Hats I have known: the broad brimmed,
the beaked, the peaked, the high crowned,
the aviator’s leather helmet with flaps,
the beret cocked at an angle to the brow,
the hat at ease with itself, the top hat,
the hard hat, the clown’s cap and bells,
the Homberg, the silk, the stetson, the straw,
the Derby, the wide brimmed curé’s hat
that drifted away from me from the iron bridge
long ago; the hood, the helmet, the ten-gallon,
the sou’wester, the rain hat, the sun hat,
the biretta, the busby, the bearskin,
the Sherlock Holmes, the Napoleonic full fig,
the beanie, the porkpie, cutiepie,
paper hat, party hat, kiss-me-quick hat,
the mitre, the flat cap, the black cloth
worn by the judge sentencing a man to hang
by the neck and may God have mercy on his soul;
the blue baseball cap worn brim backwards,
the bobble with a badge Georgia Bulldogs,
the pith helmet, the shapka, the turban,
the tarboosh, the fez and the liripipe
all of which I must wear when I want to be invisible.
And oh the fedoras of victory, the trilbies of shame,
the kerchiefs of desire, the beavers of lust,
the cloche, mantilla, chenille, chaperon, Phrygian cap.
Hosannah to the panamas of innocence, hallelujah
to the bonnets of bliss, aloh al-akbar
to the cachic and the bashlik and the burnous,
hats off to the scarves of the babushkas.
Did you know Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address
sitting on a train using his stovepipe hat
as a desktop? What do you think of that?
The hat as mine-of-out-of-the-way-information.
Signor Know-it-all. Magister Clever Chops.
The hat’s bona fides. Hat’s old bones.
The hat public enemy number one, pariah,
Hat the arbiter of impeccable taste and discrimination.
The stocking cap treatment. The hat puzzle.
The great sombrero scandal of September 1895.
The hat tax. The War of the Seven Blue Bonnets.
The hat nightmare. The everlasting unforgiving
memory of hats, their absolute refusal to compromise.
The nine lives of hats. The transcendence of hats.
The hat’s birthplace in Galilee removed overnight
by the physical intervention of angels, deposited
lock, stock, stall, manger, halter and harness
in the grotto at Loretto, according that is
to Pauline theosophy, can you swallow that?
Night of the long hats. Hats in outer space.
The hat worn by Those Who Do Great Works.
The polkadot hats of the Sublime Insurrectionists.
The pointy hats worn by professors of pontification
at the university of Chapeau Falls Wisconsin
in the Department of Missing Headgear,
Faculty of Hat Studies. Hat and mouth disease.
The flora and fauna of hats. Hats Rule OK.
The hat in the poetry of Andrew Locomotion.
A Short Treatise on the Hat, by Harry Novak.
The It’ll-be-all-right-on-the-night hat.
The hats of God. The Great Hat of Versailles.
Imagine the hat made of water, the hat made of snow.
The people’s hat is deepest red. Electrification
plus hats equals the revolution. The silly hat brigade.
Give me liberty or give me hats. Hats off to Larry.
Into the valley of hats rode the six hundred.
Two acres and a hat. We take these hats to be self-evident.
The hat soliloquy: Whether to take up arms
against a sea of hats and by opposing end them,
that is the question. For every hat a season, a farewell.
For every hat there is an opposing hat. Hat=mc2.
The silly girls’ night out hat. The pig’s hat.
The lumpenproletarian hat. The great hat famine.
The heroic hat. The destabilised hat.
The deconstructed postmodernist hat.
The hat as a concept just at the edge of meaning.
Yawning, he wonders if it’s time for bed yet.
And can he please have his dinner now?
Portrait of The Hat with Fish and Apples.
Hat in the role of Lear. Hat son-of-a-bitch.
The hat visits an ailing relative in Caerphilly.
Suddenly the hat sits bolt upright in his rocking chair.
The hat on the wintery Haf drinking mulled wine.
Photo of the hat in his garden by the runner beans.
Hat, star of stage and screen. Hat son of Hat
who was begotten of Hat from a long and noble lineage
reaching back into the Bronze Age, the Neolithic,
who knows? Hat’s escutcheon, his entire dog and pony show.
The hat realizes Jesus I’m somebody’s father.
The hat fights in the Spanish war on the wrong side.
The hat’s nemesis. Sometimes the hat makes love
to his sister and later is devoured by guilt,
this despite the fact hats have no genitals.
Adolf’s hat, the goosestepping Sieg heil hat.
Nacht und Nebel hat. Ein Reich ein Hut.
The hats of the ethnic cleansers, caps worn
around Pale by some calling themselves poets,
their manicured haircuts that are also hats.
Hat bastards. The hat in the underworld,
realising what he’s capable of in the name of hat.
The hat as envisaged by Dante in the 7th ring of hell.
The hat is a Dutchman far away from home.
The hat asking the whereabouts of the red light district.
The hat smuggling in a little hashish via his hatband.
The get-stuffed hat. The go-boil-your-head hat.
The am-I-making-enough-of-an-asshole-of-myself-yet hat?
The fall-over-and-get-chucked-out-of-a-taxi hat. The hat
rubbing his left ear and complaining he’s misunderstood.
The hat saying Go from here. Go home
to Little Miss Sugarplum who loves you very much
despite the constant smell of burning in the room.
The hat orders a red wine and a red stripe.
Hat’s name shouted from the top deck of a 57 bus.
The hat a voice in the night saying I’m lonely.
The hat considers suicide but it is not yet
his last resort. The hat transformed, redeemed
at last by the all healing properties of love.
My kingdom for a hat. Le hat c’est moi.
The ageing hat. The hat on a park bench
in the autumn of his days. The hat with a habit.
The hat studying his profile in the mirror.
The hat awake, aware, conscious, a sentient being
contemplating all the other mysteries of the universe,
wondering to himself do you suppose there is
a finite number of stars? The hat as holy writ.
The hat feels disinclined to go to evensong.
The hat rushed into hospital for emergency surgery.
The hat fallen on hard times, the hat with the blues.
The hat suffering from a hefty dose of paranoia.
The schizophrenic hat off his trolley,
out of his pram, two cups short of a tea-set.
The hat’s seasonal transhumance through the Alps.
The hat helping the police with their enquiries.
The hat that died in the service of his country.
The hat brought down by insurrection and shot.
The hat sentenced to life for bloody murder.
The hat handing in his keys to the desk clerk
saying c’est la vie mon cher ce n’est que rien.
The homeland of the hat, green rolling hills
and the far river sparkling in the sunlight,
the hat remembers, the hat is in love, he says
I promise I will take you there, my beloved,
my woman of the hats, you who are my dream,
my gift my vision all my inspiration my love
amongst the white tongues of the arum lilies.
The hat’s dream life. The hat’s dark secrets.
The hat’s prayer. The hat at his rutting.
The hat’s occasional sexual peccadilloes.
The hat gets his rocks off. The hat purrs
with pleasure and pours himself a large Glenlivet.
The life and times and further adventures of a hat.
The hat dressed to the nines and going on the razzle.
The hat’s programme for reform of the judiciary.
The hat’s codicil to his last will and testament.
The hat’s last territorial demand on Europe.
The hat as the currency of the Common Market.
The ghosts of dead hats. The hat in exile.
†I.M. Monsieur Hat. Requiescat in pace.
The hat gone to his just reward in hat heaven,
joined the great architect, kicked the bucket.
The wild hats hooting in the woods.
The hats that have no homes to go to.
hats who have changed their names for immigration.
The alienated hat. The blunt-spoken hat,
the ey-by-gum hat, the bugger-you-anyway hat,
the hat calling a hat a hat speaking his mind
and doing as he would like to be done by.
The hat sleeping it off in the ditch.
The last hat on the Yukon. The hat’s death in Venice.
Superhat. Hat’s last ride. Exit hat left.
The hat’s memories of an idyllic childhood.
The hat will now reminisce for fifteen minutes.
The hat considers his options and draws up a plan.
The hat wins the Nobel Prize. The hat gets the OBE.
The hat packs his bags and moves to Amsterdam.
The hat going into a sulk. The hat in recession.
The hat swears innocence on his mother’s grave.
The hat sitting down to a fine fish supper.
The hat saying so who’s been sleeping in my bed?
The hat saying I spy with my little eye.
The hat switching channels. The hat movie.
The hat in a bag. The hat lost in the city.
The hat going down the pub to get drunk again.
Hat’s story: I was married once, my sunflower
I called her, come in I said under my broad brim.
under my high crown, come in love and I will warm
your cold innards. She was pretty, we were madly in love.
So much for my perception of reality.
She ran off with the captain of the Woolwich Free Ferry
singing sanfairyann my hairy little spider
leaving me weeping bitter tears into my billycock.
The hat was no longer in my court.
The hat was now firmly on the other foot.
The hat was now put before the horse
that was now of a very different colour.
The hat hit the fan. The hat with egg all over its face.
The hat up hat creek as we say hereabouts
without a paddle, or that hat won’t hunt.
Gnashings and wailings. Salt tears.
Lamentations throughout the Republic of Hats,
Beethoven on the radio, state mourning.
I learned the watched hat never sleeps,
to let sleeping hats lie, turn the other hat,
never count my hats before they hatch,
and that every hat has a silver lining.
Heyho I say who needs the aggravation?
Time to say goodnight Comrade Vodka.
I guess I made my hat and so must wear it.
So now I walk on the sunny side of the hat.
And I say plenty more where that came from,
there’s still rivers and music and birds,
sunrise and sunset, sunlight and moonlight
and the sunstruck wind dabbed water on the mere.