John Forbes' Knacks

I've been thinking about John Forbes. John died in 1998, aged 47. I met him in Cambridge & we had a couple of drinks. I found an old pamphlet of his which had fallen down the back of the bookshelf. I hate to think that I haven't read him for ages. Maybe I can make up for that by mentioning him here. He had a knack for coming up with brilliant titles, followed by brilliant poems. For example: Ode to Tropical Skiing, The Stunned Mullet, Four Heads & how to do them, Muddy Waters Relaxing Between Gigs, Police Elegy, Rocket to Rome (Homage to the Ramones), Self-portrait with cake, and Warm Snipers. Here's a poem of his from that dusty pamphlet - HUMIDITY (Equipage, 1998).


Satori in Viterbo

                          'Ken Bolton's approach to poetry

                          makes any theory of performance

                          collapse and all serious critical

                          analysis impossible'

                                                Dorothy Green

Let’s make a theory of performance

                                                       collapse!

                                           Pegged out on the road,

too old in our T shirts & jeans

too young in our suburban respect... ‘Hey, that’s Art!’

‘Non respirare’ the Italian

X-ray technician sang

& ‘Don’ breathe’ the wardsman

whose brother lived in Melbourne

repeated like a chant

                                         & I didn’t

stunned by the mountains

I could see out the window EXACTLY LIKE

the ones they told us were ‘only schematic’

in early Renaissance painting.

                                                         That’s when I knew

ALL ART IS LITERALLY TRUE

& all serious critical analysis

has the status of a dumped Mini Cooper

pushed out of the bus

in the penultimate triumphal scene

of Michael Caine & Noel Coward's 

THE ITALIAN JOB, smashing down the precipice

& bursting into flames,

finally coming to rest in the snow

thousands of feet below.