Making Ends Meet for All Souls

By Julian Scutts

Somewhat hastily, to get this book finished in time for Halloween and All Saints / Souls Day I have assembled these poems, stories and essays to fit the occasion. One section is devoted to the appearances of the word "be" in Hamlet in a comparison that throws light on that most famous quotation of all: "To be or not to be." Another section treats one of history's most haunting mysteries, the disappearance of thechildren of Hamelin in the Middle Ages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781326464592

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Making Ends Meet for All Souls

MAKING ENDS MEET FOR ALL SOULS

By Julian Scutts

Copyright Julian Scutts October 2015

UPENDING THE HOURGLASS, A THOUGHT

III

Once a pilgrim bound for a distant land

Was standing at the parting of three ways,

He asked a crone which, the right hand,

The left or middle way led before day’s

End to the hospice lying in the vale.

The middle path, said she," yon poplar tree

Marks its entrance." Along that  trail

He walked with haste, while yet was time to see.

Scarce   a brook was crossed than darkness fell

And blotted out the red dusk’s ember glow.

He heard aghast a tolling distant bell,

Moved not by  hand, but as the wind did blow.

O'er dry sticks his wandering feet did tread

And he did feel  dead leaves caress his head.

II

At forty a man is  like a pyramid.

His four decades have lent him some solidity.

Both east and west he faces with facility,

Being neither young nor old. Married,

With children, a house and the   ability

To be  squarely based on terra firma

And convinced his life is – despite that murmur

About taxes, the crime rate, and the  mess

Government or unions have  us in – not pointless.

He’s proud for seeing things from every side,

By summer's heat, by winter's  cold, well-tried.

He builds in blocks of hard square stone,

And moon by moon pays  back his mortgage loan,

Freeholding Pharaoh,  immobile with lands tied.

I

Babe new-born, aspersed in blood and water,

Eyes dazzled by the first light ever seen.

From one a half, and from a half a quarter,

Division cuts with scalpel fine and keen.

One  breath, the hour-glass is upended,

The first pure grains pass through its orifice.

Time, you Saturn!  What art e'er mended

Ills sown within the bed of life? A kiss,

A mother’s joy escapes the roll-scribe’s glare.

His eyes peer through his glasses crystal-clear,

Who  takes  each entry down and makes his figures square.

Who renders tribute in the coin of fear?

Or shall the hand that once has turned the glass

Not turn again when sands have ceased to pass?

TRUE BROTHERHOOD

The helmsman sings a merry song:

Haec est vera fraternas,

and downs a cup of something strong,

Hick, vera, hick, hick, fraternas.

The sailors dance a lusty jig,

forsaking sails, crow's nest and rig.

Young princes and their ladies fair

join in the drunken helmsman's air:

Haec est vera fraternas.

Commoners with nobles prance.

Friars and laymen, how they dance!

The jester sports a broken lance,

a trophy from the fields of France.

To Henry! sounds the raucous toast.

Hear the young knights, how they boast

of conquests on and off the field,

when foemen or coy maidens yield.

While Fitzroy strokes a wench's leg,

the boatswain opes yet one more keg.

See their chains of gleaming gold,

but feel the wind grown strangely cold.

William the atheling alone,

to the marrow of each bone

feels what sorrows must atone

for the sins of court and throne.

Woe to the ship, woe to the realm,

where none is mindful of the helm.

Woe to the king who ne'er shall smile,

woe to those bereft of child.

Gone is that day and gone that night,

gone that ship so ghostly white,

gone the prince who bravely sought

to save his sister, deed ill bought!

If, one night by Barfleur's shore,

you may hear that song once more:

Haec est vera fraternas,

et haec est aeternitas.

SHEIKH MAUT

What was that?

The passing of a cat’s shadow by moonlight?

Or what was that which scudded out of sight?

A cloud?

Or the pale horse of Sheikh Maut,

Of him who rides,

Who rides at dead of night?

So told this tale a desert pilgrim to his son:

"That day the sun was like a fearsome brand,

my feet were scalded as by liquid gold.

I, but for Allah’s mercy, that day had died,

Where of my knees I fell,

My head fixed in an upward stare

Towards a high dune.

There a figure like none I ever saw

Stood black against the glaring sky.

Was this Sheikh Maut

Of whom once Abdul spake in fearful tone:

‘The night my infant brother died,

an angel-shape did lower

over the cradle where he lay,

and snatched, methought, his very breath away’?

And many more have told such tales.

Some say in white,

Some say in black,

Some say in garbs of gold and purple stripe,

Sheikh Maut appears in palaces,

Or where the beggar rasping cries:

‘For Allah, and God’s mercy’s sake, a coin, a coin!"

I heard no voice save that of wind and sand:

‘Here all is one, the endless sea of land,

but not to mock, he preaches to the deaf and blind,

CONTAGION

It fell upon a winter's night

as we sailed the southern sea.

We three saw a doleful thing

that ever harrows me.

Dirk held vigil high above,

Will's task the helm to steer.

I did duty on top deck,

when it did first appear.

A spot, it seemed, of ruddy light,

and then a ship on fire

before a ghastly sight appeared

and slowly did retire.

We saw her crew of sallow men,

their limbs of leaden hue.

They paid us not the slightest heed.

Oh, how that night I rue!

When April came, Will died o' plague

Dirk fell and broke his skull.

No surgeon's skill could save his life.

We buried 'em off Hull.

I live on, if that I do,

Let this last word be said:

More kindred than with living kind

Feel I for the blessed dead.

WHERE DOCTORS FEAR TO TREAD

What can match the sheer perfection

of executions by injection?

Every oath that`s ever been

obliges men but no machine.

There's nothing personal in a bleep

uniting brothers Death and Sleep.

From vacant eyes I seem to heed

words inaudible that plead:

"Burn me, hang me from a tree,

take everything save dignity."

No valediction can they log

when you're put down like a suffering dog.

IN ENGLAND’S GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND

Lambs and cattle burning bright

on infernal pyres of night,

what offense is there to blame

for your consignment to the flame?

What the virus, what the germ,

what the poison, what the worm

vies with the ruthless industry

with which in England`s pleasant land

war is waged on cow and lamb

by what fearful ministry?

SPOOKS

SPRING-HEELED JACK

Spring-Heeled Jack was a very odd chap,

And a very odd chap was he.

His eyes glowed like a pyre,

He wore batman’s attire.

He was frightful not least

Because from the mouth of this beast

Spewed forth a tongue of blue fire.

Spring-Heeled Jack had a very strange knack,

And a very strange knack had he.

By way of a spoof

He jumped roof to roof,

And a ten-foot wall

Presented no trouble at all

To this Jack of the cloven hoof.

Spring-heeled Jack had a very tough mac,

And a very tough mac had he.

The soldiers might fire

But unscathed he’d retire.

He sure was no pullet,

Distaining each bullet,

And mocking the military’s ire.

Spring-Heeled Jack had a very sad lack,

And a very sad lack had he.

With a talent like his

He could have been king of show biz

And regarding high jumps

Jack would have been trumps.

What a deplorable waste of his whizz!

Spring-Heeled Jack had a very long whack,

And a very long whack had he.

Despite many a try

No catcher came nigh,

So through Victoria’s long age

It was Jack who held stage.

Though now, it appears, he’s more shy.

A GRAVE WARNING

In dream or in vision,

the difference not knowing,

I was taken hence

to a plain of ice

where every blast

cuts deep into the flesh,

where the archangel in white

with the tips of his ten icicles

stops all that flows –

water and blood and time.

I saw a man,

a man it seemed to be,

half-covered by sheets of ice,

who sighed:

"I had a son,

the wind says he lives still,

and he himself has sons.

Warn them for me.

let them not also come

to this place of suffering,

where the limp sun

lacks strength to live,

or die.

They must never come to this plain,

whatever siren voice they hear

sing songs for possession

of a fair green land.

Here lies but ice.

Here lies but fallen snow

VATICIDES BEWARE!

Poets are vulnerable no less than other men,

when fallen victim to outrageous critics.

as Shelley wrote, ,those critics' darts slew Keats

who blindly, cruelly mocked Endymion.

Lethal no less the heady potion Fame.

Some drowned, took poison, died paupers or insane

Yet poet-baiters must themselves take warning,

wrote Heine in his Winter Fairy Tale.*

Eternal lines, if barbed, outdo Hell's fierce burning.

Time shall not heal when poets wield the flail.

Our foes, wrote Paul, are not of flesh and blood

but powers of evil inhabiting high places.

Promethean fire consumes the evil and the good,

iniquities have many masks and faces.

Alone the Word that spares the infants' life

to wrong is deadlier than all the arts of strife.

WHEN THE QUICK AND THE DEAD JOIN IN SONG

I hope to heaven that when I die

I meet Woody Guthrie in the sky

and then upon a dust-bowly cloud

we'll find the grace to sing aloud,

and that the Heavens won't debar

the using of a stringed guitar,

though usually the angel choir

prefers to play  the harp or lyre.

When Woody asks how things have bin

in the world of strife and sin,

I'll say  spud soup's 'bout just as thin

as  when on earth he  still could  sing.

(Them politicians can see through it

Like a lump of mama's  suet)

I'll say the Yanks went marching in

where many had to die

but again they had  to win

a war against some Arab guy,

Osama Bin Ladin, bad boy,

Osama Bin Ladin

Robbers at home  less often use

the six gun than back then

for they prefer the gentle ruse

and still the fountain pen,

and still the fountain pen.

Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan,

may join us by and by,

And though they sure are getting on,

may they live long ere they die,

may they live long ere they die.

And then we'll do an earthbound tour,

in stadium, field or  sewer,

for like Joe Hill we'll return

from grave or tomb or dusty urn

as long as workers claim their right

and songsters yet acclaim their fight.

till everything is globalized

and unions have been pulverized.

Till then, till then we'll sing along,

till then we'll sing our song.

ADIEU, MY FRIEND

Shall we ever meet again

at the crossroads of the mind?

Shall we ever meet again

in the fragrant fields of thyme,

though memories fade and flowers must wilt

and every heart must fail?

Shall we ever meet again

though none may tell us where?

What once was good is ever good,

and faithful, true and fair.

This thought assures us we shall meet

and tames my dark despair.

THOSE WRITINGS ON THE WALL

Oh, to read 'em now,

those writings on the wall,

poems, parodies of Poe and Pound,

stuck there with jam, back then.

Ah then! Carefree and footloose,

students of literature and art!

Life was so easy. we didn't care a bit.

(I had a reason not to make a rime).

Bob wrote fatuous lines about some man

"who flitted from corner to corner

of his misspent life" How apt.

Back then! We mocked both Heaven and Hell!

Then Bob's just broken-off engagement ring,

melted down, drip-drip, till nought was left

but some base alloy black and drab.

Bob talked to some imp, (or was it Puck?)

perched where walls and ceiling meet,

He said he did,who cares that much.

(I had a reason not to make a rime).

We mocked life, now life mocks us.

To read 'em now, those writings on the wall!

MIKE MALLOY'S MAXIMUM COVER

For version on BFBS Radio

Have you heard the tale of  Mike Malloy,

the man no poison could destroy?

Well, hark you folks and lend an ear

as y' carry on knittin' or drinkin' beer.

Born long ago in Donegal,

And blessed from birth with a stomach of iron,

he heard America's westward call,

in the depths of the Bronx his body's a-lyin'

Boozin' the hard stuff became his life's one great mission,

and I guess his life's greatest trial was the Great Prohibition.

The day finally came when he hadn't a dime,

so he decided to have himself one last great helluva time,

He knocked on the door of this speak-easy dive

where there was plenty of water to keep fish alive.

Say the password, bud, said a guy at the door.

Mike's bleary eyes glowed with alcoholic intent:

Hit the trail, said the guy, but just then he saw

Mike's rubicund nose - and had to relent.

You'd better see Lu, said a guy with a gun,

whose menacin' looks promised no fun.

Lu smirked, then spat, and all he would say

was: The guy needs a break, I guess he's okay.

Your poison? said the bartender with a sinister leer,

It's all on the house, so make it stronger than beer!

Could Oy have sum of tat? the Irishman asked,

pointing his finger at a bottle of bourbon

Its label had on it a dervish with his face masked

beneath a lurid fire-red turban.

I can see at a glance, the bartender remarked,

You sure are a man of impeccable taste, then a guy behind barked:

"Cut out the fancy talk, Joe, I got business to do.

Say, Mister, it ain't often we have a gentleman like you

grace this joint with his honourable person.

Say, you fellas back there, we've got us a guest, so quit cursin'!

I think it's high time we was introduced. Tony Marino's the name.

Meet my friends - Dan and Frank, quit that damn-fool game,

come and meet ... Pardon me, Mr. ... er? - Malloy's me name, Mike Malloy."

"Well, Mike, I'd like y' to meet Joe Murphy - wanna be on the right side

of dat boy.

See, he serves the juice and kinda plays the part of Mother,

Say, Joe, your dad came from Ireland too, and Mike sure looks mighty like your ma's kid brother.

Yeah! Her maiden name was Malloy, small world, is it not?

You two must be related! Now Joe's got a very soft spot

for Irish relations, and you'll be interested to know he can be mighty generous with the credit.

Joe was a chemist once, which is useful. They call it illicit, Joe just distils it.

Meet Francis Pasqua, an undertaker by profession,

That's the line that ain't been too badly affected by the economic depression.

Now Dan over there sells fruit and vegetables on a stall down at the dock.

That's why the burgundy's from tomatoes, and there's squash in the hock.

Frank Manzella - Hi Frank! - is a doctor, which helps, and you see that guy in the chair pickin' his teeth, kinda tall and bony,

He's involved in - er - the disposal business, and most people round these parts just call him tough Tony Bastone.

Now, Mike, you certainly strike me as the responsible, level-headed type, and I'd bet my bottom dollar I could do you a big favor.

As an insurance broker with wide experience, I'd say the time's ripe for you to give yourself maximum cover. Frank, stop coughin' and pass over the liquor with the soy bean flavor!"

Now, Tony was the kinda operator that never slackened his pace

When he'd got business to transact. From a smart leather attache case

he produced a bewildering array of booklets and papers.

Joe passed a bottle under Mike's nose so's he'd inhale its strong vapors.

Now Mike, I'd like a few details please: When and where were you born?

"Oy tink it was Donegal Ireland, Oy disremember the rest, but oy coulda sworn

Oy had me sixtieth birthday a few years back." Makin' allowances for wear and tear.

Tony assessed Mike's age as bein' fifty-four, takin' good care

not to stretch credibility beyond the point it could bear.

As to Mike's occupation, there was a slight problem to overcome,

Since, precisely defined, it would have been professional bum,

but since Mike had once served customers in a store,

Tony thought 'store manager' would settle the score.

Mike was single, so somebody would be needed to put in

A claim, should anything happen to Mike, whose next of kin

turned out to be - surprise, surprise - bartender Joe. Thus it transpired

that he would be the principal beneficiary on the day Mike expired.

An eight hundred dollar policy was obtained from Metropolitan Life Inc.,

Two more from the Prudential, each for about five hundred, I think.

Tony also interested Mike in a six grand double indemnity clause

against death by accident, with a concessionary premium for guys workin' in stores.

But how shall Oy manage me monthly payment? asked worried Mike as he was about to sign.

Tony, replenishin' Mike's glass, said: Till you've found your feet, Mike, that worry's mine.

But Oy tought insurance was for fellas wid ten kids to support.

said Mike, Not for drunken bachelors like me. - Wrong! came Joe's retort.

"If anything should happen to you as a result of an accident, now with a double indemnity clause,

I'll make dead sure the six grand paid out will go to a very charitable cause.

See, this kid brother of mine's a priest, who runs this old people's home,

and he, being influential, would have a memorial set up to you in Rome."

Then it would be a Catholic home, would it? asked Mike full of hope.

Catholic? cried Tony: "Now if that place ain't Catholic, then neither's the Pope.

They got confession boxes on every floor..."

- And mazusas on every door ...

Joe's face went bluish.

Keep your face shut, Dan! Mazusas! That's Jewish!

Now when Mike's mind was put at rest on the question of belief,

he signed all the policies, much to everybody present's great relief.

To celebrate the event, Mike was promised enough credit to make a drinking man bust.Now, it's about time I told you that Marino ran a so-called 'murder trust.'

From the day and the hour that he signed his name

on the dotted line, Mike Malloy's continued existence became

a highly hazardous enterprise.

Tony said: "Hey, you guys,

that man's already a physical wreck. A few bottles more

should save us involvement in offendin' the law."

On easy credit, Mike downed glass after glass

like a thirsty chevy might soak up the gas,

And the more they poured in, the more he would soak,

till Tony got to worryin' he'd land up broke.

To help things along wood alcohol was admixed.

Say, Mike, said Joe, "'bout time I got you fixed

one of Joe's specials. You'll have yourself a real treat.

You've never had anything like it. Mike said: Give it me neat.

With one single gulp Mike swilled down his liquor,

and everybody looked mighty intense to see his eyes flicker.

With one hour gone without so much as a tummy rumble,

the Trust's high hopes were beginnin' to crumble.

Next they added a suspicion of rat-poison just for good measure.

and awaited developments with a strange kinda pleasure.

Sure enough Mike's eyes began to dilate,

and Tony was sure about Mike's imminent fate.

Then Mike quivered and quavered, then said: "It's loik that stuff I used to get from me mother,

God rest her soul, when I was a brat. Would it be askin' too much if y' poured me another."

Joe, with a reputation to defend, felt his blood reach the boil

at the unkind comparison with cod liver oil.

Next they softened him up with three shots of rum straight,

then gave him enough anti-freeze to seal any man's fate.

Sure enough, Mike collapsed a heap on the floor.

Cardiac failure, said the Doc as they carried Mike out through the door.

"He can cool off in the back-room where nature can take its course.

That dose was enough to demolish a horse!"

But three hours later how they all cursed,

when in came Malloy complainin' of thirst.

They increased the dosage enough to finish a battalion,

Mike slumped onto the floor, slept it off and once again rallyin',

slouched to the bar sayin': Sorry leavin' loik dat. Now Oy feel roight as rain.

That stuff, how it sizzles and fizzles inside.Would it be askin' too much if you poured me the same drink again?"

That guy's stomach must have a cast iron lining, was all Tony sighed.

The joker sure had taken the Trust for a ride.

Next they decided to make Mike wine and dine

on ground glass-coated beans and pure turpentine.

Just as they said: This time is for sure,

up bounded Malloy askin' for more.

Undiluted horse linament and beetle killer

were all tried and found wantin' - and this is real life, no fifty-cent thriller.

Then they treated him to carpet tacks and metal shavings on bread,

which, washed down with wood alcohol, would see an elephant dead.

Complainin' of indigestion, Mike left Marino's place late in the night,

and next mornin', with no sign of Malloy, the Trust's prospects seemed bright.

As it happened, they'd counted their chickens too soon,

for Malloy turned up in the mid-afternoon.

Next time they hired the services of a cab driver, Harry Green.

They got Mike in a drunken stupor. Outside it was freezin' with winds mighty keen.

Harry drove Mike and the Trust to an out-of-the-way park,

where they left him doused with water to die in the dark.

Then they gleefully read through the obituary column,

till Mike's reappearance turned their mood mighty solemn.

At last, in despair, they called in tough Tony Bastone, a killer by trade,

who was promised a cut when the insurance was paid.

Now you guys, said Bastone, "quit messin' with this fancy stuff,

for murder's the game you play mighty rough."

They got Malloy drunk at tough Tony's instigation,

and drove him away to a lonely location.

In reverse, at full throttle, Harry's taxi cab sped, \Hittin' Malloy with a wham. He was then left for dead.

Tough Tony and the rest saw oncoming headlights and fled.

A whole week passed with no sign of Malloy,

and the Murder Trust thugs were hoopin' for joy.

Now it was time to be filin' a claim.

They needed proof, but no evidence came.

They called by at the Morgue, phoned wards, read the news,

they asked underworld hoods if they'd got any clues.

Now the day on which the mystery was solved

was the selfsame day their bright dreams dissolved.

In stalked Malloy with a smile and a wink.

"There's lots to tell, but first give us a drink.

Some fool driver had one too many, you know.

My shoulder was fractured, Oy got concussed from the blow.

That week in hospital sure did me a power of good.

The doctors would have kept me in another week if they could."

Next time, said Bastone, "we'll leave nothing to chance.

Once too often this guy gave us a fool song and dance.

Get him drunk, take him to Joe's room, lay him out on the bed,

fix a rubber hose to his nose and gas the man dead."

And so it was that Mike breathed in his last.

His life, not his legend, belongs to the past.

Frank Manzella had a phoney death certificate filled out,

which still didn't prevent certain rumors from gettin' about.

Forensic experts get goin' like bees in their hives

when guys die with several policies recently taken out on their lives.

They had Malloy, laid to rest in a twelve-dollar coffin, exhumed.

They found traces of gas just as the police had assumed.

Tough Tony had already gotten himself shot in a gamblers' lair,

but Marino, Pasqua, Dan Kreisberg and Joe Murphey were all sent to the chair.

If Mike had conveniently died from an overdose of alcohol in the first place, no

condemnin' proof could have been cited,

so you might say it was Mike Malloy's cast iron stomach was what got him indicted.

The Murder Trust crooks are dead and gone,

but Mike Malloy's legend lived on and on.

In a future age they shall retell with tireless zest

the tale of Mike Malloy, Rasputin of the West.

FURUHI, A LAMENT

(Based on a