Two days I have been clearing junk
And now I find a memory,
A cardboard-gilded reliquary.
How should one feel before the bones
Of saints? Ecstatic awe
From admiration of their deeds,
Or mourning for their early deaths?
I – both. Two brittle seals
Of rubber guard the holy writ
(One snaps and slaps across my wrist).
Now lift the lid in stately hands,
And crown thy lap with guarded zeal.
There, atop the opened pile
A postcard lies from an earlier age;
Stark sunset pinks belie the page,
Relieving blue ‘ORLANDO’.
I see you there, pink Marco Polo,
Sip vermouth beneath a photo,
Kodachrome, of Marlon Brando
In some chain hotel’s dusky bar.
Anonymous, I see you flirt
At some footnote in a cocktail skirt,
Then compose yourself, some words:
‘I think this city might be the devil.
Its centre is nowhere,
Its edge everywhere
(c.f. Alaine of Lille, Pascal).
Anyway, this conference drags on
And on. Miss you much, mwah mwah mwah,
Yours etcetera, Simon.
p.s. Micky still stinks of sweat.’
Lay down the pen, lick the stamp
(St. Pete’s beach in early May,
Apricot air, dusted with gulls).
Some joke. I passed a dusty morn
Among the stacks, before I saw
The Point. A steep hard climb
To chip a little glacier ice
Into a half-rate G&T.
Well, Silly Buggers is a two-player game.
I found a nasty splash of grey
In a kiosk outside Regent’s Park
To write back to your sterile suite:
‘I’m not sure what this city is.
True, it has three rings to ride,
But each is of a different size.
Et in paradiso ego.
-Beatrice.’
So sharp, the words come flooding back.
Where are they now? Where is the mate
Of this old thing? When last did light
Turn its curling card a darker white?
Once I sent you across the sea,
And then you flew straight back to me,
But now you lie in a closed box,
In a closed cupboard,
In another quiet room.