A children's poem
People had made a mess of the Earth
With dirt and with wars since humanity's birth:
The globe had been so desecrated,
So irrigated and tabulated.
So fumigated and mutilated;
So many lives exterminated;
The world so over-populated,
All the animals went on strike:
Hunter and hunted alike.
DURBAN poet Douglas Livingstone used to describe the process of writing a poem. It would churn about inside you for a long time, he said. "Then one morning you would wake up with some empty wine bottles and an ashtray full of stompies and a poem written out."
Doug was a bacteriologist who monitored the water quality on Durban's beaches and up and down the coast. He also wrote poetry of a density and intensity, as he considered humanity's place on this earth and in the universe, and our relationship with the animal kingdom, that gained him an international reputation.
He had a PhD in bacteriology from the University of Natal. He also had a D Litt from the same university, conferred for the acknowledged quality of his published poems.
He was also an engaging, absolutely unpretentious fellow with a ribald sense of fun and an appreciation of the lubricating qualities of the demon booze. A lovely guy. He died in 1996.
Few of us would have guessed Doug also wrote children's poetry. But an epic of 49 typed pages has now emerged, titled The Voyage of the Zoobie: an epic of deep space for young astronauts.
Doug gave it to Pieter Scholtz, Professor of Drama at the University, who has now decided it should see the light of day. He is getting it published. The manuscript will be discussed on Monday at St Clement's, the monthly arts soiree on the Berea. (The kind of bunfight that Doug would have so thoroughly enjoyed).
The lines quoted above are from the introduction to Zoobie. They mirror Livingstone's concern in his adult poems for the increasing destruction of the resources of the only planet in the universe known to support life.
The story is of a Captain Prendergast who takes the spaceship to the outer galaxies in search of life forms to bring back to earth to replace the animals that are on strike.
In command of the mercy rocket
Was a most accomplished, famous man
With calm blue eyes and a Deep-Space tan.
There was nothing that this Captain feared
For he had sailed the Seven Seas.
He had one capacious uniform pocket
In which he kept large lumps of cheese
On which he'd chew while at his ease,
Humming softly while he steered
His spaceship past giant Saturn's rings,
The comets, moons and stars and things …
This is lyrical stuff, it has a great poetic metre. And it's humorous. Out in space the intrepid Prendergast meets all kinds of strange beings such as the Flibflub with five red eyes.
He fibbed on this, he lied on that.
He swore, bareheaded, he wore a hat.
He'd pat his paunch, saying 'I'm not fat;'
Or expectorate, saying: 'I've not spat.'
The kids will surely go for this kind of thing. I'm impressed myself. There's a good ending, though I don't want to give away the plot.
Humans and animals began to communicate,
Each keeping his character. There was no more hate.
Machines were built so that people could
Hear a rosebud sing from where it stood.
I wonder how many empty wine bottles there were, how many stompies in the ashtray, when Doug finally got all this down?
Tailpiece
POPE Francis and Donald Trump are on the same stage in the Yankee Stadium in front of a huge crowd.
The Pope leans toward Trump and says: "Do you know that with one wave of my hand I can make every person in this crowd go wild with joy? This joy will not be a momentary display but will go deep into their hearts and they'll forever speak of this day and rejoice."
Trump replies: "I seriously doubt that. With one little wave of your hand? Show me!"
So the Pope backhands him and knocks him off the stage. The crowd roars and cheers wildly and there is happiness throughout the land.
Last word
Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.
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