Untitled
The goose-skin sticks out on account of the cold
pricks this Nov., the leaves gilt, not quite yet red.
Thinking of what to marry. You know,
my father would never have approved of you—
he wanted a Southerner, through and through—
not a goddamn I-Tie, Dago, Hun, any sort
of fair-weather foreigner that took my
earnest, youthful eye away; at one stage, reluctantly,
a “von” would do, but it was not to happen.
(And nor was it to be you.) Now I’m stuck
with suppositions, none correct, all black.
Each seems just as good as the next.
Our choices only as good as we who make them,
Jean is cooking day-old bones and scrambled eggs
for her itinerant mongrel, who demands a feast proper.
Legal Tape
This situation needs unraveling
Looks like I’m in it for the long-haul
Words have been said, recorded
Again and again and again
How much longer can it go on
How much longer can it go on
At this rate, a lot can linger
I just want to be rid of new evidence
As if it and you never existed
Then where do we go from here
Then where do we go from here
Bully-boy tactics have their appeal
I’ll leave it / them in your capable hands
You know what’s best for bigger interest
And, you know, I tried everything
And, you know, I tried everything
In our now respective favors
To get all right, correct by the books
The whole thing has gone quite wrong
Politics of the matter notwithstanding
Politics of the matter notwithstanding
And, you know, I tried everything
Then where do we go from here
How much longer can it go on
This situation needs unraveling
SATs
(1)
“Praetorian” is to the present Rome as “a classical education” is to . . .
willingness to pay thirty dinarii
a gladiator facing certain slavery
the abstruse shock of the new
the valour of examination
(2)
Your sex is to mine as a brand new shoot is to . . .
pedestrian versus cyclist
Irenaeus versus Darwin
how green leaves are to old trees
the valour of examination
(3)
Love is to hate as the map of the world is to…
Bartholomeo Columbus in the face of Amerigo Vespucci
Franklin in place of Theodore, Joseph instead of Winston
China against America (cf The Little Red Book)
the valour of examination
(4)
We are brought on this earth to pay . . .
God for putting us here
pray tell, a relinquishment of pain
homage to lip-service in duty
the valour of examination
(5)
The specter of death provides . . .
good knees-up revelry
the person you always wanted
a devil you don’t know
an end to examination
24 hrs
I lay here unamused hence
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
Amongst leaves, no £s, but 50p.
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
How do you do you for me?
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
Your soul no match for Poverty
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
I’ll make you over of Charity
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
And Chivalry, taught you blasphemy
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
And social climbing, you know now’n art
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
Whilst I sleep here, unpack my feak
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
What is it else you’d do for me?
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
Yr. Trickery mottled like Porphyryr
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
And now it sows no sense, of start
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
Here’s where I'll sleep, here’s where we part
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
You cry the whole time “suffer ’gain”
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
No man is wain, no girl in twain
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
For no length nor depth, no heart again’s
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
Then why persist, with hate for art (thus art)
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
I wait the Rozzers come tonight
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
While German tourists, even, flourished
(think of Marx, of Hess)
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
But all last summer, I took up no more fighting
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
You accuse me, were its me who’s plighting
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
Stuck behind closed Gates, liv’ry all green in black
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
As were a stroll to sort the lack, and tack
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
Bright lights around, all going home to
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
Court: What else to tell you, then, to loll you
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
I recall a line: I love whilst thinking: That
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
Is, be, but, Jail, Jail, Jail, what. Goodnight
A Ramble in St. James’s Park
Be Bye, goodnight again, yet again. A good
Night in your heart, in my heart, as we part
We part wherever, how ever may be
Now.
Hyperion at X-mas
The seamless has shattered the overwhelmed,
over night, as it has overegged
egos: to wit, witness, note
the “flight” of all small shops like
the once-all-mighty Cost Cutter
gone, expleted: these, exploited
by a Herodian birth, going, gone.
The whole Nazarene story –
the great girth of this, the cashmere
New World Order style
offering, now offers bust. All
given up for you and yours truly
among the newly pensionless
to get lucky, or win the lottery.
