A ROLL-CALL OF INKLINGS

Every Wednesday in Roscoe comes more than a sprinkling

of literary talent – some early, some late –

but each one a future best-seller, an Inkling –

for this means they share in a glorious fate.

To our metrically challenged poetaster

we’ll one day devote a memorial plaque

for tickling our funny bones faster and faster

though we know that his toilet paper is black.

The importance of being a Lancashire poet

who earnestly chuckles and gives what it takes

is that he is one, and don’t we all know it! –

a verbal snake-charmer – and we are the snakes.

Or, listen! yes, here is another who warbles

to the dancing cobra of lyrical dreams.

A voice from Maghull (not a grunt from the Gorbals),

she’s anything naturally except what she seems.

And next we’ve a writer who puns without errors,

whose email production is quite nonpareil.

He commutes from Greek islands to far-off Oak Terrace;

he’ll surely be published in Finnish or Braille.

Furthermore we’ve an author from exotic Dingle.

For rejections he’s surely the premier ace;

his nerves may still spark and his synapses tingle –

but you’ve never encountered a sorrier case.

Making up for this gentleman’s shortcomings,

the Inklings can boast of a literary vet

whose verses are fanfares or kettledrummings

which we don’t understand at all as yet.

And again we’ve a young man who scoured the ages

for inspiration to fire his verse

till he put together twelve hundred pages –

a practical joke on the universe.

You would hardly call the next Inkling messy –

understated lyricist, poet of skill –

but nor would you call her exactly dressy,

this bulwark of Prescot, this Friend of the Phil.

Of course there are others, all heterogeneous,

all shaking spears and out-Prousting Proust.

Each Wednesday they fly to this hot-bed of genius,

a flock of old Phoenixes come home to roost.