. “I always wondered if I might be red/green colour-blind. Now I have the answer.”

“Might I suggest”, said Ben, “that we put off any further discussion for the time being? I have an inkling that it might not be good for our health to be found in a pub alongside the dead body of a renowned playwright, so let’s make ourselves scarce.”

Once they had done precisely that, and after a few days’ reflection, Will decided that the hitman idea was probably not such a good one after all, especially after he had seen a performance of Thomas Kyd’s “The Spanish Tragedy”, with its constant portrayal of hangings and stabbings, plus a character biting off his own tongue.

The audience reaction was so enthusiastic that Will determined to go one better, which was why he returned to playwrighting and produced the graphically grisly “Titus Andronicus” not long afterwards. The rest, as they say, is history.

© John Welford