V: Lucid Interval
"Un entreverado loco lleno de lucidos intervalos" (Cervantes)
I shall never give of myself again.
We ask where we give
we demand, and then
like the stag, the old, the runnable stag
are amazed and die
of a broken heart
faced with what we should and could
at any other time
have torn apart
Night
in the T-bone picking
fish-bone pricking yard
du Jardin des Filles
Inside
Maya stripping
beads swirling
Sebah belly-dancing, glossy
Claudia who'd been a boy ...
Making love is a friendly gesture.
Who said that?
You? I would never have dared.
The shy are suckers for les filles de joie.
I would never have spoken
never have known or cared
Never have dreamed
Never have woken nearer to God
in Le Jardin
Le Jardin:
here
they plant out girls
Would only have heard
boys' screams come echoing up at night
the shouts and boots of the police
the sudden silence
only have seen on my way to work
the swollen grins, split lips
the small unwashed who are for ever with us
I had always been a fighter
I had never given in till -
How could your tongue, lass, so cool,
so soft and sweet,
cut like lobotomy,
cut through me like meat?
Dis-card me like old bones?
I had always seen a brighter
day ahead and striven on
regardless of the odds
but now
pushed past,
always last -
I'd thank you if you let me
but you clearly don't want thanking
so I'll sit among the dustbins
in the sun
and go on thinking
cockroach thoughts -
Little Jim
in Le Jardin where
they plant out girls
and watch them wither
watch them shrivel
drop into
the never-ending stream, the fading
faces in the night.
