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Ernest lived up to his name He was earnest.
His house had shutters
To keep everything silly out So that he could make up
A line of verse or prose
By candlelight, like it was always night (The best time to write words),
With a proper pen and ink, That would make a difference Would make one think.
“That had heft,” he said.
Words like commensurate and procurator and axiomatic.
And lots of them too
Sufficient to satisfy a collector or Fan of all words earnest-writ.
His words had photos of other Ernests In black-and-white with deep shadows,
Deep thoughts and chairs with stiff backs.
So every day
When he washed his face He looked in the mirror To check for frivolity,
And every day he was glad to see Only Ernest staring back earnestly.
Until –
Today he doesn’t like what he sees at all. For there atip his nose he sees a football Or better said, a spot as red as Mars
A biggun like Jupiter’s
Or the balls on zebra crossings to warn cars That schoolkids are belting to the baker’s. Which is where we spot our quarry
He is very hot from sprinting frantically to the library, pharmacy, surgery, armoury…
to get a remedy to his malady. For his red nose has spread To form nowt but a red head
No earnest words can be heard
No earnest features can be seen
Just a flood of tears of disgrace and shame That hitherto have eluded him.
To summarise:
Without a doubt Ernest’s pimple is a stonker His career as an earnest writer is over
And it’s time to open a shutter And take a peep at all the other Clutter.
So he does.
And many years later… We ask – ?
Has Ernest learnt to be less earnest Now he scrapes a living as a clown Sporting the reddest nose in town?
Nope. Sadly.
His act is crap, full of claptrap about Meaning and feeling, subtext and whatnot. The crowd are cross, they boo and shout “Show us your snout or get off.
We don’t want lofty words and clever stuff.”
But Ernest still thinks with pen and ink. Incubus, foreshortened, collateral, distinct. Inside, with his shutters closed,
He mints his prose for tomorrows show. “With heft,” he hopes.
January 13, 2024