THE SEARCH FOR LOST TIME

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Shut up in a Paris apartment,

tedious is the rainy day.

The demon of frivolity

(faithful to the female sex),

in order to house guests at his table,

forbade amongst friends, his winter clothes.

 

A soirée without programme.

 

Can I count on tomorrow?

Is that possible?

Who could refuse anything from an angel?

 

Depth of expression, painted by masters,

such cynicism for a go-between.

Diabolical spirit and blunt refusals

announce themselves with satisfaction.

 

I desire to rouse their envy.

Like coming from a party 

with an ineffable smile.

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    ON THE TRAIL OF JIM, PERE LACHAISE

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Thoughts of an earlier existence,

while freely plotting the distance…

Chopin, Baudelaire, Piaf, Poulenc.

A forest of chestnut and raven,

the silence of the nights quartet.

 

Global guests in conversation

with posthumous farewells.

 

We eternally suffer without remedy

in this kaleidoscope of darkness

that returns us to our own world of dreams.

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SUPERFICIALITY

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The pointed diamond in her glass,

had left a taste of quintessence

and the heart with lewd desires.

 

Shake hands and cancel our vows.

Swell the oceans so that woods appear,

for my brave brother is called England.

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The tears we shed belonged to a crocodile.

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LIGHT ON A DARK HORSE

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I’ll run backwards through the alphabet,

while you send for the medical man.

The two villains remain nameless

& for several months bled out.

 

You think you are fit for society

with damask curtains and chandeliers,

playing crooked second fiddle

to a black page and a chamberlain.

 

That imprudence that you hear

is a song out of tune.

 

You fancy the airs you give yourself,

like the twopenny ring I gave you in the garden.

 

My father was King of this country

& I his only son.

The haughtiness was equal.

 

It’s time the dinner bell rang.

Time to carve the goose and take a glass of wine.

For looking down on you is not looking at all.

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My soul has a sacred vein.

Make me immortal with a kiss,

for love is dead, or dead to thee.

From womb to tomb, born to die,

a dead mans grave in blue pyre.

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UNDER THE GREAT OAK

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Waltzing with the great oak leaves, 

the summer winds shake wood and dell. 

Violets rise to kiss the sun 

as if by fate compelled.

 

Across a brook the poppies watch 

as golden autumn comes to rest. 

The dying day, felled by night, 

inhabitants return to nest. 

 

Midnight born, the winter snow, 

under English dust the acorn lies 

as nature's cataclysmic edge 

sees death, but the seed shall rise 

 

and once again in spring shall bloom. 

The river swift in silver gleam 

with pastures lush and warmer days 

in a hazy summer dream.

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SUNSHINE ON THE SABBATH

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Brush the dust from thy Sunday garb,

all dignity and clerical neatness.

 

Face to face with the congregation,

obscurity between them and the holy page.

 

The strangers visage would be discovered,

wrapt in silent meditation.

 

Eyes weakened by the midnight lamp,

the countenance retained,

the composure of death,

from which paleness caused a whisper

that hid under secret sin.

 

Good women gossip from the parsonage window,

the mystery turns into scandal.

 

The gaze of multitudes is no moral eye.

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BLUE CHINA

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1. Tongue had lost no cunning.

 

Public meeting halls with one mirrored dressing rooms.

 

 ‘Nine in a Row’, now that was the place,

 where fluent Japanese was spoken.

 

His choice of words too commonplace,

his directionless undertone

had failed to capture the mood of the moment.

 

Exploits passed over, modest explanations.

But a few words of duty & virgin losses.

 

Dress warm for the harbour mouth,

the scrap metal shipyards.

 

I counted seagulls and watched the black Madonna

hover over the Sunday morning crowd.

 

Nobody was listening.

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2. I’ve come to find a lover.

 

The discussion started at the table

 was paid for by enduring pain, 

 stricken with a serious apoplexy

and sentenced to twenty years.

 

Killed in the soft earth of redoubt,

the depth of the pit showed a narrow escape.

 

My background life, a guarded secret,

only truly exultant when the rain is falling.

 

I cannot think of you as a stranger

amongst this selfish tribe of rich relations.

 

I love my daughter more than God loves his own world.

I asked which death she would have for me.

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3. Walking in tall grass.

 

it’s the poets right to trespass.

If we meet in the future,

we’d better have a plan.

 

Thanks for showing me around.

Rolling the word on your tongue,

we talk of art, not of artists,

‘cept the mono-ism of Picasso.

 

The temperature of flesh,

the taste of blood,

who would write a lie in their own diary?

 

A stone creates an outbound ripple,

an advance of less importance.

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4. Like Carroll… 

 

I try to believe in impossible dreams before breakfast.

Like Wilde, with scotch and soda grin, I hold an empty cup in the universe.

Like Cocteau, I only see junket on a telegraph wire.

Like Proust, I write throwaway lines of seven horns of pure gold. 

 

Doomsday’s at three to midnight.

Faiths a drink of insecurity. 

I seek her where she is known,

or so the rumours run.

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CATCH 22

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Shooting skeet with a loaded gun,

Joe unpacked his rifle mind, 

in search of a missing clue.

He tried to predict the future by charisma, numbers

and a colour-graded image 

of an Italian cinnamon dawn.

 

The bleary-eyed blonde, in satin blouse,

svelte in feminine parts,

paid for her drinks with nervous lips.

 

Hungry Joe snorted with amorous greed,

pampered flesh & a juicy drunken tart.

Everything tawdry & grotesque.

 

Money, camera’s, fornication.

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BLACK SKY, LAKE SIDE

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Frightened scribes cannot designate the movement,

neither anarchy, nor anti-art

and none of us Dada’s here.

 

Boisterous, likeable,

succeeding the latter,

the table to sit at with wickerwork chairs.

 

I was becoming attached to ancient myths.

An epoch when repudiation

was reputed to be ugly.

 

Nautical art;

Detours mapping the brink of the abyss.

 

Infinite torment or unshakable positivism?

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SKELETON OF OUR ETHICS

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On my way back to the normal world

of finger tip reality,

morally responsible for last nights trouble,

I nurtured the monster & betrayed the species.

 

Sedatives, pills…

a troupe of pink elephants

jet trailed through the summer sky.

 

Children have the power,

the formula to change

and nothing but golden eyes

that suddenly burst into tears,

hour after hour,

night after night,

wondering…

 

I’ll keep my steps in good time

until back in London,

postponed for another visit.

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INDEPENDENT OF SUCH REFLECTIONS

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The first movement was good music,

the echo & pattern preserved in my memory.

 

A year had passed since I walked this town.

 

The pretty girl made quite an impression,

  like a brilliant new sun.

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THE SARACENS EYE

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A seat in the window of a cafe off Kings Road,

copy-book handwriting and cognac.

Knightsbridge in the evening.

On a cold stomach, one cannot get drunk!

 

I’d lingered too long in Piccadilly,

labouring over a pint of beer

& tasteless Christmas cake. 

 

In Berwick Street, I paid ten pound

for some poker-faced information

from a tape machine of real booty.

 

The unfurnished life lives

in a convivial dimension,

embroidered in vogue of the day.

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THE MARTYR'S LAMENTATION

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The phone rang, a pessimist bathed

a seaside Monte Carlo dream.

Shedding his fur-trimmed mantle of fine green cloth,

festivities came to an end.

 

Only workmen remembered him,

even then they asked for terms

with a less than merciful view.

 

No better companions

on the morning of execution.

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IMPRESSIONS OF NEW YORK

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Hiding like an animal,

in a cab through hot streets.

Running away from the city.

 

An old impresario lives

outside a cigar shop on 30th.

 

A passerby inherits his eyes.

Birth is very chancy.

 

Eventually the brown brick gives way and

no more the smell of malt from the breweries.

Nor grimy factory walls,

for forty years the bones of the dead.

 

A tragic mother, her hair turned grey,

a shawled crone in the freezing dusk.

 

The art of love is a sublime achievement.

A Dionysian revival of the erotic Renaissance.

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COMPLAISANCE TO LOVE

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The bond that united us was love, not money.

Are we rich or are we not?

Moneyed affairs are obscene.

The wealthy flaunt their riches in front of the poor.

I talk of sexual endeavour

and help myself to cash in the other hand.

 

The bell rings in reticent manner

with a deep sigh of impatient forbearance.

 

Hypocritical words of affection,

passion in the full sense

is a baleful predestination.

Destructive in the highest degree,

devoid of interest & pretext,

a psychological amputation

and colourless by manner.

 

An empty canvas.

 

Urchins spy through keyholes to kill time,

the misery of suspicion & espionage.

Ten minutes passed more slowly than the previous thirty.

It is the epileptic contortion of the final orgasm.

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THE LIGHT OF MADNESS

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Condescension is counterweight.

We are born of antique dust,

an aural cloud in mellow fire.

 

Piercing visions, pudicity of expression,

but trifles in our shared past.

 

Street lamps, liquid yellow,

reflect Parisienne asphalt and cobblestone.

A prostitute in black fur, rouged,

glances backward at suburbs 

and sunny lands to the east.

An exquisite pallor!

 

The widow’s song has blueish tenors.

Fellow exiles denounce fashion 

as indicative of our mediocrity.

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