Air of a Fable


Hitching south in summer,
Magic-carpeted across the Border.
A Beetle-driving bass guitarist
Scribbled an address in Putney -
A technicolor hippy flat,
Mattresses and albums.

Moon-landing, London -
Dazzling,  empty -
Space for everyone.
Rumours of enlightenment;
A paperback in every pocket,
Alan Watts and R D Laing,
Luxuriant Castaneda.

Festive work for cash in hand -
Wimbledon,  the Palace lawn.
Eclairs,  iced coffee,  tiny cups,
And bearing down on the catering tent,
The Queen's top-hatted entourage.
To whom does cartoon pomp appear?

Stoned,  peripheral,  stuffed with cake -
Pretty much like dreaming,  this 'awake'.






Earls Court


Down-at-heel adventurers
Wide-eyed in cafe windows, sip
The elevated loneliness 
Designed by Sartre and Burroughs.

Only the Australians
Will ever go home.
A snowy wind,  a wintry mind
Abandoned for an altered state

Of Beat and Hippy paperbacks,
Romantic travel,  Kathmandu,
But savings totted on a napkin
Still wouldn't stretch to France.

Consolidating confidence
These early days of independence;
Another coffee guarantees
Another hour of life.







The Spyglass


Cheered by the jungle and shipwreck
Of a one-legged Hollywood legend -
Walrus moustache, 
A well-travelled rough-tweed jacket -
The yarn of adventurers, writers, old money -
A glimpse through an archway.
What fool would ignore
The clues that lead to destiny?

A friendly blues-voiced regular
Who'd topped the bill at the Hundred Club
Tapping,  from a soft blue pack,  Gauloises;
Maybe I could be an exploited talent too -
Or failing that,  a velvet essayist
Snoozing in a hat by humid seas.

The Seventies in Earls Court Road -
An amiable Interzone
Where everyone is celebrating something -
Even if it's only the calming assurance
Things won't go back the way they were.
Hookahs and pastries, dealers in doorways;
The favourable ambush
Of the sheltering pub.



The May moon rose over the black steep.

The faces in the crowd were dark,
from Spain, Morocco, Constantinople...

                                                                                       


Barman's Blues


A beaming impresario,  glad-handing
In expansive celebration, 
Rewarded Jimmy Joyce   - for laughs -
With VIP Security...

So there he was in a caravan,  eating hot pies
While rain lashed huddled hippies
In muddy Afghan coats
And a grey east wind was flattening their tents.

Called forward to the breach,  he
Wrestled a minor Beach Boy off the stage,  not
Recognising him.  Who would?   
Success...  is an evanescent thing.

Back to square one  - Earls Court -
Pulling pints and listening,
Panning for gold in the torrent
Of other people's lives.






Hispaniola


Wind-chilled on the mudflats
In a hazy winter sunrise,
The Irish,  gaunt,  chain-smoking,
Tumble from the ganger's van
Piratical,  dishevelled,
Still wearing suits from last night -
Do they never sleep?

Fixing steel frenetically in sparkling frost
Till the sun grows warm enough to warm the steel;
And soon the hangover is sweated out, 
Forgotten,  and they start to talk.
Scarred rust-red hands enfold 
Sweet mugs of tea.  They start to laugh.

Gleefully obstreperous
They hoist and haul bridge-bouncing cables -
Precarious on parapets in failing light
While civil engineers like tented generals 
Pace and fret in nominal command.

Never tired and never sane
They lean from the van going home,
Inviting London to pub and party,
Bright lights,  and Hammersmith rain.










April Fools


Soundtrack of the spring was Brand New Day -
Van and crew,  uplifted,  in
 light-filled convalescence -
Office Removal casuals -   driven at dawn down Regent Street
Or hurtling over Westway,  dangling,  laughing,  waving
Like partisans on Liberation Day.

Driver Len,  with lurid wartime anecdotes,
McAllister,  man-mountain -  known to the police -
Andy, actor -  so he tells us -  yawning,  brushing hair back,
And the bouncy Irish bluesman whose uncle once met Yeats -
Lounging languidly,  apparently,  and wearing a cravat -

And interrupting anecdotes  
The boss,  ex-military,  Hampstead class,
Brisk,  arrogant,  immaculate -
Theatrically bursting out from camouflage
To roar at any riff-raff standing still  -








Oasthouse Aromatic


Boxers,  gamblers and scrap-metal moguls
Muscle in from the black-tie clan
Of Bethnal Green's lugubrious gangsters -
In-laws,  outlaws,  'Jack the Hat' McVitie -
And overwhelm,  back-slapping.
September,  so they're centre-stage
To tell eye-popping stories.

Scenery-chewing gypsies 
Crack wood-nuts with their teeth -
Race red-hot tractors till they overturn,
Draw knives when they're demoted in the field.
Surviving children roam in expeditions,
Bingeing on brambles,  cornering
The occasional pheasant.

Lively-minded students charm
Avuncular farm-regulars -
Who mock with warm guffaws 
The world-improvers
In clouds of airborne powdered hops,
Intoxicating summer air.

Frenzied tractors bounce and roar
Flat out.  At tea-break -  sunburn,  banter,
And Old Man Henley
Stately walks his  kingdom.
Air of a fable;  who'll
Bring him the golden hop-bine?

After the hops,
We bring October apples;
First shock of autumn cold.
Caravans and children 
Are dragged resisting from the rainy fields.
One year to wait,  in exile.









Island


Music down a windy street -
Springtime trees and scattered petals,
Bright warm yellow door.

Sunny attic,  view of clouds -
A heady blues fan,  high on Saturday 
Introduces  Astral Weeks
By playing it through the wall.

Gina,  in the room downstairs,  is reading 
Short Walk in the Hindu Kush,
And recommending her beloved Zorba,
Jules et Jim,  Jacques Tati's  Trafic -

And Japanese Macrobiotics -
Enthusiastically pinning to my wall
The grin of Georges Ohsawa -
You Are All Sanpaku!

Brown rice,  gomasio,  bancha tea -
The spine-rush of energy
Lifting my hair in a thistle-burst
Like mad MacDiarmid on  Selected Poems.

Well clear of winter shipwreck
Embedded in warm sand
We wake up laughing.







Dublin Summer


Gulls
And silence
Called the cycling lover -  brimful,  
Round the streets of Sunday early

Ranelagh nightstrewn
And breezing out
Into the hills 

While you
My smoke and coffee vampire
Sleepily recoiled from daylight -

Flaxen 
Anglo-Irish heiress !
Laughter,  duvet-wrapped 
In bliss





The Sea Cook


Saturday addiction
The Golden Dawn
Food Shop,  Bookshop
Alley on the Quays

Into the mystic -
A Japanese Cafe
Brown rice a portal
To the clear-headed Tao

Surf with Ohsawa
A wave of experiment -
At a cooker in Ranelagh
Wake up amazed







Happy Crew


A hapless, hilarious, down-at-heel gang
Selling anything door-to-door in Dublin and beyond;
Our yellow Fiat 127, indefatigable Biggsy,
Steam belching from his bonnet.

High-energy wit  in the runaway comedy
Of wilfully unrealistic thinkers;
Ecstatic conversation,
The sharing of random rewards.

In a hilly village,  Biggsy breaks -
Black smoke from burning oil.
We peer into the mysterious engine -
Soft rain hisses on the engine block.

After the giggling rounds of drinks,
I call my flat from Gogarty's Bar.
Can you come and rescue me?
I'm lost in the heart of Ireland.







Speech!

 
Back in the pioneering days
I drifted,  star-struck,
To the isle of Joyce and Van the Man,
And fell among salesmen.

Portal to the picaresque -
Bagman for a swivelling boss
Backlit with trophies
Above a pub in smoky Dublin.

Chaotic dreamers -
Commission-only desperadoes
On the run from ordinary -
Late-night laughers
Trying to memorise a script.

Today, my fellow-veterans
Look back from Intercon or Plaza
To pin-point glory -
The day the drill of language sprang
The cash-box of the world.










The Fabled Road

 
Tentative in monologue
We smoke like Alain Delon,
Rewriting life as adventure
And seeing how it sounds.

In an admiral's Bentley, outrunning
The South China Seas in a hurricane -
Unpolished,  unpublished,
My Book of the Year.

A racing-team manager casually
Opens a door to the high life -
We stop for a sea-food platter
In St Tropez

And I bounce for miles
On the wing of a Turkish tractor,
With handshakes,  grins,  and waves
And glasses of tea.

Sun-scorched and windblown
On the fabled road to anywhere -
Heavenly-choired by the hospitality
Of the affable 
Eccentric.






I Hear the Surf Booming


Drawn to the warmth of gold  we reach Hawaii,
Tahiti,  Treasure Island,  Coromandel;
But first we land where there's no rivalry,
Where no-one qualified,  with any class,  
Would want to go.

Beheadings in the village square,
Lashings,  gold,  and fly-blown meat.
Cockroaches carpet the shower,
Scattered by naked bulb and feet;
The sleep-denying malarial mosquitoes...

Awaken to shriek and scream from the butcher's yard -
Last moments of panic,
Arterial spray.

Quieter,  stunned,  on a silvery beach;
Bad dreams take a year to fade.










Asia Overland


Amphitheatres on peaks
Where Roman towns have vanished.
What were they thinking,  the architects?
The growling slaves,  roped in
To hack and haul above the tree-line?

Assimilating Caesar's splendour -
Rubble villa,  red-tile roof,
Rugs under dust-pale olive trees
Older than Roman stone.

The delicate incendiary crackle
Of cigarettes on drowsy afternoons;
Hot tea, in fluted glasses,
And music,  goat-bells on the hill.

Clown-cars,  laden, 
Sunny bicycles,
The cedar-honey breeze -

Something is wearing the world as a mask

Slow dissolve
Misty precipice
Qi







High Office

 

The Cobol of the Caesars' 
Exuberant empire
Is displacing the Assembler
Of Plato's elite;
And antique dialogue in every scene
Requires rewriting.

We need itinerant scholars
To celebrate in art
The code of the imperial machine;
When can you start?
Poets!  Queue like gentlemen -
No fighting.

Perform Round-the-World until
Rich-and-Remote.
Exit.
Stop Run.






Singapore Menu


A humid nest of offices 
Overhanging Middle Road -
Jungle stench of durian,  
Downpours of warm rain.

The Szechuan Court's  esteemed 
Veg dumplings -   glistening ginger,  
Black vinegar dip...

Crispy fresh fish in orange sauce,
Dessert of red-bean pancake,
The usual chunky white teapot of green tea -

Or will you come umbrella'd  in the rain
To jostle through the steamy Hawkers' Market
With the rest of us,

For pork-fat soup and chicken feet?
We won't be offended
Whatever you choose.






Quake Zone


Penthouse,  flowing,  futuristic 
On a whizzing web of bullet trains
Flails and weaves,  aikido peerless
Palm tree in a hurricane

Where are you going?
It's only six o'clock

Month-end reports don't balance -
Attention will be drawn
Cancel the meeting,  tell them I'm dying
Act like nothing's wrong -

Where are you going?
It's only six o'clock

Dojo gardens
Archaic,
Unflappable
Shogunate moon







The Glittering Lobbies


Singapore,  I'm back!
The long straight taxi ride -
Ambient Eno
Sonar pings,  hypnotic and sedate.

Swim languidly;  elated,  dew-bediamonded.
Sun-infused darjeeling -  
A joyful downpour -
Waiters rush to cover poolside tables.

Curtains billow
In open-windowed rooms.
I stroll through glittering lobbies
In a trance of contentment,  an adept of opium dreams.

Deliciously dining alone,
I'm chanting the a la carte sutra.
Waitresses shimmer  - embroidered silk -
Discreetly attending to Buddha.

Seaforths,  widows,  farmers  at last
In the heaven glimpsed on wintry Sundays -
We amble together through the warm city night,
A generous, expansive host,  an invisible entourage.










Script Consultant

 
Robed with incense,  richly professorial,
The Cambodian monk,  in exile on a beach in Thailand,
Tells my fortune;  affirms the fabulous ending
On a veranda dusted with white sand.

Checking,  rechecking frail charts
Of treasured Khmerian script -  attuned
To an almost-inaudible  call-and-response
Behind the entertainment.

The universe is created and destroyed
Forty thousand times a second;  
Dark in the skull;  explosive
Retinal bombardment -

Opening now,  a major motion picture
Projected onto clouds.








Glare


Burbank 6.30 am
Hotel in chill shadow
Mistake with your booking
Deal with it

Take a look around
The swimming pools
Dark glasses glare
Don't even think about sitting here

In the Hollywood Hills
Dark glasses glare
Don't even think about parking here 
Armed response

Take a look around 
The Studio
Mistake with your contract
Deal with it

Commissary lunch
Have you met -
OK! Hey! Yeah!
OK! Hey! Yeah!

Glare 
In the rush hour
West into Sunset
Big mistake

Flight
Barely moving over the Grand Canyon
In the pull of a singularity
But almost clear.







Cloud, Moon and Reef


Upswept,  unmoored
In a night-boat,  glimmering,
Torch-lit and lifted on the dizzying tide
Of Stevenson's imagination.

Treasure Island  caged the midnight fear -
Gruff murderous pirates,  the vice of Blind Pew -
Spectral in solitude,  whirled under hooves -
The painterly extravagance of nightmare.

O flattery of Hollywood!
Welcoming shout of American Poetry -
Limo,  Freeway,  the Lot -  on Warner Boulevard
Magnesium light,  an ominous migraine.

Rewrite man,  washed up to write
At lamp-lit desk throughout the night,
Marooned where once the treasure lay,
A forehead-clutching castaway.

Cocaine,  entrapment,  lawyers,  debt.
There is no gold.  Reach bedrock,  sweat,
Dumbfounded,  as when Bill Bones finds
The Black Spot on his palm.  Struck blind.

There's no escape.  The dreamer,  home,
Still hears Flint's haunting cry -
You're one of us -   thus dead men taunt the dying.
An empty boat turns slowly on a grey lagoon
Gathering rain.







Faraway Dunes


lie back and listen
on springy  sandy turf 
a warm humming sky
and no-one for miles

more days like this?
this'll do anyway 
it's all the same day
all the same stardust

dizzying maths beyond
mount palomar
anyway fading
up up

cape canaveral
breathless fragility
rising unsteadily
into the sun









Ablaze

 

A bobbing,  creaking dhow
Unloading tea-chests on the Creek at sunset
The day of our reunion;  Odysseus' 
Trade winds of fortune,  
Iranian caviar.

Toast!  
With eggs and onions,  vodka -
Our sprawling lives 
Now crafted,  lyrical
Anthologies of travellers' tales.

Your balcony at dawn 
A wall of heat -
The howling call to prayer,
Wide-armed songs from countless minarets
And sandstone suddenly ablaze.

Morning on the beach
And everything behind us
Burning








Driftwood


Plutocrats,  pirates,
Femmes fatales -
Momentum trade, 
No rationale.

Unwinding now -
Atoms and energy
Tugged by the tide;
The stars engulf

A desert island -
Tahitian-French cafe,
A farewell chat with Belinda
On the driftwood island pier -

An intricate idyll,
Buried treasure,
Almost
Unremembered.

Gold is a maguffin -
Adventure is the thing.
Gulls wheel in the rain over Bouville,
Flint on his deathbed sings.