The Friday Poetry Circle

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Do I know Mad Malcolm?
Yes, and we still talk about him
at our weekly meetings.
Connie’s usually the one
who starts, reminding us
about the time when
he brought in a poem
to share but, really weird,
he’d painted it onto a canvas
he’d specially braced,
all proper professional-like.

He reckoned he’d packed in
a lifetime’s experience,
good Samaritan attentive
as he was to every cry,
his backwash of starry similes
radiating wisdom
from the beginning of time,
his beaded metaphors glistening
on tingling telephone wires
like raindrops of succour,
and all that.

Derek – he has to get over
his fit of giggling first –
tells how Malcolm sneaked it
into Tate Modern
and saw him lurking in a corner,
miming a hooded statue
scowling at the visitors
as they silently shuffled past him,
(who comes up with these crazy exhibits?)
till the gallery closed.

Mavis always maintains
he muttered something
unrepeatable about Philistines,
wrenched his poem off the wall
and sulked all the way home.
Back? No, he’s never been back,
but we still talk about him.

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