Introducing the April 2009 Readers - 4. Kevin Cadwallender

Kevin Cadwallender lives in Edinburgh. He was shortlisted for a Sony Award for his BBC Radio 4 programme 'Voyages'. His selected poems Dances with Vowels (Smokestack Books) was published Feb 2009. He runs 'Voxbox' a poetry venue in Edinburgh (with Anita Govan), is Scottish Editor for Red Squirrel Press and co-editor of 'Vair' magazine. Visit http://cadwallenderk.blogspot.com for unpublished poetry. Books include Baz Poems (Rebel Inc), Public (Iron), Baz Uber Alles (Dogeater ) and Colouring in Guernica (Red Squirrel).


Brideshead 61 Revisited

God said to Evelyn write me a book
Something set in an England
With some upper class fucks
Eve said ‘When?’
God said, ‘Now!’
You can do what you like but the next time
You see me coming you better run.
Eve says where do you want this plot undone
God says out at Brideshead 61.

Well Kingsley Amis had some muddy prose
Loathed Dylan Thomas in his Anglo-welsh pose
They both drank hard, they both slept around
They both ended up under the ground.
Kingsley said write it quickly Eve, cos I gotta run
Dylan just pointed with a syllabic gun, said Kingsley
You’ll be out written by your own dear son.
Evelyn just smiled cos he had Auberon
Sniping the aristocracy out at Brideshead 61.

Well Jerome K Jerome put three men in a boat
Said I think P.G. Wodehouse is gonna be king
Don’t answer the phone Jeeves and quickly bring
Me a cool white spritzer at the sixty first ring.
And Jeeves said Sir, I think this can be easily done
I’ll phone the supplier at Brideshead 61.

Now E.M. Forster on the second night
Wrote to vex George Orwell with untenable delight
As Evelyn pulled at Dali’s facial fluff
Attempting to confirm surrealism was more than a bluff
Pablo said, ‘No’
Sal never spoke
Evelyn just satirised
And married the Pope.
God said we can get your marriage to run
Just write me that book , Brideshead 61.

Now the Royal Horse Guards needed another cap
Randolph Churchill said I know just the chap
So he wrote the book at the end of the war
And said I never wrote this kind of thing before
But yes I believe it can be very easily done
Just squeeze the rural trigger on Thomas Hardy’s gun
And drop the whole shebang down at Brideshead 61.