To M. P. Lichtenstein, on the Occasion of Our Wedding Day

Mark well this day, and more so, mark this Mark
I said “I do” to magic, and to talk,
To weeks spent laughing, when out in Central Park
We both broke out in Python’s silly walk.
It doesn’t go how Hollywood might claim
What lasts six decades won’t fit in two short hours
I didn’t find him, lose him, want to take his name
Then show up at the airport with some flowers.
For, though it seems extremely unromantic
To note this on the day that I’m a wife, I’m
Sad to say – being English and pedantic –
Those Lifetime movies never last a lifetime.
I’ll vow to stay, not for easy times and kisses
Not to miss the mark, but be to Mark, the missus.

Another piece of juvenilia, this one from college. Apparently there was a time I could a) read Middle English, b) write rhyme royal, and c) saw “the Press” a bit differently to Chaucer.

Flee From The Press

Fle from the Press, and dwell with soothfastnesse;
Lend godsibbes’ columnes ne’er thy keene inspeccion.
Heede no tabloyde praise upon thine Oscare dresse,
Ne in the Mirror seke thee thy refleccion
Ne wait for late retraccion, ne correccion.
The crystal balle doth spy thy every dede,
The Sunne schal delyvere, and al shal rede.

The Heat of Fame doth blaste thy frozen brow,
Yit smale relief thou have, for al thy Fannes.
Stil More, they crye, and lat us tast it Now!
Al publishéd, thy inmoste, sacred plannes;
Thy drinke, thy rehabbe, and thy dryvynge bannes.
Ther are no reynes to curbe that chargynge stede,
The Sunne shall delyvere, and al schal rede.

Aske not Phoebus’ eye to been thy savioure
Th’art but the balle that torneth at hys whim,
He telleth thine unseemliest behaviour,
How thou wedst her, and woke up next to him,
And physick shaped thy bodye, sans the gymme.
As he who dyed for thee, know thou canst blede;
The Sunne shall delyvere, and al shal rede.

Written for my favorite professor and all round lovely human being, Tony Nuttall.

To Professor A.D. Nuttall, on the Occasion of his Retirement

Of Nuttall’s wit, twould take an age to tell;
Such learning’s rarely found in one so sane
And rarer still, he can convey it well,
To make us wise, with minimum of pain.
Keenly, he’ll impart a scarce-known fact,
From deep in his encyclopaedic mind;
Were all books lost, tis he would have to act
To recreate the wisdom of mankind.
Yet he must leave, to take to pastures new
From pastures New, his scholarly élan
Now those beyond the dreaming spires may view
This library, enclosed within one man.
The dons will mourn his loss for Learning’s sake;
Not all their minds could half a Nuttall make.