A tribute to times past : 'Big Custard', a multi-author work

More views of - or at (or before) - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


10 September

Nothing to do with the Festival, but anyway : 'Big Custard'

(A very unrepresentative sample from The Spoonbill Generator's 'Hall of Fame')

Big Custard

Warm in nutritious mulch, we germinate, [E Greejius]
And of ourselves we feed; some lesser fry [Roland]
Lie dormant still, by spring's alarm untouched, [P]
From summer’s bounty barred. Why, when the years [E Greejius]
Give notice of denial, may we not [Roland]
Like locksmiths turn our newest tumblers loose [P]
Upon the lawn, and, from a brimming jug [Roland]
Drown somnolence in alcoholic cheer [P]
And deep contentment? No; for when we strive [Roland]
To summon up the moon's most hoary face [P]
In stiff remembrance, clouded with remorse [Roland]
The merest hint of which would spell the end [The Agent Apsley]
Of time's imposture, all our withered shadows [P]
Die a-borning, pent beyond the veil. [Roland]

How best conjure, by faith, such fruitful yield [E Greejius]
When all around the land lies burnt and sere [TG]
with stagnant salt-pans, dearth's memorial. [E Greejius]
We strive, but striving know that we shall fail [TG]
In such endeavours as, when disavowed, [Roland]
Will tempt the feet of those who walk the waves [P]
In saviour's guise. Yet awe, in sighs of sleep [Roland]
Will cause our eyes to widen, noses flare [TG]
Like stallions in the dawn. Hope glimmers still [KT]
Though in another's eyes; and in defeat [Roland]
Our troubled curses make the sun turn pale [P]
Though not so pale, perhaps, as heretofore [Roland]
For, strengthened now by victims' blood, it turns [P]
In orbit caustic, shadowing a tryst [Roland]
A spiteful meeting at the coven's wrath [P]
Which heralds tragedy for this sad realm [TG]

Yet even so, the lily spares no scent [Roland]
Nor stints her sensual promise of cool joys. [E Greejius]
Not she, immune to treason nor to time [Roland]
And yet, still slave to him who comes to all [TG]
Forcing rash demands upon the soil [Grayman]
He warms, with finger gold and burnished thumb. [Roland]
When, through the decaying years, our barren [E Greejius]
Limbs upbraid the heavens' dial, and when [Roland]
Our weary hearts beat slower but beat sounder, [E Greejius]
Our shining, worn escapements lose their edge [Roland]
Keeping no glowing archive for our solace. [E Greejius]

This it remains, and the remainder thus [(trad)]
Itself engenders its own residues [E Greejius]
In sallow time's bewildered almanack [Roland]
Harbouring long-lapsed trysts to no good end; [E Greejius]
And when the key is turned, when all is known [Roland]
Of fecund or of sterile, quick or dead, [E Greejius]
When swings the final door, the fatal hinge [Roland]
Whhose groans betray the ravages of rust [TG]
Too long untended, and too far behind [Roland]
The reckonings of Tophet ... Ay! What then? [E Greejius]

Roof shall abase to floor, and floor to ground [Roland]
Before the pristine actuary-magus; [E Greejius]
His propehcy but piles of ruins [The Agnet Apsley]
Despite the ivy, ineffectual buttress; [E Greejius]
Tower shall slope to turf, pile fall to pond [Roland]
Leaf cling to leaf, concealing all the paths [TG]
Earth harbours; milk shall curdle in the byre [Roland]
Wine in the butt degrade to vinegar. [E Greejius]
In desolate lament , each lovelorn bleat [Roland]
Falls fallow on the thin unheeded air. [E Greejius]

And I, whom all betrayers have abjured [Roland]
In strict adherence to their solemn curse, [The Agent Apsley]
And thee, forever wandering, possessed [Roland]
By burden's knowledge of the ghost of time [P]
Dissembled quite; how shall we, sister, fare [Roland]
Together at the edge of temperance [P]
And on the very brink of sanity? [Roland]
I tremble quite, envisaging our doom [TG]
Swept, nameless, down the brackish torrent - yet, [E Greejius]
Some stain, by us impasted on the silence [Roland]
As 'twere th'embodiment of rime, [The Agent Apsley]
Shall print us immemorial as stones [Roland]

And when, at last, Time's palsied sands have run [TG]
Their paltry course, and 'neath the final dust [Roland]
The tigers of indifference repose, [E Greejius]
The muscled threat is but disguised [Grayman]
Anew, and rises yet again, an atom's breadth [Roland]
Away from penitence, the like of which [The Agent Apsley]
Was never dreamt by cranium of yore [Roland]
Even in ghostly ecstasy. Indeed, [E Greejius]
But for the haste of man, the tears would flow [The Agent Apsley]
In all-consuming torrent, washing out [Roland]
Life's thinnest crust onto the shore [P]