Alan Whelan: ‘Kingsley Amis at Princeton’, ‘The Good Librarian’ and ‘Homage to Freddie Ayer’

Kingsley Amis at Princeton, New Jersey, May 1959

Come into the garden, Maude,

you faithless American faculty wife.

Seriously, there’ll be no strife.

Your husband, Linguistics Professor Claude,

saw your foot teasing me to life

under the table, which he ignored.

No wonder you yankee girls are bored:

I’d have gone for someone like me with a knife.

Well, you’re a sport. The time just flew.

But back to the dinner, don’t get all soppy,

and do send out another wife or two.

Come on, love, no need to get stroppy,

you’re gorgeous and you’ll make great copy;

Sure I’ll put you in a book, or a girl just like you.

Alan Whelan

The Good Librarian

The new girl’s pretty in that cotton dress. It’s red with white
Pearl buttons. It’s far too dressy for a library.
She’s got her glasses on, but not her mind. It’s somewhere else tonight.
The pale boys with science fiction don’t speak, wary
Of her disdain, and the old farting men don’t care
That she’s too beautiful for them. They stare
At her freckled breasts when she stamps their books
(Sports, hunting, Wilbur Smith and cooking for one).
When she leans forward—so deep—her boss pretends not to look.
He thinks, “If I said something challenging, but fun,
She’d glance, surprised, and notice me.” No, best not done.

He thinks of turning on the siren and the sprinklers too,
Sending the bookish men and women streaming to the street.
He’d lift her to the counter, scatter a pearl or two,
Kiss her neck and mouth and find her cotton knit and neat.
Why not epic? Topless as Ilium, she, and as toppled, treasures spread,
And something about Trojans; her hands and his, above her head.

But … no. He only says, hours later, “we may as well close up.”
She says, “Goodnight, Mr L.” She doesn’t pause at the door.
At home he thinks about writing, but takes a cup
Of Ovaltine to bed, drops his socks defeated on the floor
That should have echoed with her falling shoes.
Bix Beiderbecke, on his player, sings the blues.

Does she think of him, that feline girl in glasses?
He doubts it. He thinks how fine her arse is.

Alan Whelan

Homage to Freddie Ayer

1
One night in a London hotel
Freddie Ayer
Greatest living philosopher
Heard a woman in distress.
He knocked on her door.
Naomi Campbell spilled out,
Clutching her torn clothing.
She fled.
Then Mike Tyson emerged, irate.
He saw Ayer, gentleman,
Covering Campbell’s retreat.
He said, “You know who I am?

2
I am the heavyweight champion of the world!”
Freddie replied, “And I
Am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic.
We are both eminent men in our fields.
So we can discuss this like rational beings.”
Tyson dropped his jaw and gaped.
He & Freddie talked, while Campbell
Completed her escape.

3
Long live Oxford’s Sir Freddie Ayer
(though he is dead)
Who, along with Bertie Russell
(Though he was a Cambridge man),
Did his best to show that not all
Oxbridge philosophers could
Remain immune to the call
Of womanhood.

Alan Whelan