Title: The Good Poets Trilogy
Author: rebecca thevideomaven
Fandom: The Young Ones
Rating: G/PG
Pairing: Rick/Vyvyan
Summary: Because Rick's a bad poet and Vyvyan recognizes Pope audially..
Disclaimer: Not mine. All hail Rik, Lise, Ben and Paul Jackson (for getting it put on the air). No poets were harmed in the writing of this drabble..

What hope is here for modern rhyme
To him, who turns a musing eye
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie
Foreshortened in the tract of time?

Rick the People's Poet paces his room, ignoring an unfinished essay on his desk and trying to write a poem. Something epic and earth-shattering, designed to shake the foundations of his feeble, Tory-run world.

He thinks of Das Kapital, the urban proletariat, and tries to find words that rhyme with Trotsky, bourgeois dog, and anomie. He remembers he's never bothered trying to figure out what "anomie" precisely means and, instead, begins to freeform using the other two words..

"Dog...drag...a dog drags his tail down the middle of the crowded street, too rundown to raise his weary head, too dog-tired to beg for bread, perhaps he'll starve, like Marx's eldest son, rotting in his father's bed instead of a hospital's, this was before the National Health, of course--"

His words are abruptly cut off by an object roughly colliding with the back of his head. He spins around to catch the hand that threw it only to be met with a slammed door.

"Bastard!" he starts to shout but ends up almost whispering the word as his voice cracks on the last syllable.

Furiously rubbing the back of his head, he glances down at the floor..

The object lying at his feet is a worn and faded paperback, creased and dog-eared in places, torn front cover being held in place with a long stripe of yellowing sellotape..

Immortal Poems of the English Language.

Flashback to earlier that night..

Rick the indignant and underappreciated house mate feels inexplicably wronged. And when he feels wronged, he lashes out. This time, it's aimed at Mike who he calls to as he heads out the front door, bound for greater and more fulfilling pursuits and oblivious to the blatant affront he's just caused his house mate.

Rick, oblivious himself but making up for it in paranoia, lashes out the best way he can:

"And remember, Michael, he who walks a mile full of false sympathy walks to the funeral of the whole human race!" he calls out just as the house leader shuts the door behind him.

Secure in this major victory, he rests back against the red plush sofa, leaning over to punch the comment with a stage-whispered aside to Vyvyan.

"Alfred E. Newman said that."

"D.H. Lawrence."

"No, Vyvyan. It's --"

"D.H. fucking Lawrence. And it's 'whoever walks a mile full of false sympathy.' If you're going to rip off a good poet, bloody get it right," the punk's correction -- and the look he delivers -- is hard-edged, designed to intimidate and drips with casual disgust, before his gaze just as casually returns to Just Good Friends on the telly.

Rick stares at the boy next to him, a broad stroke of fascination pulling his eyelids back, sparkling his retinas. The nerdie schoolboy's version of revelation.

"You.. like poetry, then?"

The blow is quick, landing the curious poet in the center of the coffee table. Rebounding quickly, he takes his place back on the cushion, scooting a few inches closer to the arm of the sofa. Vyvyan's attention seems to have returned to the telly and Penny Warrender's jugs bouncing with irritation, lulling his house mate into a comfortable silence.

"Poetry is archaic unless specifically written as song lyrics and short stories are novels for people with shot attention spans."

The would-be poet stares at his house mate a second time, fixation mixed with confusion as he tries to place the quote himself without asking. When Vyvyan finally gives up the name, his brain has begun to hurt.

"Some American punk rock star."

"I thought you hated American punk rock, Vyvyan."

"Shut up, puff. Anyway, I think she's German."

"Oh...W-wouldn't her lyrics be in German then?"

"Look, I told you to shut up, okay?!"

"Okay."

Rick lies quietly alert on his bed, still ignoring his past-due essay, occasionally pausing to rub the back of his head, a well-worn paperback open across his chest.

He thinks of murderous blue eyes, German punk rock and hair the color of autumn leaves. He makes a few silent attempts to put words to just what he's thinking then, frustrated, gives up.. Instead, he scans the page in front of him line by line, memorizing (and desperately try to understand) the words of another good poet..

Biting my truant pen, beating my heart for spite
Fool, said my muse to me, look in thy heart and write

A/N: Tennyson's "What Hope is Here for Modern Rhyme" opens this sucker. Sir Philip Sidney's "Loving in Verse" closes it. The poem Rick and Vyvyan quote is Lawrence's "Retort to Whitman." (Rick means "Alfred E. Houseman" but, being Rick, of course he gets it wrong). Cookie Mueller (whom Vyv also misquotes) was actually an American underground film actress and writer who co-wrote several poems with punk rock legend Richard Hell.