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THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT

"Oh love is teasing
and love is pleasing. . ."

my sister sings to the cake
she is about to bake.

"And love is a pleasure
when first it's new. . ."

The rich Christmas mix
listens with all of its ingredients.

"Ahhhh but as love gets older
sure love gets colder. . ."

the brandy & fruit
weep into the bowl

"...and fades away like
the morning dew."

There is a lot of brandy in the mix.
There is a lot of brandy in sis.

Sad Irish folk songs
appear to be

the essential ingredient.

A pink and green balloon
clings to the ceiling

refusing to come down
by poker or by broom.

Takes refuge in the corner
just above the Christmas star.

My heart is breaking
with baking.

"I know my love
by his way of talking..."

flour in her hair
making her so ghostly

as if the original protagonist
came back from the grave

and sang her heart out

". ..and I know my love
by his eyes so blue..."

until the creambuttersugar
is all fluffy.

He voice adding a zing
of lemon peel.

At this stage
the eegs are beaten

". . .and if my love leaves me
what will I do?"

Slowly slowly whipped
to form peaks.

Now the cake is tipsy.
So - is sis.

I am drunk
on her singing.

My mind is in mourning
for all the love loved

and lost.

She daubs my nose and laughs.
I lick it off.

The tip of my tongue
a windscreen wiper!

And so the brandy fruit mixture
is folded in.

I can still taste
her singing.

Her cake the only cake
I could ever ate and oh

her almond icing!

These songs forever
her.

And still she sings
down all the years

and I love her versions
the best!

"...and a troubled mind sure
can know no rest

and still she cries bonny boys are few

and if my love leaves me
what will I do!"

*

Ahhh it's such an elemental memory for me...I can at a second's notice step back into it in an instant. I'd bawl my eyes out....the words....the melody....everything was real to me.

Couldn't possibly forget these songs and the singer...they stained my soul. She used to sing them very quietly and so soft and tender....even today they haven't been surpassed...they used to **** me. And when she got to the bit where "...he takes a strange ******* his knee and he tells her things that he once told me..." it was all much too much! I thought they were exquisite!

Her voice and that moment tied to her apron strings lives forever in my mind. It is a little jewel of time that has never diminished ever. I was too young to understand the brandy factor and could never understand how other people's cake and almond icing just couldn't get next or near to my sister's!

My big sister hated my poetry and said "You can't be writing poetry 'cos you are my brother!" i pointed out that a certain Mr. Cohen had a sister and that didn't stop him( not that I was comparing myself to Lenny). Whenever anybody else liked it she was furious and couldn't understand why for heaven's sake. Nevertheless when I wrote about this little moment she changed her tune and was thrilled to be remembered in such a touching moment.
OLD POND

old pond
half sunk doll
mouth open in silent scream

one eye sunk
below waterline
tiny hand grasping the air

take her hand
between forefinger and thumb
lift her out of her watery world

I take her home
bathe her
put her to sleep with my daughter

put her little clothes
on back of chair
in front of range

in the morning
my daughter's tears
"Oh Dolly...you've come back!"

one eye closes slowly
in a wink to me
I wink quickly back

Dolly getting dressed
scolded by my daughter
for not staying still
". . .IT IS NOW THE TIME...THESE BE THE DAYS. . ."

one day
blossomed
into another

Spring
was seen
walking in the wood

Time
lay scattered
all around

last Tuesday was
a bunch of flowers
wilting in a vase

Tomorrow
remained
to be plucked

as if he grasped
the mystery
of the world

in his tiny fist
that now
( this now )

was the only
time
that could be

life is simple
when one is
      3



And indeed to my little three year old self( although I would not encountered the poem itself until I was twelve)the world to me was a most miraculous marvelous and magnificent place to find myself in...I was living in the first verse of Mangan's poem and...loving it!

Any school boy of my generation would know James Clarence Mangan's A Vision of Connaught in the Thirteenth Century with its hypnotic refrain...which got stuck in my brain.

"But it was the time,
'T was in the reign,
Of Cahal Mor of the Wine-red Hand."
"And it is the time.
These be the days,
Of Cahal Mor of the Wine-red Hand!"
"It is now the time.
These be the years.
Of Cahal Mor of the Wine-red Hand!"
'T was then the time.
We were in the days.
Of Cahal Mor of the Wine-red Hand.
That I dreamed this dream
Of the time and reign
Of Cahal Mor of the Wine-red Hand




A VISION OF CONNAUGHT IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

I walked entranced
Through a land of morn;
The sun, with wondrous excess of light,
Shone down and glanced
Over seas of corn
And lustrous gardens aleft and right.
Even in the clime
Of resplendent Spain
Beams no such sun upon such a land;
But it was the time,
'T was in the reign,
Of Cahal Mor of the Wine-red Hand.
Anon stood nigh
By my side a man
Of princely aspect and port sublime.
Him queried I,
"O my Lord and Khan,
What clime is this, and what golden time?"
When he,—" The clime
Is a clime to praise,
The clime is Erin's, the green and bland;
And it is the time.
These be the days,
Of Cahal Mor of the Wine-red Hand!"
Then saw I thrones
And circling fires,
And a dome rose near me, as by a spell.
Whence flowed the tones
Of silver lyres.
And many voices in wreathed swell;
And their thrilling chime
Fell on mine ears
As the heavenly hymn of an angel-band,—
"It is now the time.
These be the years.
Of Cahal Mor of the Wine-red Hand!"
I sought the hall,
And, behold! a change
From light to darkness, from joy to woe!
King, nobles, all,
Looked aghast and strange;
The minstrel-group sate in dumbest show!
Had some great crime
Wrought this dread amaze,
This terror? None seemed to understand!
'T was then the time.
We were in the days.
Of Cahal Mor of the Wine-red Hand.
I again walked forth;
But lo! the sky
Showed fleckt with blood, and an alien sun
Glared from the north,
And there stood on high,
Amid his shorn beams, a skeleton!
It was by the stream
Of the castled Main,
One autumn eve, in the Teuton's land.
That I dreamed this dream
Of the time and reign
Of Cahal Mor of the Wine-red Hand
"FOR HE WILL NOT DO DESTRUCTION IF..."

everything in the room
flowed like a river

towards the open window
that held Spring in its grasp

the billowing net curtains
holding the season prisoner

a blue so blue
one has to gasp

a green that made
one feel so alive

even the walls
rushed towards it

trying to escape
their own room

a chair
lying on its back

like an insect
trying to right itself

but furious
at failing

a picture had been
knocked sideways

and a trail
of broken mirror

led to the ledge
showing the room itself

in small and smaller
fragments

the clock alarmed
to find itself

on the carpet
its battery flung just

out of reach
time gone quiet

the cat careless
of this trail of destruction

now poised
upon the shiny table

knocking over
the geranium ***

gazing in green
eyes towards

the portal
of the open window

that led to
the great beyond

the feline leaping
into the what's to come

leaving this human
room behind

*

The title is taken from one of the most delightful and best-known poems in praise of a house cat, Christopher Smart’s “My Cat, Jeoffry” which is actually one section of a much more complex and difficult work entitled Jubilate Agno (Latin for “Rejoice in the Lamb”), composed while the poet was locked in a private madhouse because of religious mania in 1759 or 1760.

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
WHEN DEATH COMES, IT WILL HAVE YOUR EYES
(Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi )

I once knew a man
who knew a man
who had seen

F. Scott Fitzgerald
drinking a milkshake
in a drug store

(vanilla or chocolate
he couldn't be sure)
flicking idly

through a magazine
( no he didn't know
which magazine )

in the company of
some blonde
"I'll never forget what he said!"

"Let's go
to the supermarket
Shelia!" he said

and that's it?
"That's it!"
his voice caressed

each syllable
as if
he were on stage

but he was
like a man
becoming a manakin

like in that episode of
The Twilight Zone
you know the one?"

in a future
that had as yet
to happen

"I don't know
what I had
expected..."

the man who knew the man
who knew the man
who had seen and heard

F. Scott Fitzgerald.
"Maybe a Gatsby or a Gatsby
who had survived

the novel's
tragic ending
and wished he hadn't!"



Here now at home
Mr. Fitzgerald
sits in his armchair

eating a chocolate bar
checking out next year's
Princeton football team

suddenly like a puppet
yanked on a string
he stands up

hand on mantlepiece
like some bad acting
in a silent movie

before falling
to the floor
he will never get up



Nick and Gatsby
come
stand by his dying

so do Monroe Stahr
and Kathleen Moore
even though

words fail them
yet they now
more real than he

Monroe reads
some last
scribbled lines

"There was a flutter
from the wings of God
and you lay dead

your  books
were in your desk I guess
and some unfinished chaos

in your head
was dumped to nothing
by the great janitress of

destinies."
Gatsby
closes his eyes.

*

WHEN DEATH COMES, IT WILL HAVE YOUR EYES(Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi )is of course the wonderful poem by Cesare Pavese.

Monroe and Kathleen are from Scott's last and unfinished novel THE LAST TYCOON.

I also knew a guy who knew a guy who peed beside Richard Brautigan. He was so in awe as to who was at the next ****** that he peed all over the top of his shoes.

Shelia of course being Sheliah Graham who was a powerhouse gossip maven in Hollywood’s Golden Age. Her “Hollywood Today” column was carried in 178 papers, at its peak. By comparison, the columns of her better-remembered rivals, Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, were only carried in 100 papers and 68 papers, respectively.
She wrote two books about her life with Fitzgerald, Beloved Infidel (with Gerold Frank) in 1958, and The Garden of Allah in 1969. Beloved Infidel starring Gregory Peck as Scott and Deborah Kerr as Sheilah Graham, was filmed in 1959 at around the time the hotel where much of it was set was being demolished.
AHHHH PEACE AT LAST!

the goat
is in
the kitchen

the chicken
is in
the living room

the dog
is in
the bedroom

the cat
is on
the mat

the cow is
mooing
in the window

the humans are out
visiting
other humans

in the next village
if one
could call it that

the landscape
is asleep
in the sun

the animals
have the house
to themselves

*

First ever Greek holiday....always remember to lock the door. The goat was the ringleader who butted into our private space and of course the others followed...guess they must have read ANIMAL FARM.
'OH...I SAY!"
( for Harry  Owen )

"I bagged this one
out in In-dee-A!"

...the braggart's boast.

"It's a very rare
( these days)ALGERNON!"

And indeed, an Algernon
bares his teeth

above the roaring fire's
mantlepiece.

He looks startled as
he has been shot just -  that second.

"The head is splendidly mounted
complete with handlebar moustache

...& monocle!"

One feels that one could
pop next door and there

would be ha ha...the rest of
Algernon

sticking out the other side.

The glint in the eye
the sneer just so

...right.

"And to the right of the Algernon
is a genuine Cuthbert.

Again from 1901 or there or
thereabouts."

"It is indeed a perfect specimen of
the good old chap..."

The white rhino brags yet again
of what he calls his baggings.

White Rhino's
collection of colonials

is the envy of
all the other animals.

"Some more hot *** old chum?"

But the White Tiger
puts a paw over his glass.

Declines.

The fire's flickering
leaping up the wall.

The shadows making
the humans almost

come alive

as if the Cuthbert
could turn to the Algernon

and say
"OH...I SAY!
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