Confession Time and Other Mediums

I used to read poetry like a Philistine. I've just realised. It is blazingly apparent to me, all of a sudden. I opened an old book from University and... saw the horror of my annotations. I observed my mark left. These were notes made in pen - an utter crisis of poor form. I saw at last the reality. I had been un-reading it in that time, before. Hardly bothered since. Non-reading. Never had I sat down and read the stuff properly.

It was introduced by syllabus and never my own industry. For shame! My plea to the honorable jury is that nowhere in the syllabus did it explicitly state that I had to grow as a person, and a man, in order to actually understand the material. That seems a bit of cheap shot to me in retrospect, I don't know about you. How are your studies doing by the way? I hope they are going well.

It seems that I made a slow transition as a thinker. Like the lumbering laborious about-face of a tremendous rusting cargo ship... I was slow to turn. HOONK! The matter studied like a slim rock pool full of crabs rather than the wider ocean. It's been a scandal. See the fishwives leer something awful as I wander back to town waving my soggy GCSE with ill-considered optimism. You should join the Navy, see the world, son. Much more reputable.

Now steady with the words of congratulation and matey slaps on the back. Hold your praise, contain your joy. I only managed to get about 12 stanzas and a half through the dedication of the poem I was reading before my mind started to confuddle with it's usual obsfucatory tricks. A sly combination of mounting wonder and criticism mingled glutinously to slow the pace of reading, before bringing it to a ponderous halt. With a face - a mooey - no doubt mounting with near intolerable gloom I find myself here at the internet, telling you what I saw there when I arrived there, clear as bell.

A side note: why is a bell clear? lazy language that, cliche. Doesn't mean anything no more.

Anyway:

Byron was really laying into a newly appointed Poet Laureate with gusto. Almost savage he was, apparently Tory was a comprehensive insult back then too. With aplomb, I tell you, he began then tearing some other bloke a new arsehole over Ireland. What can I say? Inspiring. Incidentally, see minute 7 and a half or so on Funny House Of Commons Moments on youtube, for William Hague giving Blair a 'how is this allowed?' personal-political nailing. See my fb page for a quick link. Also very good.

So, 12 stanzas of his dedication down - this was enough to prompt enough musing to meet myself here. This surely means I was enjoying it. Excellent. But I definitely need to get back to it, finish what I began. The spurious moment of enlightenment has been enjoyed and extended far beyond it's remit. Good though. Time to fire up the old brain and sharpen it a little more, on the whetstone of time and all that other stuff.