poetry of the late Peter Haitch

[Verbivore]

Some of you may remember my friend "Peter Haitch" who, for a short time, posted on the APS board.

PH (his real name Peter Hanbury) was a talented writer of verse, prose, and plays; an editor and literary-competition judge; a commercial artist (mainly advertising); a restorer of vintage and classic cars (he had eight at the time of his death); and general polymath. He died in July 2008 from an aggressive, rapid-onset cancer of the oesophagus (or from the surgical interventions).

I am pleased to announce that a small volume of Peter's Pomes is now ready for release, having returned from the printer's this week.

Below is one of the 75 pieces for your amusement. The volume contains both humorous and "serious" material covering a broad range of topics. The following sample is on a topic pertinent to this forum.

Spellbound

Is spelling too hard? Do you stumble and stammer?
Do you think your mum’s mother’s your grammar?

Will a lyrebird tell you what’s not true?
Is a talking wallaby a jabiru?
Is a wombat a bat you left on the stove?
Is a cane-toad a frog that a wickerworker wove?
Is a galah a festival, like a fête?
Is a platypus really a cat on a plate?
Is a python in a taxi a car-pet snake?
Is a koala bare, for goodness’ sake?
When the alarm goes off, do you hear its dingo?
If you learn the guitar, can you play flamingo?

Is a polygon a cockatoo, just deceased?
If your cough is arrested, are you policed?
Is a pain in the back a floppy disc?
Is a falling meteor an asterisk?
Are there teeth in the Great Australian Bight?
Will a television burn if it’s satellite?
What measures change? An alter-meter?
Would you stick to the rules if you faced a cheetah?
Is an ilk an elk that feels unwell?
And if you hate this poem, should you take a spell?

Indeed, if you hated it, fair enough.

If you would like more, I have permission to post one other sample -- it would be of a different style and on a different topic to demonstrate the diversity of his work.

[Verbivore]

Familiarity with Australian fauna, slang and idiom, social style and history -- accompanied by a smattering of Strine -- are perhaps prerequisite to getting the most out of the late Mr Haitch's verse.

I was present on a couple of occasions when Peter's muse visited -- underneath the hoisted 1938 Buick 8 he was restoring, spanner a-hand and mechanics* expletives flowing copiously. He'd go all quiet for a moment or three, then crawl out from under the car, head for his little old Mac, and capture the verse / snippet / pun / story -- all the while with grease-black fingers on a (once-)beige keyboard. Then he'd make a pot of tea, talk to his dogs (a septet of male Corgis) and cats while having his cuppa, and head back to the hoisted machinery -- where the cussing was reprised.

He was generally a misanthrope -- or many folk saw him as one. He was very trusting, giving, and generous to his (rather few) friends, and could be very sociable at a car-club rally or a writers' fest, but was mostly a loner. He spoke very directly, and often in a tone of voice easily mistaken, by some, as hostile. I felt privileged to be allowed into his space and included in various aspects of his life (language, old cars, personal history ... ).

Peter's output -- whether prose, verse, art/illustration, restored cars ... -- was prolific.

I'd particularly like to compile a book ("coffee-table" format, perhaps?) from Peter's commercial art, his advertisements. A "someday" project, and very dependent upon the wishes of his estate's executor; it's taken me almost two and a half years to reach publication with the verse collection -- partly because the executor has a very full life and the legal firm is slower than one might wish.

Peter's style was "classic cartoon" of, I'd punt, the '40s to the '60s; there was usually humour in them, sometimes subtle, others not, and often "cheeky".

Although he wrote on PCs for many years, Peter never considered using computers in any way to create his graphical works (other than scanning for archival purposes); he was perhaps one of Australia's last working manual-freehand commercial artists.

(Following par. from the volume's cover blurb.)
His drawings, paintings, cartoons, and technical illustrations have graced the pages of catalogues, trade and commercial magazines, newsletters, and books over 50 years.

* That is, expletives of the type mechanic.

[WeeWilly]

Thanks for the posting, Verbivore. Oddly entertaining!

[Verbivore]

Pete is packing for his Antipodean adventure, and his copy of Peter Haitch's Pomes is ready for posting tomorrow.

I read through the entire printed book yesterday -- the first time I've touched the production copy, and a few months since it went to print: fresher eyes, a tad more objectivity.

I wasn't displeased with it (notwithstanding one tiny typo for some eagle eye to find ;D ) and was again impressed by the breadth of Peter's subjects, styles, his language skills / word games. His work ranges from the respectful and insightful to the mocking and hilarious.

Given the occasion -- the release of the book to the first person outside the late Peter's small, known circles, including the poetry societies -- I shall indulge myself (and I hope you) by sharing one more Pome of Peter Haitch.

It's irreverent, clever, funny, and human. I shan't bug you further with these.
_______________________________

THE ORGAN REPLACEMENT -- (the late-ish Peter Hanbury, erstwhile contributor -- as Peter Haitch -- to our forum/s)

In Ryde lived a lady called Gladys;
Of church organists she was the fattess.
Though her faith was in tatters
And holey as lattice,
She provided her services gratis.

She’d been luckless in love as a teener,
And achingly longed to be leaner.
She appealed to the Lord,
But her prayers were ignored.
Was it likely He just hadn’t seen ’er?

So she gave up her soul to the muse,
And the offering never could lose.
In response to her music
The crowds were enthusic;
Hence, plenty of bums on the pews.

Her dyspeptic old organ was failing
And spavined, its faculties failing.
It had croup in its flute
And a few tones were mute;
Diapason had trouble exhaling.

But Gladys still thought it was tops.
She was used to its shudders and stops.
It resounded quite well
When she pedalled like heaven
In folk-song, anthem, or pops.

Madonna she preferred to Messiahs,
And her Liszt wouldn’t light any Fallas.
She mishandled Handel,
Her Bliss was a scandal,
And her Bach was much worse than her Baez.

She ecstatically churned out a medley,
And she improvised freely and read’ly.
While some squares had a spasm
At Glad’s organasm,
Church attendance was seen to grow stead’ly.

But her pastor, it seemed, wanted more,
For dollars made sense, as he saw.
Dreary hymns were a vex,
And he liked kinky sects
Where the word of the profit was law.

“Glad tidings I bring,” he said. “Though
Tradition’s nice, turnover’s slow.
I’ve swapped this old bitza
For a new Jap Wurlitza,
As I’m re-organ-ising the show.”

Poor Gladys reacted with horror,
And cried out in anguish and sorror,
“You touch my harmonium,
I’ll raise pandemonium!”
But the Rev had no sympathy forror.

He said calmly, “Don’t get in a tizz.
You’ll just love this electronic whiz.
And by taking it ill
You’d be thwarting God’s will!
We are, after all, in showbiz.”

When the carriers came for the organ
They discovered it chained to a gorgon.
“My fate’s in a trough,”
Says Glad with a cough.
“I’ve swallowed the key, so sod ough!”

Now the foreman says, “Oo’s this old geezer?
The organ can’t go till you freezer.”
And he jerks, but in vain,
At the padlock and chain.
“Get off of there!” And he kneezer.

“I’m a martyr for music, God grant,”
Cries Glad in a manic descant.
“Only o’er my dead body
Will you finish your shoddy
Attempt at this organ transplant.”

At last, with mutters of, “Sorry,
You psycho, but we’re in a horry,”
The movers lost patience,
Gave up on persuasience,
And loaded them both on the lorry.

As she left she yelled, “Down with religion!”
Till her blasphemous gloom became stygian.
Then, troubled by doubts,
“Holy holy,” she shouts –
Thereby hedging her bets, just a smidgin.

Some biker-gang members, all gnarley
And tattooed and whiskered like Dali,
Came thundering beside her.
“Hey, wow! Easy rider!”
(For they thought she had yelled “Harley Harley”.)

Her showpersonship never faltered,
And her instant fan-club was exalted.
She mixed punk-rock and orison,
Vans Beethoven and Morrison,
And pulled out all stops till they halted.

She took curtain-calls like Lily Pons –
Told of grievance so great it weighed tonnes,
Displaying the manacles
On her wrists and her anakles;
It was time now to cash in her bonds.

“What right does a cleric entitle
To say that my organ’s not vital?
Though they truck us as far
As the state abattoir,
It’s the holy of holies to moi!”

“The Harley of Harleys! Incredible!
Praise be to the virgin unweddible!”
And they reverently got stuck
Into trashing the truck –
Which to that point seemed hard and unspreadable.

The drivers elected to bolt,
Proclaiming it wasn’t their folt.
But they phoned up the coppers,
Who called in some choppers
And winched Gladys from the revolt.

Yet there came, as she ascended on high,
A last chord and a prophetic cry:
“Don’t give God the hump!
When you hear the last trump,
There’ll be bikes in the sky when you die!”

Did the cable break, east of Bondi?
No relic’s been found, though they try.
The disciple supposes
An apotheosis
Of Gladys, way up in the sky.

Now The Church Of Our Bikess confers
Charity which nothing deters.
Glad’s Lads get the goods
By robbin’ (rich) hoods
And MPs, and entrepreneurs.

Glad’s grace they aspire to win
By purloining the wages of sin;
Each taking a vow
To be Harleyer than thou –
And by Glad how the money rolls in!

The way sacrosanct bargains are struck
Is surely a matter of luck.
For despite life’s variety,
Who’d think that piety
Could fall off the back of a truck?

From PH anthology Softly with the Scarlet Dawn editor & publisher Shirley Beaver ISBN 9780646546179

[Pete]

I have now received my copy and I would recommend it to all of you. I think it's great! Original, amusing, moving, profound ...

[Verbivore]

Peter's book was launched today. Already the first print run is close to sold out -- unusual for poetry, which generally doesn't sell to other than fellow poets.