Here are two more of Joe’s verses, which will soon be published. Like his paintings they were his playground, alight with mischief, but they caught his deeper thoughts too.  And here too are lines in other moods, discovered too late for inclusion in The Book of Bain:

For P.G. Longhurst, this adaptation of Horace’s Ode, Bk 1, 11:

Carpe Diem Longhurst, says Horace

Don’t go wasting your time guessing in vain what the secretive gods
Grant our lifespan to be: nor P.G.L. trust to the horoscope
Page of the Daily Express. Just face with calm all that the future bodes:
Whether Fate has in mind we can expect many a winter more
Or this next be our last – soon to piss down, driving the freezing rain
Over Maids Moreton Road. Take the wise part, pour out the healing Gin,
Trim long views to the short span of our lives. Time (o’course) races by
Even now as we speak. Snatch l’aujourd’hui – who can predict demain?

 *****

In a copy of F.W.Bain’s,  An Echo of the Spheres, Rescued from Oblivion, Methuen, 1919 – an edition of the poems of Joe’s Grandmother, Charlotte Piper Bain with a memoir and some letters which he gave to Priscilla Bain, Joe wrote:

In Memoriam Charlotte Bain, My Grandmother 1832-1915

Poetess of long ago,
Rich in piety and wit,
In your old age poor, I know,
Save in what embellished it:
Call it ‘talent?’ ‘genius’? No.
I can’t judge. I read in you
Little songs of joy or pain
Left to me you never knew
And another Mrs Bain.

J.B.
Salle, Norfolk 17.ix.91

*****

And a moment’s irritation?

A would-be stage-critic called Price
Had the incomprehensible vice
  Of mistaking the balls
  That is scribbled on walls
For sound and ‘constructive’ advice. 

It’s really not clever or nice
For a fool to come rushing in twice 
  When the one thing to trouble you
  In the M W of W
Was the acting of – you’ve guessed it – Price.

[Joe directed The Merry Wives of Windsor at Winchester in 1985.  As to whether anyone called Price was involved, this editor is silent - but he has seen the programme's cast-list. Joe's sentiments can be taken as a typical director's complaint - the personality is incidental - and this double limerick is a happy reminder of his sharper side.]

*****

Among the varied forms of art
Aspiring artists strive to seize
There is just one that stands apart
And brings the tyro to his knees.
However keen he tries to please
His efforts must be classed as ‘mere’
Cooking needs too much expertise
He’ll never be a Cordon Bleu.
Faced let us say with apple tart
One omelette a la grated cheese
He has no notion when to start
His first attempt at bombe surprise
Explodes and ruins the deep-freeze
From which perhaps one may infer
He’s rather shy of a reprise.
Madam, with drawbacks such as these
The moral is by now quite clear
I’m just as Fawlty as John Cleese.

*****

The Coptic Quail
Was always male;
Which is why, I think’t
It’s now extinct.

*****

In Priscilla Bain’s 1967 diary, some in Joe’s hand, some in hers – but she thinks all by him:

There was a young lady called Nesta                              (in PB’s hand)
Who was raped on a slow train to Leicester 
  It caused some surprise 
  At the local Assize
As there’d hardly  been time to molest her. 

There was a young man called John                               (in PB’s hand)
Who had savoir faire and bon ton
  But a note from a gal
  Set his mind in a whirl
And his réponse was simplement, Non!

When they asked a young man called Duval                   (in Joe’s hand)
Why he shared his bookshop with a pal
  He replied, “Why the shock?
  He’s just part of the stock
And ‘Honi  qui…’ y en pense du mal.

There was a schoolmaster called Joe                             (In PB’s hand)
Who grew a red beard all a-glow.
  When they said, “Shave it off,”
  He merely said,“Tosh
I’ve had too much success as a ‘beau’”.