"The Bard" by John Martin‘The Adjudication’ and Other Poetry by Anthony Watts The Society September 11, 2022 Culture, Humor, Poetry 12 Comments . The Adjudication “I weep for you,” the Walrus said: __“I deeply sympathise.” With sobs and tears he sorted out __Those of the largest size, Holding his pocket-handkerchief __Before his streaming eyes. —Lewis Carroll This one’s bereaved; another is divorced: One’s poem doesn’t scan; the other’s rhymes are forced. And this one lost a child at sea And sent five thousand words of therapy. The purity of grief seldom survives The treachery of words. It is their lives They are submitting here—despair and hope Sealed inside an A5 envelope. Poetry they thought and took the plunge. Words came too easily: the sponge With which they swabbed their tears of grief and rage Has dried to pumice on a thankless page. We look for damning archaisms, scribble notes: This pile is for the sheep, this for the goats— While one by one, the anonymous faces sink And are lost beneath the rising tide of ink. . . The Bard of Babel One eye blind with science, The other blind with pain, I saw the Bard of Babel stand Out on the lonesome plain. His fingers clawed a broken harp; A burning song was wrung From the vestiges of language On the tatters of his tongue: All you busy pimps of Progress, Your scaffolding is rust; Your fairy-lights are shattered And your dreams have turned to dust; Your breath has chased the petal From the lens of your delight And the flower of all your knowing Is a flower of endless night. And all around, the desert birds Were screaming with desire, As they watched ambitious carrion Its own scaffold raising higher. One eye blind with science, The other blind with pain, I heard the Bard of Babel sing Out on the darksome plain: Though your crippled tongues squawk lightning As you climb towards the sun, All your stairways end in rubble And your race has not begun And though I’m blind and choked with dust And deafened by your din, My spirit soars above your heads And dances in the wind, For I have been where I have seen How all your toil is vain. So sang the Bard of Babel, Alone on Shinar’s plain. All your stairways end in rubble; All your scaffolding is rust; All your fairy-lights are shattered; All your dreams have turned to dust. . . The music murdered on his lips, The quicklime in his eyes, As lightning snickered down the wall, I saw the Bard of Babel fall Beneath the Tower of Lies. . . Anthony Watts has been writing ‘seriously’ for about 50 years. He has won 26 First Prizes in poetry competitions and was longlisted for the National Poetry Competition 2014. His poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including A New Ulster, Acumen, Aesthetica Annual, Bananas, Cyphers, Envoi, Erbacce, Frogmore Papers, Ginosko Literary Journal, Impspired, Iron, Magma, Orbis, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Rialto and Riggwelter. His fifth collection, ‘Stiles’, is published by Paekakariki Press. A retired library assistant, his home is in rural Somerset (UK). NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)Trending now: 12 Responses James Sale September 11, 2022 What a fabulous poet Tony Watts is: The Adjudication is so powerful – where the god of poetry, Apollo, is also the god of healing too, and we read those works necessary for healing the writer but which fall short of being real poetry ‘lost beneath the rising tide of ink.’ Very strong indeed. I am actually proud to say I know Tony Watts, published his first collection (via The KQBX Press), Strange Gold, in 1991 and have performed live with him more than once! More please! Reply Michael Pietrack September 11, 2022 Bard of Babel = A+ Reply Gary Borck September 12, 2022 What a profound, haunting and wonderfully written poem you have written in the ‘Bard of Babel’, Anthony. You have invoked the style and mood of the past masters. Your poems are a joy to read, Anthony! Reply Roy E. Peterson September 12, 2022 I particularly loved “The Bard of Babel,” since I find it so applicable to modern society. I have so many thoughts on the “rising tide of ink” as imagery from “The Adjudication.” Thank you for sharing both of them. Reply Talbot Hook September 12, 2022 The Bard of Babel reads stupendously, and I am especially fond of the stanza: “Your breath has chased the petal From the lens of your delight And the flower of all your knowing Is a flower of endless night.” A job very well done indeed. Reply Geoffrey Smagacz September 12, 2022 These are rich poems and bear rereading. The second manages to scare the bejesus out of me while reminding me that we’re right back where we started from–at the end of something and headed for a rude awakening. The first reminds me that my poems are usually in the goat stack. Reply Cynthia Erlandson September 12, 2022 These are both so amazingly exquisite! I love so many of their profound phrases and concepts: “sent five thousand words of therapy”; “The purity of grief seldom survives the treachery of words”; the sponge used to swab tears “dried to pumice on a thankless page” — what amazingly creative imagery — Just Wow!! (I almost never use two exclamation marks.) and “the rising tide of ink.” And in “The Bard of Babel”, you manage to use the theme of language and its confusion to make images: “the vestiges of language on the tatters of his tongue.”; “crippled tongues squawk lightning”. I keep looking back and finding more things about these poems that are outlandishly good. All of the imagery of Babel’s fallen tower is exquisitely done; and just the idea of having a bard singing at the scene is ingenious. Reply Margaret Coats September 12, 2022 Hmm . . . The Bard of Babel is alone with the wreckage of both tower and language. All the others have left, each speaking his own new tongue understood by his fellows, but by none of the other nations. They all comprehend the practical consequences of the catastrophe, and move ahead in their present limitations. The traditionalist blind Bard sees the reason for the disaster, but has only broken means to bewail it, and no audience. A well-developed concept! Reply ABB September 13, 2022 A lot of memorable, quotable lines here. I can see why you have won 26 first prizes. You must have quite the trophy room. Hopefully you are parading your grandchildren through it to show them there are alternative routes to glory than team sports. Reply Anthony Watts September 17, 2022 Thank you all for your kind and encouraging comments. I think poetry should, above all, communicate, so it means a lot to me to know when my poems are appreciated. Reply Anthony Watts September 19, 2022 If you read ‘The Bard of Babel’ when it first appeared above, you may like to know that the last two stanzas were inadvertently omitted and have now been restored. Reply James Sale September 20, 2022 It’s strange but the ending on the ‘plain of Shinar’ seemed perfect as it was, but the now-supplied two missing verses are also great – this really is a poem with a kind of built-in depth to it! Great work – thank you, Tony. Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
James Sale September 11, 2022 What a fabulous poet Tony Watts is: The Adjudication is so powerful – where the god of poetry, Apollo, is also the god of healing too, and we read those works necessary for healing the writer but which fall short of being real poetry ‘lost beneath the rising tide of ink.’ Very strong indeed. I am actually proud to say I know Tony Watts, published his first collection (via The KQBX Press), Strange Gold, in 1991 and have performed live with him more than once! More please! Reply
Gary Borck September 12, 2022 What a profound, haunting and wonderfully written poem you have written in the ‘Bard of Babel’, Anthony. You have invoked the style and mood of the past masters. Your poems are a joy to read, Anthony! Reply
Roy E. Peterson September 12, 2022 I particularly loved “The Bard of Babel,” since I find it so applicable to modern society. I have so many thoughts on the “rising tide of ink” as imagery from “The Adjudication.” Thank you for sharing both of them. Reply
Talbot Hook September 12, 2022 The Bard of Babel reads stupendously, and I am especially fond of the stanza: “Your breath has chased the petal From the lens of your delight And the flower of all your knowing Is a flower of endless night.” A job very well done indeed. Reply
Geoffrey Smagacz September 12, 2022 These are rich poems and bear rereading. The second manages to scare the bejesus out of me while reminding me that we’re right back where we started from–at the end of something and headed for a rude awakening. The first reminds me that my poems are usually in the goat stack. Reply
Cynthia Erlandson September 12, 2022 These are both so amazingly exquisite! I love so many of their profound phrases and concepts: “sent five thousand words of therapy”; “The purity of grief seldom survives the treachery of words”; the sponge used to swab tears “dried to pumice on a thankless page” — what amazingly creative imagery — Just Wow!! (I almost never use two exclamation marks.) and “the rising tide of ink.” And in “The Bard of Babel”, you manage to use the theme of language and its confusion to make images: “the vestiges of language on the tatters of his tongue.”; “crippled tongues squawk lightning”. I keep looking back and finding more things about these poems that are outlandishly good. All of the imagery of Babel’s fallen tower is exquisitely done; and just the idea of having a bard singing at the scene is ingenious. Reply
Margaret Coats September 12, 2022 Hmm . . . The Bard of Babel is alone with the wreckage of both tower and language. All the others have left, each speaking his own new tongue understood by his fellows, but by none of the other nations. They all comprehend the practical consequences of the catastrophe, and move ahead in their present limitations. The traditionalist blind Bard sees the reason for the disaster, but has only broken means to bewail it, and no audience. A well-developed concept! Reply
ABB September 13, 2022 A lot of memorable, quotable lines here. I can see why you have won 26 first prizes. You must have quite the trophy room. Hopefully you are parading your grandchildren through it to show them there are alternative routes to glory than team sports. Reply
Anthony Watts September 17, 2022 Thank you all for your kind and encouraging comments. I think poetry should, above all, communicate, so it means a lot to me to know when my poems are appreciated. Reply
Anthony Watts September 19, 2022 If you read ‘The Bard of Babel’ when it first appeared above, you may like to know that the last two stanzas were inadvertently omitted and have now been restored. Reply
James Sale September 20, 2022 It’s strange but the ending on the ‘plain of Shinar’ seemed perfect as it was, but the now-supplied two missing verses are also great – this really is a poem with a kind of built-in depth to it! Great work – thank you, Tony. Reply