Brian Burden
ABOUT AND SAMPLES OF WORK:
I am a retired Further Education lecturer. I settled in Bocking in 1969 to teach English and Communications at Braintree College in its Hammond/Iori Williams heyday. A mere four or five years before, the college had moved to its present site on the corner of Church Lane and Bradford Street - a fine new building with wide lawns and playing fields.
The college rested on the bedrock of a thriving Technology Department, where apprentices and day release students learnt such skills as carpentry, motor maintenance and welding. Since the early days, it had branched out into Business Studies, and academic subjects - Maths, the Sciences, Foreign Languages, History, Geography, and so on. By the time I joined the staff, the college had acquired an international reputation, and, in the excellent refectory, apprentices rubbed shoulders fraternally with wealthy Arabs, Africans and Chinese. It was a real United Nations of a place, until Thatcher got her claws into Further Education in the nineteen eighties.
A flourishing Art Department set the trend of long hair and short skirts, and, as one walked along the corridors, one would sometimes catch the whiff of an exotic cheroot. The student population as a whole was laid-back and high-achieving in an ambience quite different from today's joyless rat-race. Many of the best students had come to study here to escape the restrictive atmosphere of the local schools. These were wonderful, optimistic, times; the mood - to coin a cliche - was that things could only get better.
The senior people in Technology rightly regarded themselves as founding fathers, but were referred to dismissively by some of the academic staff (not me!) as "shed men". The following is my tongue-in-cheek homage to them:
SHED MEN
The top bananas in their linen coats
Strut around the shops like they were God's annointed,
While rough mechanics in blue overalls
Ensure their students are not disappointed.
They have a special code, a special culture,
They are the College's backbone, its spine,
Reposit'ry of homely sense & gumption,
Small beer maturing into vintage wine.
But these Shed Men are mere Neanderthals,
Compared with the Cro-Magnons on the staff,
Who peddle Hist'ry, Modern languages,
And, Science, and Geography & Maths.
A college is a broad church, one might say,
A vast wing'd Pegasus, a mighty Dumbo.
Among its tribes, it numbers Piltdown Men,
Fluent in Sociological mumbo jumbo.
But there's some Homo Sapiens, here too,
Trying to prove that they are worth their hire:
Teachers of Art and English Lang & Lit
Deserve a gong for courage under fire!
© Brian Burden 2016
I enjoy writing stories, poems and articles. My taste in poetry is pretty wide-ranging, but for my own poetry I tend to prefer traditional formats.
The next poem touches on the topic of asylum seekers, people for the most part drawn to this country by its reputation for freedom and tolerance, despite the hate-mongering of media tycoons who wrap themselves in the cloak of patriotism, but who detest our country so much that they won't even live here!
CUSTOMS (SMUGGLED GOODS)
How many Cigs did Cyril smuggle through?
Five hundred twenties underneath the floor
Of his old camper van. If he makes two -
Two quid a pack, I mean - he can be sure
Of a cool grand. Could Cyril ask for more?
Of course he could. He bought a ton of hash,
A hundred quid's worth, at a legal store
In Amsterdam. He'll sell you some for cash.
Some porno mags; they're awful tacky tat.
Some dodgy DVD's and videos.
For his own use. You can't blame him for that.
Have you seen his old lady? Christ, she's hideous!
He says the human traffic pays the best,
Desperate people fleeing for their lives
From torturers and tyrants and the rest.
And most of them have relatives and wives
To swell the profits when their turn comes round.
Cyril's a pretty enterprising man.
But after his last run, well, Cyril found
Exhaust fumes did for one young African.
Come out the back, I've got her in the freezer.
She looks so warm, but she's as cold as ice.
It really upset Cyril, poor old geezer.
So, is she nice, my friend, or is she nice?
You're right, and she deserves a decent grave.
You have to show respect, when all is said.
Now, on that score, could I call in a favour,
So Cyril can sleep easy in his bed?
Lots of new building going on round here,
You tell me, in your knowing sort of voice,
Foundations for a library and a school
Even a church, so Cyril's spoiled for choice.
Just name a price. If Cyril says Okay,
We'll bed her deep in decent Essex clay.
Hey, just a tick, do you see what I see?
I saw an eyelid flicker, I could swear.
Help me to lift her out; bring her in here.
Put her down by the fire; give her some air.
It's all right, love, you're in safe company.
Just swallow some of this. There. Is that better?
Should we call Cyril up on the Q.T.?
Say she's revived and can he come and get her?
No, I don't think so either. There's more profit
In letting Cyril think he's in a fix.
She says she's grateful. Girl, think nothing of it.
We're going to sort out Cyril's box of tricks!
Pass me the phone, love. This ought to be fun.
Remember, your mate Cyril thinks he's lost you.
Hi, Cyril; we'll clear up your mess, old chum.
But we want cash up front, and it'll cost you!
(As her creator, I can promise readers that my heroine recovered fully from her ordeal, managed to wangle things to find herself a job and a husband, and is now a useful contributing citizen.) © Brian Burden 2016
Finally, a sonnet concerning John F. Kennedy, one of the most underrated of post-war American presidents. I got hooked on the assassination early on, regarding it at first as a simple whodunit, but, as the years go by and more information is allowed to trickle out, it becomes clear that there was, indeed, a sinister plot, involving the highest in the land. The topic is a paranoid's paradise, of course, but it's now clear, from hard evidence, that, if Kennedy had lived, there would have been no Vietnam War, and thousands of Vietnamese and American lives would have been spared. This sonnet was inspired by JFK's American University speech of June 1963, in which he called for an end to the Cold War, and talked of working for "genuine peace, the kind of peace which enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children. Not merely 'Peace In Our Time', but peace in all time."
JFK
I saw Jack Kennedy in his morning glory,
Prancing and preening on this world's cramp'd stage,
Like a White Knight in someone's fairy story,
The Master Spirit of a grotty age.
And on his brows he wore a crown of laurel,
And in his hand he held a thunderbolt -
Armed and determined, steadfast in the quarrel,
And yet as skittish as a nine month colt.
He was a guy who could be harsh or tender,
Depending what adventures might arise,
But, as he postured in his sequined splendour,
I saw the hubris in his hard blue eyes.
And yet his olive branch was growing green,
Before he prematurely left the scene.
Years ago, I submitted this poem to Quartos, a poetry magazine which specialised at that time in vapid free verse, only to have it returned with the terse comment "Not a sonnet". Puzzled, I then noticed some enigmatic little pencilled numbers, and realised that, instead of assessing the poem as a poem, the editor had been carefully counting the syllables. Evidently, the ignorant jackass (or jenny) wrongly believed that every line of a sonnet should have the same number of syllables. So, sucks to you, Shakespeare and Milton! - Your sonnets wouldn't pass muster for Quartos! (Every line should have five strong syllables, but the total number of syllables per line is variable.)
If you would like to read more of my poems, my collection "In A Green Glade" is available on request. I could also give your group a talk on any aspect of poetry, or a presentation on the JFK Assassination. Contact me at bardolph@live.co.uk, and please include a phone number.
© Brian Burden, October 2016
P.S. August 2018 Since Iori and I retired, Braintree College has been downgraded to "The College At Braintree", and recent rumour has it that greedy developers are plotting with the council to demolish it root and branch and turn the former site of the College and its lavish playing fields into a housing development - a sordid and depressing end to the hopes, ideas and aspirations of the post war generation.
