VERBIDACIOUS

I’ve started listening to a show about words

It’s called “The Verb” on Radio Three

I rarely listen to it “live”

’cos it’s on too late for me.

I’ve set the Digital Recorder

On “series link” so I can get it

Although it seems more often than not

I’ll forget that I have set it.

Usually I’ll sit down at my desk

Sometime the following week

And when work becomes too vexing

Some distraction I will seek.

Then I’ll kick up the computer’s

Link to the world wide web

And pop in my pair of headphones

So I can listen to that instead.

But this Saturday I woke up

And thought about what to do

Then remembered that recording

Might provide something that’s new.

“The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock”

Was the topic for this week

But my copy had some Bruckner

At the start bringing thoughts quite bleak.

It wasn’t the music’s fault I know,

That the concert over-ran…

But my listening became tense by wondering

Would it cut off Ian McMillan?

A forty-five minute programme

Missing five right off the start

The counter counted down and down ---

Be still my worrying heart.

Then, of course, it happened

In the middle of some speech

About a fruit-based metaphor

And cut them off mid-peach.

I leapt upon the website

To hear five minutes more

But their version had a similar curse

Although it had a minute more*.

But then I tried the podcast

Wondering if it would have the end

And because it contained the whole show

That podcast is now my friend.

Martin A W Holmes, June 2015

*Alternatively: "Although it had only lost four."