Page 46 - Fourways Gardens July 2021

Special Tribute

Gus was an empathetic man and understood Then there was a strip club for the snails in
the nature of animals – fish, fowl or four- his garden:
legged, he loved them all. I cannot imagine
him fishing but the following poem looks Beneath the Agapanthus shrub
at the pastime of angling from the angler’s There is a Mollusc Stripper Club
Gus Ferguson point-of-view and the fish’s: That boasts an act to titillate
The jaded snail sophisticate.
I come to fish here all the time.
deAth OF The fish are only five. To shifting drums and throbbing base
A vamp comes out at sensual pace
I know them, each one, personally
And catch them all alive.
In Lurex mantle, sequined shell
A pOet Of course I use fine hooks and bait, She weaves a concupiscent spell.
Good line takes the strain:
But since they are inedible, Explicit movements, not Burlesque
But undulating Arabesque.
B y Ja M es c la R ke
I let them go again. She slides across the flickering strobe
And, piece by piece, removes her robe.
To eat to suffer is our lot,
It pierces lips and gums To climax this erotic act
And rips us from our element She makes her lovely foot contract
I He mercifully slacks the line, A hyper-naked Jezebel.
And slips from underneath her shell:
Until our saviour comes.
was saddened to read of the death of an
old acquaintance whom I’d greatly admired
Not every eye was out on stalks
Unhooks and sets us free;
over many years – Gus Ferguson. He died
aged 80 in the city he loved, Cape Town.
A cynic gives a knowing shrug:
Our sacred mystery.
But thanks to him, we keep on smiling . . . His infinite compassion is Not every snail who gasps and gawks.
“She’s nothing but a common slug!”
Gus had a pharmacy in Plumstead but his And this verse, entitled Carpe diem, is about
claim to fame was that he was one of the a goldfish’s world view . . .
world’s great writers of comic verse – every
bit as brilliant as Britain’s Ogden Nash. A goldfish in a goldfish bowl
Surveys the world outside
He was a poet, cartoonist, author, publisher, And feels completely in control
scientist . . . and a long-distance cyclist who, Of everything he spies.
for many years, did the annual Cape Town
Cycle Tour. He thinks: “I’m in my element,
My glass a faithful lens
He was known for his love of snails and That shows a foggy firmament
wrote many amusing poems about them. That wobbles and distends.
One of my favourites is:
“An ever-shifting universe
Many poems I have writ Of ectoplasmic forms
Extolling snails and I admit Beyond all known parameters
I might have rambled on a bit. Of finite fishy norms.
But now my conscience tugs,
Would I have done the same for slugs? “And yet, this mystic interplay
They’re both molluscans, both pathetic, Does serve me with such love
But the snail is more aesthetic. That I am blessèd every day
With manna from above.”
He encouraged many aspirant poets
and was himself published in Britain by
Penguin. But poetry is not a way to make
lots of money. He wrote:
Today I took books
To the pulpers but sadly
They don’t do poetry.

Fourways Gardens • 44 • July 2021