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Title: Sympathetic Magic

Author: Paul Cameron Brown

Release date: August 22, 2009 [eBook #29761]

Most recently updated: January 25, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SYMPATHETIC MAGIC ***

Sympathetic Magic

By

Paul Cameron Brown

Copyright (C) 1985 by Paul Cameron Brown

CONTENTS.

The River Cuts a Channel Page 9Primavera Page 10 Sanguine page 11, 12, 13 Hamomlette page 14 The East is Red page 15, 16, 17 untitled page 18 untitled page 19 Rocking Horse page 20Rouge and Gray page 21Cubits page 22 Buzz Phrase page 23 Ambergris City page 24 Wincing page 25 Toronto page 26Crying Scene page 27Night Sky page 28The World of Tezcatlipoca page 29In the Cenote page 30Belize page 31, 32, 33, 34Picaroon page 35, 36, 37The Cable Car page 38IL Giardino page 39Every Man's Hand page 40, 41, 42Ending Up page 43Offerings page 44, 45, 46, 47Regalia page 48San Cristobal page 49, 50Guadalquivir page 51Leaves of the Cecropia Tree page 52, 53Southwark page 54Kublai Khan page 55, 56, 57Homuncular Forms page 58Antarctica page 59, 60Blue-eyed Grasses page 61Moccasin page 62The Bullfrog page 63Ancestral Memory page 64Entry Point page 65Bloodcount page 66BloodStream page 67Rogue and Privateer page 68The Camera Cage page 69Fence Line page 70Adversaries page 71Bargaining Unit page 72Palais Royale page 73Alcatraz page 74When Labouring to Break page 75This way to the Sixties page 76, 77Progrom page 78Braggadocio page 79, 80, 81Dress Rehearsal page 82, 83, 84

THE RIVER CUTS A CHANNEL

People with money but no fortune

or stomach for the life of an albatross,

watch him soar on self made wings,

fetch the dingy redness

of morning's, first catch

with a long necked bottle

he calls the captain

9

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PRIMAVERA

A poem is perishable and,

like it,

so much of life is spent

in intervals --

the jarring second

regaining consciousness,

a post-mortem flick

of the lank equestrian eyelid

that signals, morning's first crepuscular move.

. . . a little salad consciousness

about the tumescent room

with the sentient purr of a Cat,

her musky oils

a green verdure

lapping primordial scent

to engross a little readiness

as the day progresses

to its oedipal stage

and arrested development.

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SANGUINE

"The clock indicates the hour but what does enternity indicate?"

Whitman

Imagine, being told cubism isn't painting. That

Beardsley didn't die at 26, unheralded as a boy genius

or Corot didn't come to Paris after all.

Imagine, The Louvre without a rooftop, the

intelligentsia sitting down to a ragged table

surrounded by sawdust intellects, Proust not being

able to write his name.

Now that's splendour -- that's in-depth "feeling".

That's emotion to pull your socks or catch the bus on

a brittle day.

It's easy. Try to "feel" the event. It's 1896. People are

perturbed (or so we are told) because the century's

getting old. Time's rushing by. There's an alarm clock

set to buzz at eternity's gate, Midnight 1900.

In probing the malaise that hit Europe circa 1881,

psychologists would have us believe the world grew

despondent. Despondent because a whole hundred

year cycle was about to elapse; despondent because

life itself was running out. Those poor Edwardians!

Poor lovers of the elegant, the late Victorians, belle

epoquers. A penny for their thoughts when

confronting a Picasso without the vantage of

hindsight.

If Europe and its child bride, America, grew uneasy in

the declining years of the past century. How then our

era? (These same psychologists pinpoint people's

spirits rise in the opening years of a new century.)

Now we're poised for the "really big one": the

cataclysm. What a boon for the absurdists. Peaches

and cream -- not just one century dangling but the

culmination of ten.

There's even a word for it. Millenium, I'll say it again.

Better yet, a mere two millenia since Christ's

departure, we are poised again on the threshold. Half

& half. Like a party twelve pack -- six of one, half

dozen of the other.

Remember. when contemplating your ennui or

malaise (whichever word is currently most

fashionable), you can hardly figure for less. Eternity's

given to you, my peers, a singular opportunity. And

from what we know of the 20th century. it should be a

grand slam homer. Already the clean-up batter is

staged for action. The bat looms over the plate.

There's so much bad news it's enough to make an

optimist greedy. After all, with this much horror there

is caused only for danse macabre celebrations.

1985. Only 15 years left before the digital watch rolls

over. before the cannon with the flower pops out.

Those forward looking voyeurs of hundred years

back must have felt cheated when mentally reversing

their lot with the denizens of the 20th century.

In 1885, you could only gripe about the aging process

of a single tenth of one component. In 1985, you've got

that and the Millenia. Trendy things like atmospheric

pressure, negative ions, adverse body rhythms and a

welter of other pseudo impressive formula abound to

help out in your witchhunt.

Surprise. 1066 saw comets, omens. signs coded in

stars speeding across the sky -- a host of ditlurbing.

natural phenomena to boot. The vigilant saw meteors

at Caesar's, death.

The National Enquirer predicts Australia will break

into the sea. Californians will be upstaged. The

futurists will all need waterwings. The Club of Rome

hints the next years auger more chilling holocausts.

Everywhere, survival scenarios proliferate. Pro-lifers

will rearrange proverbial deck chairs on the

Titanic. Soothsayers will become all the rage as we

plot myriad escapes. A year's supply of canned goods,

anyone?

1885 has a lot to teach us. Umbrellas, a gentle ennui

like fine mist compounded by traffic in & out of the

Moulin Rouge. Perhaps a surfeit of absinthe helps just

as its equivalent does today. "Cheer up, there will

always be an England" doesn't sound so bad after all.

And there's always that one recruiting poster, "What

did you do in the Great War, daddy"?

11, 12, 13

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HAMOMLETTE

A VICTIM OF INDIGESTION OR PATRICIDE?

MAGIC PAN: CASTLE OF ELSINORE

CHEF: THE MAD PRINCE OF DENMARK

INGREDIENTS: THE TRAGEDY OF THE

HUMAN CONDITION,

SENSELESS FORCES THAT

RAGE AND DESTROY A MAN

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS: SIMMER SLOWLY

A PERFECT SOUFFLE - ALAS POOR YORICK

I KNEW HIM WELL...

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THE EAST IS RED

We can survive a nuclear War. It's scarcely credible,

I know, but listen.

The human race has great resilience. We've come back

before --  all those plagues, the Black Death,

despoliations, scorched earth policies "prove" it.

We're proliferate and we love the sex act. It won't be

hard; human fecundity is a count-on. There are so

many of us, see.

People have overestimated the alleged horror. After

all, (Khruschev pounding a UN table with his shoes).

somebody walked away from firebombing at Dresden.

Look at at all the escapees in Hiroshima. Get the drift?

A Bomb's a Bomb. Really. The really big one (to take

Ed Sullivan'a phrase out of context) is just more of the

same. Try to absorb that logic. Ergo, Ignorance must

be, in toto strength.

Enraged by the impropriety of it all? Anyone who

disagrees with this is coarse and vulgar.

Of course there would have to be "preparations". (If

you have "to prepare" to be a hairdresser, it stands to

reason you would have to ready yourself for this.)

Confronting, facts you can die only once. After that,

the mushroom cloud is anticlimactic. Remember the

Magic Mushroom -- the cult that centred its teachings

around Christianlty's debt to hallucegenic drugs?

Some said preposterous -- Christ a magician doping

his followers and using the Cross as a stage prop.

Amazing. In this world anything is possible. We have

finally created a mutant of people who eccept

anything. And God just another man, albeit a tricky

devil at that. Imagine fooling everyone for 2,000

years!

Next, we'll be told we're actually dead. I know some of

you have already suspected this but it will be

"confirmed". Our leaders will troopse out impressive

sounding "flow charts" and backup statistics. There

will even be a special chamber to experience what it

was like before you knew you were dead with

carefully monitored "response signals" to give the

audience a "sensasound" aura just like living through

an earthquake, only fake. Just remember Monty

Python and "possibility".

Meanwhile, in ensuing preparations for war, no

aspect of the psychological preparedness should be

overlooked. We don't have to be told there is no

substitute for victory.

"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience

of a King." Hamlet knew. So does The Kremlin. The

KGB can "prove" a nuclear scenario is winnable.

According to the most painstaking calculations, a

conventional war of any duration "swings" into a pre-nuclear

stage. That's when the nuclear option

becomes "viable". That's when Gorbachev and the

boys calculate "target readiness" and plummet the

depths of the human spirit.

The East is Red and ready. The Chinese have been told

by Mao 300 million or their number cremated is a

small price for global supremacy. A human dung hill

is being set in motion for another generation of

poppies. Marx lends credibility to this, but with a

different opiate for the masses. The

lumpenproletariat can hack it. Such clever playing

with facts, now I understand genius.

For a young physicist, a 100 megaton blast is the

culmination of the creative spirit. Certainly

irrefutable evidence, this quintessential "spirit".

I read Toronto would be "messy" in the event of a

nuclear strike. Half-baked and eviscerated thinking

Or just inescaspable?

Chin up. We'll survive or at least part of us will. We

really are "malleable". It will be a "transitional stage",

a step upwards on the evolutionary ladder.

Radioactivity and genetics are at work with one

another.

When the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic device,

the pilot was later to go mad.

Maybe this has already happened to the world and

there's no one to discern the difference.

Maybe a forest of "maybes" has already sprouted and

left a forest of dust clouding the collective vision.

Maybe it's all too terrifying to be taken seriously and

disbelief is the escape hatch. Like the pilot's lapse into

comforting drugs for reassurance or the dervishes

with their Magic Mushroom.

Maybe it's closer to what Harry Truman announced

after "deploying" the first "device" or exercising the

nuclear option in the jargon of the strategists.

They started it. We prepared to end it. No regrets.

Turned over on his deathbed and went to sleep

15, 16, 17

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happy happy

happy happy

trigger

happy happy

happy happy

t

happy happy

happy happy

trigger

18

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ENERGYENERGYENERGYENE

n    Being alive    n

e      wastes       e

r      energy       r

g                   g

y wastes  B  wastes y

e

i

n

g

a

l

i

v

e

19

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ROCKING HORSE

Fate is a mahout astride a large elephant, impersonal

as dark sun with winds raging across a desert. Fate is

the old bones of dead Indians being resurrected as

ground mist on the edge of a salt marsh.

And not knowing what to call personal destiny we

resort to the clunker "fate" -- "beggar and king"

enjoying, or so it is said, the dust together. I prefer wet

leaves breaking canisters of restraint and calling to

the earth as little paws digging into the humus of the

sky.

20

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ROUGE AND GRAY

So much time has passed

& time is a hooligan run wild

littering the streets,

squeezing toothpaste at the wrong end

shredding clothes with a razor blade.

Time is never called into account --

lives like Peter Pan

in a flying abode above it all

scot-free, the surly bandit.

A perilous acquisition --

tiny pinpricks above the eye-brows

crows' feet

-- all too visible rending of

fleshy corners bulbed

to puffiness.

Red-handed,

I caught time

his knife in Youth once more

still-water decay,

brackish trouble-maker

with tint of rouge and gray.

This school-yard tough

still picking on the corner weakling.

braggadocio and upstart

spoiling for a fight

first elbow up,

each foot in a fray.

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CUBITS

A woman is a trough

hardly that -- a river,

a pond to sail a small boat thru,

rapids to manoeuvre.

A woman commandingly tall

receptive as water,

quicksilver to the light

yet mirages all.

Two cubits to an arm's length

a bridge to span,

virgin territory with

the compass needle jumping --

a plane dusting crops.

A woman once, parchment twice

warm treacle to the core --

a marshmellow for a heart.

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BUZZ PHRASE

Down on your luck

or, as they say, "financially embarrassed" ...

with little in the way of hope,

less palaver --

drifting in & out of theme parks not unlike

El Paso, Prairie Junction

between jobs, causes and wives...

letting "it all hang out", in the jumble of the moranese

letting despair and the pig iron law of economics

have their say --

shouting "moral support" in the face of the rocky

"well-wisher".

I read all the plots and each ends up as a grave...

once in a single afternoon I even gave up on

golddiggers

who, though just passing through meant dress rehearsal

for the bigger jive, "long_term"

and since when should "patching up and catching up"

make starry-eyed even that slip of a girl, commitment.

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AMBERGRIS CITY

Felt no pain against the water,

the tea-cup sky was a turquoise colour in its wrath

illuminating ambergris city in spot checks below.

The sperm whale population was in decline.

Little or nothing remained of former commitments.

A bitter legacy consumed itself in half-truths

against the sound of upturned lies.

Winding alleys come as the conscience of well plaid cities.

are open zippers revealing the indecent poor.

The fire hydrant lives of cellar inhabitants strain

these urinals

for wretches sniffing out the edge of completed walls.

Gray nuisances, the men in asbestos overalls finding

their way

through the apricot fire of dark, eclipse Park Plazas

with the

stately elegance of empty dinner dishes or red trash cans

against indentured snow.

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WINCING

You can't go back,

to Love, a home.

memories of Pearl Bailey

even a scatterbrained job

curled like a Morning Glory

about the ribs of day.

Everyone repeats not going back.

A sly ripple on the cape of wind,

peaking with

absentminded glee,

into that bulge from within

your past, beyond your left arm,

called "before".

Dismissing angels, refusing to

court hardship, not to mention

wincing that comes from attaching

the mouth too fiercely on privale parts

and all flasks with firm memory;

wheeling drunkenly on her thought.

her sayings, sculling backwaters of your mind

with little fingers each repeating

sane warnings.

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TORONTO

In Toronto, trendy bars absolutely must have a theme

or at least end in "S". It's an unspoken rule. In-spots

(notice the "S" again) recall the Lost Generation:

Garbo's, Hector's, Lucille's; though less thematically

inclined imbibers can indulge at plain sounding

Sammy's/Charlies...

The really jaded seek refuge at the Parrot or Madcaps

which more than suffice: while those seeking purity in

their draught can take consolation at the common

Brunswick or Molley's.

There's even a Barbary Coast for privateers.

While on the subject of Exotica, Magoos or the Kon

Tiki infuse that Tahitian feeling. For the medic middle

of the road cum professional, it'a basic Malloneys,

Eroticism is both underlying and apparently felt in the

lush decor of Hemingways or, in the obviously

suggestive supple Fingers.

Money could be added to Kissinger's aphorism power

is the ultimate aphrodisiac, Certainly, the jaded or

those otherwise afflicted with ennui and creeping

malaise have a whole city as their ripe oyster. And

what was that Montrealers say of Toronto?

Quennelles. Lady of the Gold Horse wilh Diamond

Eyes. A bottle of Napoleon brandy for the Count and

two Persian lions carved in wood.

Salads Nicoise.

Dinners at Pre Catalan in the Bois, a Toronto

equivalent. A girl named Chantilly burning charcoal

in the forest. I drank a cocktail with the girl of the

white polo coat. Or as the cynic said,my pipe is the

tent, the tobacco the days of my life.

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CRYING SCENE

If you're going to drop the gauntlet

at least put on the dress

of a full warrior --

paint, rouge, lipstick,

sheer stockings and

enough powder to smother

a savage;

then form a straight line

and chant the litany

(wise aboriginals never forgive, you know)

and a good poundmaker is so adept

at keeping score.

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NIGHT SKY

I can call a lake a kettle

a splendid, ivory comb a snare --

tiny feet cataclysms off a mountain.

the night sky my ariel home.

Nothing matters with my heart at my ribs

a collarbone of doubt

inching into my anatomy

Everest-wide.

surging canals into my throat.

I am a pianist plying my trade

playing to waves --

the wharf and pier

passionate onlookers

entranced with joy.

sailors wearing blond caps

in stout approval

their tall ships wavy as decorative pins.

smashed bottles accumulated days at sea

lapping the dock.

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THE WORLD OF TEZCATLIPOCA*

"...the fourth state of water in its plasmic state ...

elements as plasmic water have programmed goals which

they follow like earth encompassing genies.

In soft light

amid hues

of barbaric green.

walled edges of

the cenote's fortress

shine as eyes of the Cyclops,

bloodlshot and ringed

with nettled stone

A break in the clearing --

then ramshackle growth

broken with vengeance

of uprooted vine

confronts the eyes of a jaguar*

(axe-breadth apart)

between canopies of trees

millenial rot,

algae and monkeys

carved in

a jungle setting

the shape of an iguana's room

* the same

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IN THE CENOTE

Under a candlelit operetta

of stars,

the vertigo horizon trails

to a shudder

until,

swallows the size of kites

handstand in flying motion

about pools of water

then glide within reach of the cenote,*

cisterns deep

and flagellant

scars in earth

that cradle still hands

of pale, pumice stone.

All the tears

of old Mexico

refurbish this soil,

anxious in blessing

a brittle toil

in sisal* groves

harvesting hennequin*

to symbolize pity

in flat expanse

of Mission stone.

* A deep natural well. The term is of Mayan origin.

* Hemp.

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BELIZE

Giving myself permission to write --

points from Ciudad Juarez

as well as the compass where

taboos complete bayonet-sized memories

a tadpole of doubt gleaned from

shallow Canadian upbringing

sojourning in the South.

A stranger came --

his beard the Columbian hillcountry

mustachioed, the voice trailed off

whisper-thin, steeper than riverine jungles,

the Black Mamba or boomslang before

brief rictus of pain.

I am writing this

with an eye on fortune,

it's not the cantina is dry

just walls above this cot

squeeze the soul like a padre's blessing

between rosary beads

and the day is hot.

Extend a cigarette,

fumble another Spanish syllable

pretend houngans are hombres

Hidalgo just another green wine.

This utterance is mutilating

and paper scrolls are an oath

to take their toll

pockmarking my thumbprints forcing blood.

Buenos dias, sênor,

only don't say

S a s k a t c h e w a n

like light over mountains

it's of little importance, really, won't, change the

cabfare one i o t a.

The sea may cough little stars

or an emerald coffin

sit like a lampshade

somethings go on...

Begging your pardon, ma'am

this train would do well

to leave within the hour

and the ferry from Topolobampo

Out of persistence to form

has never arrived early.

"Piratas ingles" read the mural

now I know

seedy tropical ports

harbour wayfarers like the Marlboro man

adjusting his image,

(inspiration may well be poetic

but the instrument's blunt)

bare feet the colour or lanterns,

white ducks

pressed too much

around lean shanks

and a visage

to trouble Satan

Taking a profit,

Mozart up in smoke

down the tubes

water reverses itself,

runs counter-clockwise

impecunious in this

juxtaposition of a hemisphere.

Poor Mexico -- far from God &

so near the United States

a snippet of history remembered

though the Gadsen Purchase seems

irrelevant. How a propos

& natty too

the moon is a hummingbird

& painted porcelain flask for you.

Backstreets

a la seduction

this demimonde,

a whole continent as intrigue

do twin fists pounding

on a door

resemble gunfire

especially at dawn or

is that just the mule

so obstinate in you--

the poor creatures

pressed into service,

litter the landscape

bedbugs thrown from cars.

At the Ponce de Leon

adrenalin with white caps

comes up bare

as language

forced into riot,

not a humble metaphor

in sight.

the occasional half-witted vowel

staggering under the onslaught

pirouetted

clamouring about the edge

-- no easy familiarity

here with the English language.

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PICAROON

Scouting the sun

thin clouds threadbare vests

barely to cover the horizon.

the heat or the day, canine,

a hot tongue's intensily

splashing yr face.

The docks are quiet,

prawn trawlers unloading gear

gar fish at the surface of the water

echoing little fins like

tiny waves green

into the shallows.

Bubbles anchor the lagoon --

changing rivulets into sand

stone walls numbered in shards of glass

trade universal currency

but, beware, the proprietor

cobblestones up to his door,

a candle in the window-stoop,

a creeking gate opened as an afterthought.

Come the picaroon.

Spanish adventurer

lesser known rogue, thief

a smile like piano keys

huevos sent back.

I've seen the parfumerie

the snake pit,

mongoose burrowing into the hills

after serpentine fer-de-lance,

want bigger things waves can't splash away,

scrawled slogans to turn

the human tide.

A bottle sits menacingly on the table --

a universe on its own,

imagine her little water droplets

the key to unerstanding

a woman firm to the grasp

bare-shouldered, lips to the moon in twilight.

A coin stepped on in the street

perhaps a sou, a centime, centavo

a petty return

for rusting bells wedding the pavement,

a centotaph alluding to sacrifice

or toil in the fields

to gain one circular disc.

Bring a case of wine

those Puerto Rican girls

are dying to meet you,

the tune belts out

and I see a yacht

riding emerald waves,

think of swimming

out to greet her,

my skin opening the water

like a lizard's tongue,

a sheaf of leaves pressed back,

a rock pitched to dislodge a noisy cat.

Who tempers desire

in the tropics

when the air is to eat,

sand golden griddles

a harvest of warm wealth

piled as a miser's hoard,

green & more green skirting the city,

experience my sacred vessel of purity.

Think or cliff vines

mucous, little curtains

then pathways up to the final alley

psychologically taut.

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THE CABLE CAR

The Haitian effect of stars

grinds the blue firmament

like a cable car by night.

transfixing energy.

One hears myriad tokens

falling into a collection box,

then the twitter of bells

before the trolley steps round

winds near Russian Hill

The night sky is a reservoir,

a cistern stored with disturbing

elements prickling the unknown

in a man.

To watch as life forms, more intricate

than lavender curls, so hushed their tones

produce melodies like "Castor and Pollux", "Leo",

"the Three Sisters", seizes any boarding pass

along the remaining train of thought.

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IL GIARDINO

Cloves on the table.

(jardin parfumel

are like ladyslippers

with the jargon

of their sweetmeats

preserved in

aromatic slabs

about a garden wall.

Spanish ivy

is the pastrami

of this terrace --

thick, white walls,

Hispanic style,

unite with prim elasticity

to quicken

Picasso's sunshine

like a ukulele

strumming the grave.

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EVERY MAN'S HAND

raised against them

hussars, cossacks, zouaves

the renegade janizaries and corsairs

in for an indeterminale stretch

assorted soldiers of fortune,

never-do-wells

or just low brows duelling crusts of bread

scarce precious little else

when for pennies more,

(Wellington's phrase)

the scum of the earth

enlists for drink.

Too harsh, I think, of

imagining the Foreign Legion,

kepis of scarlet

the near requisite haggard looks

moving in waves across the desert

pitting date palms with bayonets.

the occasional fellow ravaged by French pox.

Then dunes where water should be --

storms granulating blown particles

twice the perimeter of a camel train

from whence decent men become driven

(as the desert fox) to crouch beside themselves

with poor material,

loose flintlocks and cartridge belts

rotting to the touch,

The pitched camp (I see brackish oasis glare)

stars big as pebbles in potato white

Napoleon before Cairo his soldiery and

ragged tents flapping like tongues

of pillaging Arabs (or later battlefield carrion wolves)

on the run from Allah and sweet date wine,

their torpid hooves sound against rock

matching wits grown sluggish in still more drifting

sand.

Noon and blood purring

like a two minute egg

over and over

the spitting, curses

mandatory flies and sweat

trickling on sandbags

from manured lives

little to eat--

C rations a century away,

the good populace begrudging meals

to vagabonds and trash anyway.

See the last desperation

in classic terms

betrayed by finite trength

brisk elements raise the odds

a measly temperature climb,

a few more driving winds to stir the pot

animal suffering dancing

like stretched canvas on thin frames.

The leading roustabout unflinching,

waves a stony mutineer's salute.

And somehow it always manages dawn

and the heat of the day wicked,

oblong in an empty stretch

forever, it seems, before bullets

open graveyards

mow the brigand down,

take the corpse for its own

mummifying with precious hands

about the contours of her desert body,

and firm cleavage

oscillating between curvatures of

desiccation, blanket heat.

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ENDING UP

reads like

living down --

a coconut arriving with the tide,

bottles perched in sand

the blue glass

colour or imprisoned dreams

genie of a bottle cap.

Ending up.

the brow or a gondola overturned

sees memories squared away --

the window of the envelope

an all too foggy membrane.

Turning out like

ending up

no check-out time or

non-existant room service

in a flea-bag motel.

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OFFERINGS (A Movement in four Parts)

The night is folly without the moon,

trees blank space against a frontal sky

where lattice work from a bled fish reveals

skeletal markings will not administer

the red jack of hearts to a mistress sea.

Most fickle, the ways of a cockroach

(I don't recommend them) to offerings

of white linen, cold squares atop

a stone diamonded floor.

Palaver shacks drone in ghostly light

communicating some message about eel runs

up the black river, the equivalent brush

of tombstones against dark nightsoil.

Tiny bars open as cubicles.

proverbial flashes of the coming evening,

haciendas to count every blessing.

The road to such places

snarls a dusty pleasure

and will heat thin blood

to boil in the daylight hours.

II

Sweat corrodes the cork's emplacement

about green bottlenecks,

its azure breath tossing back

pools of sparse liquid.

I picture ships placed within such bottles

as bannisters along corrugated highways,

seawater rusting from within the steamfitters's

tonsorial edge.

Haze thickens as sails blur to an artist's brush,

then squiggles in the oilpaint of memory --

her sides fashioning red wounds as pigment

surfacing from robotical crustaceans

lancing the bottom of a deeper crevice.

III

My steps clank to the gaoler's key

to become, within, handmaidens to thorned plants

acting as fuselage along the building's exterior.

Afar, a white seagull sits as a bespectacled tourist

gracing a buoy like a madras shirt.

Early stars in an afternoon sky

are expansive in Chateau Lafitte finery,

the Rothschilds of the universe playing

a cosmic baccarat.

A girl in a brandy snifter of a dress --

dark, sensual, runs through tomes of my mind.

It's a hall of mirrors there;

the radiating glass of the sea,

twilight splendour in tall grass,

the hands of thick mahogany chairs

grimacing against perspiring walls.

I sponge water like a good midshipman

off the brow of a leaking vessel.

Nowhere are there signs of more than

partial seepage though smoke in the

back corridors exists from the fiery aguandine.

IV

Green palms unfurl as flags

to the accordian of my eyes,

blinking back the strong belt of sunlight

that precisely floods the room.

Sailors jostle this crowd of memories,

some surly lipped with broad tattoes.

A naked mermaid presses her thighs 'gainst

memory door, then winks as the

stellar crust of oblivion takes me.

In sleep, waterfront toughs are transformed

to storeowners that smile, exchange pleasantries in

Saba.

(French gendarmes embrace on the other side

clustering like starfish on the twin breasts of a beach.)

I devour cups not of riverwater in this cell

but the best pink champagne at the captain's

reception.

With hatfuls of intermittent rest,

blurred outlines recede into mists

thin as General Winter's treasured April snows.

The bony M of a hatpin,

the passkey to better redress of fortune --

the turnstills, concealed within lavabeds of

bladegrass.

beckon upon the return voyage home.

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REGALIA

If the rich are different

they show it with the

clarity of their table

as Scolt FitzGerald decreed,

the breathless hush

of their regalias,

the manner in which wedgewood &

crystal are cleaned to a

polished exactness --

the shimmer of expensive china

no less repetitive than

the hulking boys

waiting in window stops;

monsoon rain pelting

the upper Punjab plains.

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SAN CRISTOBAL

A gypsy sits in a taverna

joking with a sailor

who has left

bridges and maidens

along islets connecting

many a storied sea.

Ducats tumble from a

cloth bag the way

the gypsy remembers

caravans and the

remembrance of gold

steeled against

warm flesh in

moonlight of his native

Umbria.

Lavender is the coat of dreams

along navy blue hemmings

the colour of the gypsy's

eyes, the blood's

colour progeny whose

men of wealth

both are related to.

The gypsy stares at the taverna

wall and the ducats gleaming

to outside rain.

Men joke at rail depots

where in a like fashion water

splashes mud into little

arches up a riverbank.

Neither has the shallows of

minnows at his command.

Bunched up stubble in the wind

cannot fathom lies

or gender hope --

it is the province

of the mind,

the coinage of perhaps

a Spaniard on discovering

San Cristobal, one's own

sieglo oro in fortune

squandered in sunlight

with only the sweating

Appolosa still straining

on this, the last

taverna ride.

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GUADALQUIVIR

In a pleasureless world, pure pleasure exists.

Particles of sunlight, exquisite with nightdrops &

leaves stringent with dew,

persuade tributaries with inset eyes

to depart down foible breast, sticky fingers

up delightful steps.

And taking pleasure with an earthen spoon --

sipped long and hard down tubes and winding

entrails;

soft relief canyons swollen blood vessels.

For your brow shines like olive branches,

Guadalquivir's river or nectar drawn from golden

wells

and, as such, unfolds loveliest eyes

out from fond embrace not hedging lies.

My darling, amongst flowering cherub trees

a moment shared with you is pretty mirth

accounts all Arcadia's treasures, the

angelic breath off passing wings.

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LEAVES OF THE CECROPIA TREE

And what of privileged things

mur & frankinscense

or sandlewood --

yes, teak, ambergris

or skies of indigo blue

-- I cite these gifts,

caravans offered as treasure

Christopher Wren putting

the domes of St. Paul

in place like worn spectacles

over a cherubic face.

The last gargoyle pops in sight

near Notre Dame

such cathedrals are whitened sepulchre

stones in "stately

pleasure domes

decreed".

I see the Taj Mahal

where Mahatma Gandhi might have trod.

The utterance of a tulip

in every parable Christ talked;

rosebuds gleaming milk

on the breath of lilacs

their shields of lilies

shone where Solomon walked.

Song of Songs is none other

than the poet's heart,

water across stones.

a warm sun working double shifts

as a pitchfork stacking memories

on a summer's day

shooing aside leaves of the Cecropia tree;

old Walt resting on a bench

mumbling his prayers.

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SOUTHWARK

I noticed a bust of Shakespeare, an effigy in stone with

latticing to mirror the ages. In the same cathedral a

notation commented John Harvard was baptized here.

Outside, rain fell on tombstones scarcely readable,

their letters frail imitations of what each man

considered important in life.

The church itself breathed renewal. We learn John

Gower, epic poet to the court of Richard II,

worshipped here. I thought of translucence, then muir

and gems the wise men brought the Infant Christ.

Prayer candles glowed and fell into a lap of pyre. The

crypt held Edmund, brother to the Bard.

A handsome altar betrayed sentiments Gray used in

his elegy to another courtyard. My thoughts

continued onto nearby Tower Bridge, steel and energy

dynamos before steps of the multitude released at five.

A sign read no alcohol was to be consumed on church

grounds.

The very name of the place visited was poetic, half

twist of muscle, more pull of silent breath.

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KUBLAI KHAN

The Japanese are coming! Now there's a fresh twist

and just when Pearl Harbor seemed poised to become

another Asiamerindian household word amid

electronics, megavision and technological hoopla.

Surprise. They're outslugging us. We're cannon

fodder amidst cunning economic wiles. The "sneaky"

Yellow Peril (updated and given a newer "slant" from

that 19th century prejudicial posturing) has gone

awry. No death march at Bataan. No G.I. blues. Old

Cornpipes General MacArthur at ease; Inchon still

years away. Where is Emperor Tojo when we need

him? Who remembers the Aryans of the East? A

Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere?

Is SEATO still intact? If Korea, Formosa, Singapore

and Hong Kong are "little Japans" does that mean

we're to become, by default, the new coolies?

Tha land of the Rising Sun is broader than a battleship

listing in heavy seas -- it's the New world Order. Is

North America being prepared as hewers of grain and

drawers of petroleum? Alas, co-existence brings

dilemmas: the Toyota outwits even a "K" car. And

them outpacing our GNP at 6% per annum. It's enough

to rethink the whole scheme of things. They're

obviously in the forefront of the New Economic

Policy. More than just "Nippon" -- that's simply a bad

press release from the dark days of a misunderstood,

but euphemistically labelled "second global conflict".

Rubber and fibre sanctions will do it every time. The

Arizona and Oklahoma will testify to that. Feudal

Japan would never have tolerated it, either. Who's to

say the Samurai are caught up in splitting hairs?

Admiral Perry should have stayed out of Tokyo Bay.

The Earthquake of 1923 just made things worse.

Land's End means more than Manchuria and resources.

Industry and wily opportunism have broader vistas.

The Kuril Islands are a No Man's Land but so are the

Ainus, a primordial white race of Asia.

What's red and white and comes in with the tide?

America. Compared to the Japanese miracle, it's all

washed up. It's hard to contemplate N.Y.C. as a

suburb of Osaka, but try. The Japanese believe in

communal bathing, so will North Americans when the

recession hits full stride. Remember, shower with a

friend.

Japan is a land of aura. Of mystery. Genghis Khan

never got there in one piece but sent his legions

anyway. Flotsam and jetsam. A bully vanquished.

1066 in reverse.

Britain was the workshop of the Victorian world.

Japan is the Britain of the universe. The whole cosmos

is borrowing her tricks. No one does things so

efficiently. No one has developed cooperation to such

a fine "T". Nowhere is individualism shepherded to

the goal of the "greater good".

Pierre Trudeau would be pleased. "To each his own

according to his worth." Sounds impressive. Does that

mean Jaffa oranges are safe to eat -- mercury and

cyanide poisoning notwithstanding. Will the Levant

acknowledge the supremacy of the Orient?

What's new about mulberry leaves? Are silk worms

interlopers, too?

Shogun is too realistic for the narrow orchestration of

facts. The difference? They play to win.

Hands down, Kirin makes a wonderful beer. Sushi

bars are all the rage. Leyte Gulf was more than a

tempura explosion, Corning Ware or "Made in Japan"

labels produced in bulk.

Coral Gardens is a real and legitimate extension of the

Rice Factory idea.

Cipangu. As you like, what you will. No race has

undergone a swifter transformation in the world's

eye.

They deserve more than groping admiration. They

deserve our admirals, too. Who else outfoxed military

victory reversing it from the insides cadaver out? The

peter principle enshrined. The victors don't enjoy the

spoils.

The Lion's Share is as it should.

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HOMUNCULAR FORMS

Cape aux Morts.

Cape Diable,

Points of Massacre

Rocks and Island

a plethora of Wreck Bays.

But on Funk Island, nothing matters.

Brahmsian rhetoric could describe the island

Prokofievian,

the sound of Mars

homuncular forms;

an imperative monotone.

Murrelings fell from cliffs into the sea,

rose and floated in foam, screaming.

Olivaceous puddles.

Murres and gannets, kittiwakes,

sun splashed white & pitiless

light on rock --

argon, radon, krypton

seasons of millennia suffocating

in the original gases of earth:

xenon, neon.

Granite intestines

with its outer edge lost

in the darkness between the stars.

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ANTARCTICA

Perhaps it is needed to balance the planet: to provide

employment for penguins, or that ice in the form of

crystals calls forth tiny sleighs.

That the orange hibiscus be associated only with

deepest tropics

...plankton learn to feed Baleen whales

And iron hulks, off ships. submit to greater Masters.

the elements.

SECOND THEORIES

Another supposition projects...

snowy wastes are but vapour trails of jets and tatter

sails.

Sleet comes only from cannonized rain, galvanized by

inclement ironmongers.

Yet a third hypothesizes frozen energy is stored in the

form of ice caps and that the lost amongst departed

souls are reborn with every powdery breath.

Ptolemy knew of a southern polar continent. Cook

and Shackelton attempted separate conquests. Ships

voyaged as early twentieth century probes amid

frozen stellar space nudging Earth's feet.

Footprints the size of muskets where left as evidence.

So were a few red flags. No oxygen bottles trailed the

ascent like those that packed Everest. Amundsen as

to Hillary across the South Sea face, yet this

Matterhorn has a logic and bedevilment all her own.

Norway and Russia claim exploration of her frigid

body. The British in the first virginal thrust

christened Queen Maud Land after a brilliant

courtship. Shades of Spencer and his Faery Queen;

the Kron Prins Olaf Coast, anyone?

Ice. South of the Antipodes. The floor of the world.

Magnificant pack to the drunken global jaw, growlers

or submerged ice packs. A cold porterhouse steak to

ward off the combattive edge, the chronic boxer's

inflamed orifice and eye -- the nosebleed's staunchest

friend.

Terra Australis Incognita, the supposed southern

continent; hoof of the Cenotaur stringing men like a

bow across nipples like raw wounds. clotted hair and

blood on a precipice for a chest.

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BLUE*EYED GRASSES

Rocky shale, pale voile,

sun lighting the

clearness of the bay;

come Moccasin Flower or Grass Pink

unto Painted Cup --

big with primula eye, these septs off wild

and inland seas.

The delights of success and heartbreaks

of failure among the people

in the land below Tobermory;

the rocks on the cold hill,

the lilacs by the doors...

And it was at their expense that this land

came to be supplied

with vitriol, camomile and liquorice,

yea some camphor and jallop,

oft'times basil, lemon or rhubarb

--- all sent from Glasgow

in wooden boxes

stout as pioneer hearts.

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MOCCASIN

Backwoods cabin, opera house

from the pines awash with stars,

skullduggery in place over spruce hills

dredged to open revolt

against invading plough --

where greenest leaves

in a miser's hand part

rotting gold bags

all nugget strewn, step to step,

with water speaking magic

over the sound of countless woodland ducks.

Hocus-pacus, the

flies are sleeves over the world,

black granite pull-overs

slung thru the air

a twinkling of the eye invokes

funeral trees, deerskin in colour,

the rabbit in the hat behind

rich birchbark racing thru the dark.

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THE BULLFROG

He sat with no more compunction

than an eel fish

big-faced, bloated,

the complexion of a beehive

-- a dragnet of emotions

crammed into a tumbler

upended in water.

His eyelids wore the effort

of horseblinders, a

spongy leather

masquerading as torpedoes

and I saw him

lonely at the crossroads

matted grass,

a strip of wire, cold current

chasing flecks about

his person, then lunging green

exploded into rapacity --

caressed the awaiting fly strewn stick

with emerald mouth &

coffers of appetite.

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ANCESTRAL MEMORY

Patrician to my plebian,

aristocratic leaning versus

unbridled backwoods feeling --

distinct Old World breeding

countering rudest colonial lean-to;

his carcass lay, roadworthy,

blinking back cold starlight

with all the forest as silent voyeur

stretching for a look,

black fur & quills

in disarray like Crazy Horse's warpaint

after the Big Horn,

this roughneck Canadian porcupine

shot clean with bumper & chrome.

Then little hedge-pig

quaint as porcelain china cup

half a world away

greeting pints of milk

in an English doorway

half his scalp torn thru

dirty, British lorry choking fumes

the petrol in its tank loose.

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ENTRY POINT

Ants colonized it

-- huge abodes littered with the dead

(leaves, sticks, the occasional granulated insect

piled high, totemic-fashion)

reaping a fortune in scenery,

though probably not food Ojibways were next --

their tell-tale encampment by

pocket-sized waterfall,

inlets off a winding cataract

& moss, loam-thick with black soil

a future arboreal dream

inching over rock, darling crevice

for northern orchid, then kiss

of red death the hybrid trillium

& more sinister cousin,

jack-in-the-pulpit

for Indian foragers.

Animistic limestone shone hands,

poked thru the forest with stealth,

petroglyphic lava beds

-- a cougar pouncing --

runic carvings the cold in the

Giant's stone nostrils billowing

off the lake like a presence.

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BLOODCOUNT

My mind had almost died.

It had refused a game of tag on a common

with surly children and they steadfastly took revenge.

My fate like Blondin's walk across Niagara

saw cataracts looming large,

hiss & foam,

then visions of serpents,

farawy monsters &

inner tension of rocks opening.

The churned, brown water opened like a basket before me.

Maurading bubbles took on elephantine shapes,

my barrel creeked.

Faraway, the edge & drop yawned in indifferent harmony.

The brown walls of my fortress barrel became like palates

& sutures of my skull imprisoning the brain;

the trickle of invading water ever a reminder.

The close of the story?

Nothing. What is there to record after a river passes?

What remains of things unseen, of antelopes in flight?

The shroud of Monte Cristo tossed carelessly into

sea

did not fall open to the touch but was knifed with rifle

force.

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BLOODSTREAM

Camping out, a miraculous thing happened.

The kaleidoscope of vision was focused on a precipice,

caught endangered water about to fall

under microscopic attention.

Moisture was shortlived; so, too, congealed lava

sheets

& bedrock over which the water flowed.

The cabin in the distance seemed prisoner to mist

while a rainbow gathered its wits for the next

performance.

Nowhere did leaves intrude though a fly made

headway up a glass pane

embedded in wood like antidiluvian plants have been

known to seek amber.

In their chorus, other flies droned then ran up & down

the ledge.

In the iate sunshine of the day, a bastardized vision of

dirt farmers,

pioneers imprisoned in similar toil.

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ROGUE AND PRIVATEER

The Squirrel, a corsair,

rides the wind black arm

of a pressing sea,

Tribal hostilities finished,

she slinks into port.

Traveling lightly across open ground,

a squirrel upends a brigand sapling.

Grappling the ragged ends of a thicket

with riggings shredded by heavy wind and storm,

the arboreal sloop ascends to the highest mast;

a bush re-taken, the Crow's, Nest reconnointered.

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THE CAMERA CAGE

As a child, all common sense decreed

pirates wore dear teeth --

enamel white, with tusks to rout an elephant

(the result from eating carrot sticks, I was told)

-- not a solitary doubt clutched my mind

ivory mingled naturally with black cord and sash

in the brain's Bluebearded eye.

Then, it was so matter of fact

like taking sausage to bed,

saying a proper good night

for the wisdom of the mother-provider

was similar to a pirate chief.

The let-down came in advanced picture book form,

childhood crisis accelerated on seeing

Kidd brain a member of his lusty crew

but the upstart taking the beating

was toothless and sore

no arcanely romantic rake at all,

more like a strange woman in the park

with whom no one dared to speak.

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FENCE LINE

That Captain Kidd scribbling of rock in the fields

yellowed bristle of pages

back of a farm where

piratical breaking of land knocks

clean holes in the soil,

gypsy dancers vernal growth before

a spy-glass hour moon.

And black print smudged

on a thumb, a child's glossary of tales

thick with terror

before the faceless wretch

crawls for grog,

his peg-leg

in step with

one part of my brain

Old Phew hardly

any Smee from Peter Pan

but the holocaust --

the raven in the tree

eyeing the baby Treasure Island,

that fledgling reason

butchering both nostrils

at the skunk cabbage whose nectar

is the prize of cemeteries

& wild reunion of the bees.

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ADVERSARIES

He held his hands like plastic --

his vestments the finer

calling of his trade,

vocation as modern strummer

of Nature's laws

Engineer in brief --

wine glass in hand

bestowing the more salient points

of mawkish disbelief with

cigarette to numb the spine.

The Reverend

looked down on fire,

caught papryus smoke in the bellows

of his chest,

made laundry of

the Plumber's intellect --

tore savage parchment

from the soft cheesecutter's

contemporary breath.

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BARGAINING UNIT

The man about to become a sparrow

is shouting his head off

wearing green trousers

with red eyes framing mustier tweed,

he lambasts the lad

for not conducting

his person properly

in showing up for work

in a white shirt.

The fact the future labour

requires only lifting boxes

to a shed

is a fine point

about as important

as the man himself

who has transformed

himself into that sparrow

where several would not

span the breadth of a

bigger man's hand

or four could be had

in the Biblical sense

for less than a penny.

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PALAIS ROYALE

The night cold as nuggets, dark as acorn,

against your chest; snow falling

like abandoned echoes releasing energy

into the spyglass, umbrella moon.

A solitary figure trapping hapless sparrows

not in a net but with his footprints

doubling as dungeons against the sun --

here & there rusting eavestroughs ballooning

into avenging shadows their harpsichord voices

spun on dreams Dick Whittington once used to buy a

cat.

And once Tom Thumb Upstaged Peter Pan by

appearing

under a petunia but this is not likely to happen soon.

The dawn, forlorn & grey, is a court muffin's

handkerchief

waved at a sailor far out at sea.

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ALCATRAZ

White ibis/blue crane,

the arch of wings

in full sail over leafy barques

a wise stork scanning water

like the Disney character,

conductor on his train

with eye-glasses

& stop watch.

Sift of wind,

unseen hand exploring the pond

the stork ungainly on a single leg

the bird-man Jolly Roger

a pirate burrowing in the muck

add skull and cross bones

upending frightened fingerlings

the snout of the bandit

a rifle shot away

creasing the shallows.

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WHEN LABOURING TO BREAK

Perhaps one is in prison --

fidgeting as time

draws to a close --

a scrap of house tunic

between the fingers

or when labouring to break

cuticles on swollen fingers

pressing both hands against ears

that refuse to hear the stop sound

of rushing blood.

Then again, in the last hour before

end time, before dawn's arrival and

floodlit sky finds you --

knuckles clasping bars, pitiless bayonet-like

with eyes swishing truncheons at all the

getaway air your lungs will never take;

wheezing in growing fear to the sound of footsteps,

clank of keys and gallow's humour as they prepare

to Skuttle your short life, wall up clouds of their

own pestilence nakedly mask each firing squad

gathering for its fighting chance.

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THIS WAY TO THE SIXTIES: JOHN LENNON'S DEATH FIVE YEARS AFTER

It was a red letter day and all within a decade, the

sixties.

Psychadelic and all because the Electric Circus

opened up

Walking Yonge Street in the December cold, aging

"hippies", the word itself a joke, reminisced:

National Guardsmen, for one, doing post-mortems on

their rifle butts, record covers carrying the first life-

sized zippers and mashed up rubber dolls; Cher Bono

getting up nerve and a career to name her child

Chastity but walking off with a card.

By the end of the decade they were asking questions.

We had landed on the moon per schedule but who

would have believed in the efficacy of Rock or the

efficency of napham before Vietnam? Frosted hair.

Body paint. The sixties produced a lot of it. With one

bullet, the Beatles, the secular saviours, were

breaking up. Before they had finished reuniting the

world. Before the history of music could be written.

Before John Lennon, did we dare trust ourselves,

World leaders, gurus?

That was the meaning of the assassination.

History won't budge an inch for neophytes, The

Clockwork Orange was instructive but didn't go far

enough. Frodo wouldn't live in Yorkville today if

given a chance.

Now for the most poignant mental lapse of the Candle

carriers, mourners and mock biers with frozen

flowers. Simply the reminder half the population

didn't share his vision. Veterans grumbled. The press

paid more attention to this solitary event than

Armistice Day. Schoolchildren tittered. What was

that? The so-called generation gap seemed poised on

that comment. Then John's comment the Beatles were

more popular than Jesus Christ

Donovan didn't survive tunes like Epistle to Dippy.

Lennon won't survive the Elvis Beatle syndrome.

The lights are going out on the sixties,

The eighties are austere.

Cherry cokes are the memory of a laugh.

The Purple Onion only causes perplexion like Charlie

Brown's Great Pumpkin.

Forget about words like "catalyst".

Lennon was the conflageration.

Graffiti after him has renewed licence.

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PROGROM

There is an unhurried resemblance to pain, here,

this Fiddler on the Roof commodity, potables, fine

oaken chest

for one and furs; but wait,

the Czarist police are busting up the place --

a program is having its desired effect

on our emotions, the wine cellar smashed

as tears are falling like bloody heaps

in the red snow, cuttersleds

carting off the sundry feelings

we've invested in, a relationship

already staledated two years old.

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BRAGGADOCIO

Chess playing Death

-- no, the reverse

Death sitting decked out and self-satisfied

in black no mandatory top hat but a shroud

shouldering a cowl.

There stereotypes end --

appearances have to be kept up

tho' hardly any cinematic gnarled fingers

of Baron Samedi fame

rather pudgy digitals reflecting

gentile prosperity

(after all, Winners do take all

his fellow satanists bank on it).

Of course, such things are fictitious.

Death plays no favourites (and waits

for no man when rivalling Time).

Still, parlour games are one indulgence.

Hardly comforting to know human beings

function at one purpose

when this Hallow of Hallows puts on the smirk.

Dalliance with the victim is the upshot --

the chess motif again.

Sift thru the chicken bones a mite --

let the chump stir the rubble of his dreams.

Something of gallow's humour or gangster largesse.

Offer a stiff drink (brandy will do), one last cigarette.

Then, too, for beaten gladiators toiling bravely the

apparent rewards accelerate. Truckloads of flowers

at the funeral, for instance. Preferential treatment for

the guise or mercy must be kept up.

All lies in appearances. Prepare the feast. Sit the

guest of honour on a splendid cushion, then serve up

dish after sumptious dish.

Dining splendidly on one's own children

unbeknownst is a favourite -- maddens the victim no

end.

Brief success turning to bitter sawdust is the supreme

moment of ecstasy. Serves precisely as metaphoric

extension of all earthly reward as illusionary. (A

delicious ruse borrowed shamelessly from fellow

representatives on Earth --the Sicilian Mafia.)

Further spin-offs centre about the Absurd But spare

us juvenile intrigue with petty omens like a bird loose

in the house. Rather, a swift check-mate served up in

the best Grandmaster tradition is more a propos.

Therein lies the jest.

Workaholics and their polar opposites, the dead lazy.

effortlessly come around. When realization hits home

all distinctions blur. No difference. Sharp laughter

unceremoniously greets even the self-composed.

Especially intriguing are the ambitious. Endless

quirks really.

Concerted mockery recreates further patterns of

futility.

Basic strategy remains unchanged, though. Disguise

is paramount.

Dress her in robes of tarter gray,

implant a slight smile, then beckon

from around each corner.

Create a maze, but attractive-like with flower pots.

Faint knockings behind every door. A cooling breeze

overhead.

Genuine affability like an open air Swiss cottage in a

summer meadow.

The greater the false hope, the greater the final

squirming.

Funny stuff, for even Death at one remote corner of his

being partakes in occasional mirth (why not, with his

monopoly intact on everything else).

81

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DRESS REHEARSAL

"The universe is expanding".

There's cause for reflection and bound to do wonders

for "who am I" queries.

At this late moment on the Celestial Clock, man isn't

sure if he's stumbled into a Black Hole or just the

debris from the Big Bang Theory.

Many of the earth's residents desperately want to be

E.T.'s -- travellers with carte blanche passports

welcomed in any galaxy. Therein lies the ultimate

twist to "getting away".

Alas, what if we're alone?

What if the universe expands so much it forgets

there's an inhabited world and obscures the planet

from our collective vision? Sobering stuff.

Meanwhile, on a spaceship earth preparations are

underway. Preparation to abandon the planet.

Preparations to forget life is a serious matter.

Preparations to drown protracted speculations about

existence's intensity.

E.T. mania is carrying the day. People adorn stuffed,

life-sized dolls of imagined creatures on the

dashboards of their cars. Children queque up for

hours to get gingerbread designed from scary,

monster dough. Everywhere, the question on

everyone's lips is "how many of'em are there"?

When will contact be made? Will they want to throw

in their lot with mankind or "take over"? After all, it's

our Arc. No one seriously wants reminders of Von

Daniken's chariots riding again or the genetic mumble

about intergalactic breeding.

Going to bed with E.T. is too much. It's the Outer

Limits. Propriety still has some hold even if Marian

Engel did slip up and get it on with a bear. At least

that was recognizable earth life. Darth is too much of

a transition even if it's only a One Night Stand.

E.T. is just like Bambi.

He wants to go home.

And alone.

He's not interested in sex.

Too many other myriad problems are floating in his

adorable, gelatin head. Surely earth women can relate

to that. Surely, if the universe is expanding, then it's

because of intrigue in high places. Because cosmic

particles are hammering out new definitions. Anyone

of a thousand theories.

Star Wars can stuff it. We want "peaceful" contact

and on our terms. Ask Orson Welles.

Or H.G.Wells.

Time machines are old hat and another invasion in

Newark is too much to absorb.

With NYC across the river, they've already got all the

action they can handle.

We like our extraterrestial life tailormade and

preferably in our own image. We're prepared to accept

them if they conform to stiff criteria. They have to be

like us and prepared to cooperate. Seeing eye dogs

help the blind, horses were good draft animals for

centuries. We might even want to decorate it like the

Hindoos do elephants; make it into a "religious"

procession such as a Roman Triumph. It would be the

same for outer space visitors. No mutants or Roving

Intelligences allowed. Earth is "off limits" to

marauding predators -- we'll fight at the suggestion

they're here on "reconnoitering missions" as a prelude

to Conquest or the Bermuda Triangle is one of their

many "staging areas" or dress rehearsal sites.

Earth for humankind carries more immediacy than

"Canada for the Canadians". If they are "out there",

they'd better behave.

Hollywood's got it all figured out.

There's no shortage or scenarios.

Life support systems will be rushed wherever there is

a sighting with artillery back-up.

The Pentagon is in control.

The Moonies have asked to be informed.

Crackpots the world over await deliverance.

The Earth has big plans for the visitation.

Contact would displace Ihe Copernician revolution as

"a first" in blockbuster events: edge out Columbus'

hat trick, even erase Caesar's Gaelic campaigns.

Such things are no longer "relatable".

Every school kid can fathom "aliens" even if he can't

decline a Latin noun or understand the causes of the

Renaissance.

Unveiling the first spaceship would cap the

evolutionary quest for Enlightenment or realization of

a greater Oneness.

The universal thirst for knowledge would be satisfied.

Still, our trek to the stars would turn in on itself if they

got here first. Something like the Seminoles arriving

in Paris in the 13th century overland from Nice or

finding an orangutan piloted the Viking ship, Sutton

Hoo, into Vineland. It's barely credible and has to be

remade into "tangible" dialogue. No sapient, red

puddles or Dryads need apply. Fuel up the

Crematoria. Break out the electric cattle prods. They

may be common as blades of grass in a meadow but it's

our show. Orange Pekoe intellects will naturally be

suspect. Benign intelligence better be the order of the

day.

Earth is a "closed shop".

Everything Koltur. Everything above board.

No renegade "interpretations".

When will the Juggernaut be?

Human nature is nothing to toy with.

82, 83, 84

Back to the Contents Page

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Table of Contents

Sympathetic Magic By Paul Cameron Brown

Copyright (C) 1985 by Paul Cameron Brown

CONTENTS.

THE RIVER CUTS A CHANNEL

PRIMAVERA

SANGUINE

HAMOMLETTE

THE EAST IS RED

ROCKING HORSE

ROUGE AND GRAY

CUBITS

BUZZ PHRASE

AMBERGRIS CITY

WINCING

TORONTO

CRYING SCENE

NIGHT SKY

THE WORLD OF TEZCATLIPOCA*

IN THE CENOTE

BELIZE

PICAROON

THE CABLE CAR

IL GIARDINO

EVERY MAN'S HAND

ENDING UP

OFFERINGS (A Movement in four Parts)

REGALIA

SAN CRISTOBAL

GUADALQUIVIR

LEAVES OF THE CECROPIA TREE

SOUTHWARK

KUBLAI KHAN

HOMUNCULAR FORMS

ANTARCTICA

BLUE*EYED GRASSES

MOCCASIN

THE BULLFROG

ANCESTRAL MEMORY

ENTRY POINT

BLOODCOUNT

BLOODSTREAM

ROGUE AND PRIVATEER

THE CAMERA CAGE

FENCE LINE

ADVERSARIES

BARGAINING UNIT

PALAIS ROYALE

ALCATRAZ

WHEN LABOURING TO BREAK

THIS WAY TO THE SIXTIES: JOHN LENNON'S DEATH FIVE YEARS AFTER

PROGROM

BRAGGADOCIO

DRESS REHEARSAL

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE