Nostalgia

There is a hazy time
when catharsis is therapeutic
but this self-indulgence
is bound to induce stagnation.
When a strong man,
one who is heroically individual,
is swallowed up by fictions
– precluded, altruistic jubilance
over the prize of mystic love
from a good woman, the belief
that, had the dice rolled differently,
he could have been saved
from himself, his consuming misery –
he is truly defeated
and nobody can help him.

Then again it is pleasant
to see the lymph rise
from an old wound
with the pump and vigour
of a youthful heart
too often thought lost.

Picking over our memories
is not time wasted licking
our sores. Reflecting
in the westbound waiting room,
we take pause and attempt
to gather up our resources,
devise foresighted stratagems
to meet all exciting new contingencies,
bid to never again run and hide
from impending calamities
or any vexing mysteries
approaching our lives.

Sharp Noir (Part IV)

Noir’s father was a neighbourhood

mensch and Machiavelli

of phonebooth and pocketbook,

“Surrendering his wealth,

he followed the Colonel,

rolled heads at The Palace

(Before Rubix) but left us

without notice one night

as we slept,” – his calls blocked

as his friends stopped turning

up for work, their absurd

time-cards gone, their letters

cropped; at their doors

he’d morse’d dead knocks

and uttered dusty whispers

into lobby tin-speakers.

“His documents, photographs

we had to burn; medals

in a tin buried beneath

a birch by the railway

bridge to the steel mill;

I’m a girl fixing the memory

of a long line of railmen.”

The Balladeer cuts an expression

into her harmonica and begins

to play with messianic hint;

the milieu echo Cecil B. DeMille’s

name in the realm of question;

with the roseate breath in her lungs,

she appears to paint freely with

the caustic saloon air.

The mass of canines without

eyes in front, dripping entropy,

produced from the bar

on some vast Martini loom,

swarm to her like flies

to the sweetness of rotting fruit.

Dusted by a pollen of kisses,

lovers stretch gratitudes

toward mistaken donors, create

illusions later perceived false.

A stewardess hands out scented towelettes

to mop our cephalic sweat

(not a flicker of interest

across her vampirically pale

features). Appearing in seriatim,

sciatic dancers null our osseous pains.

The green pharisees turn and run

to The Juke but he’s wreathed in love.

His body speeds, all bravado,

feet barely beneath him,

the slender amandus dynamos

around her, lashed by pinball

awareness, running wild and bold

- a distracted chatelaine failed

to tether this restless colt.

I’m tipping brown sugar

in a filter coffee, sighing

at a saucy type in a fur collar,

as some of the crowd begin

to fumble for their chalk,

pull at ties, palm their lips aghast,

become fixed in poses

stricken for no purpose.

The Juke on the floor:

three bullets sewn through

his chest – he wouldn’t

have died in the matinée show.

He really makes mosaic

of the music box he was

leaning against as Noir

pulled bashfully at her dress.

Rubix claps the revolver

into Cassis’ hands and

everyone knows it was him.

Troubles not original

in these parts, the paranoiac

revelers, the pleasure sucked

from them, become

brainless insects, delve

into the battle waged

knowing nothing of the aims;

as a general is forever

enacting stratagems

from the previous war,

I pluck Noir and Dr. Cassis

from the vibrissae

of the dimensionless beast;

we hide among the pixie women

in the street selling trinkets

ankle deep in peduncles

and hat ribbons, waving feathers.

Sharp Noir (Part III)

Entombed by work, Cassis sits

alone now below a menhir

to the Colonel, his stipendiary

at the base of this monolith

characterises his worth;

his body is visibly reduced

to basic operating levels.

Drinking his dark rum, he lets

his ash grow an inch

from his lips and stitch

anxiety into his patients

waiting with form and cheque.

They lie exposed and he,

hunched over each, gets

no complaints, inspecting

wounds like ancient gems

unearthed before the naked

tribals by men in pith helmets;

the natives sucking on gravel,

the mustaches breathing gin.

He knows his trade from

behind Rubix and her quotients,

his ivory desk and ordinance:

merely a corset to a narcotic

bust at every stratum.

Standing at the edge

of manhood, being a child

seems like a dream for The Juke,

a young man who could have

worked a lifetime as Cupid’s fletcher,

his eyes flash like hot knives.

His hard hands are relaxed,

elastic at the joints, sinews tired,

may be pried apart by a small child.

His attention to detail reveals to him

obscenities to which it also accustoms.

On leave from Switchboard repairs,

The Juke is frequently audience to Rubix.

She admires his loyalty, “which may

only be found in youth.”

“The rack of addiction

imposes contact,” riles

the houndman chained

to a radiator, brandishing

his filth and a rusty fork.

“Cabbage fritters and boiled tongue

Is what they eat where my mother’s from,”

dismisses The Juke

- with the peel of his smile,

the tilt of his jaw reveals

what’s tattoo writ ‘Cut Here’

by little monochrome scissors

on a dotted line ear-to-ear.

“It will be a short one, my last breath,

So I mark it where my gasp will end.”

In our darkest reflections, of love and death,

our thoughts are potent with the Colonel.

The Juke remains loyal

as Rubix continues illusion epitome,

“… seemed I ordered Whisky

in The Grand Pump Room

- never met the waiter,

bastard failed introduction.”

She’s sitting despotic

in a broad-stitched leather

booth, conducting: “I was seated such,”

palm to Formica, “at the Colonel’s

eightieth; he soliloquized much

the need for men like you.

His wisdom was of fine stock

and calibre – I’ve had

the girls print the matchbooks.

We thank his heroism,

we’re adorned: my necklace gold,

your hands well oiled!”

Her fingers fat from handling money,

The Juke at once spits from memory:

“I was looking for a voice, he stood there full of cheer and pretense like a shaman on a box

– maybe not soap but some well demanded, highly branded, value-tax added product

of some kind. He asked what I was doing with my life, what I was trying to find

fixing cars with my black thumbnails and hard, thin boots, my loose jaw

bound to get broken, my legs full of bourbon. A laminar flow

of contradicting tones in his voice, I told him exactly where he could go.

He talked of a town called Liberty,

where the people basked in Freedom;

I asked what kind of map he was readin’.”