Read Online Bedouin of the London Evening by Rosemary Tonks - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Rosemary Tonks
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after day.
Song of the October Wind
A mighty air-sea, fierce and very clean,
Was gliding in across the city.
Oxygenating gusts swept down and
Chloroformed us, in a light too bright to see by.
On pavements – china and milk pages
In a good book, freshly iced by the printing press –
October flash-floated. And you and I were moving
With alert, sane, and possessive steps. At home,
My sofa wrote her creaking, narcoleptic’s Iliad.
My bathroom drank the Styx (bathwater
Of the Underworld). My telephone took all its voices
And gave them to the Furies, to practise with.
While slowly – to gigantic, muddy blows of music
From a pestle and mortar – roof, floor, walls, doors,
My London, stuffed with whisky-dark hotels,
Began to pant like a great ode!
And threw, carelessly, into our veins
Information – all the things we needed to know,
For which there are no words,
not even thoughts.
And this was an ode shaken from a box of rats.
The first sky from October’s aviary
Of bone-dry, thudding skies, joyful, free, and young,
With its wings lifted our souls, heavy as cities,
Effortlessly. We were trustworthy again.
Ritz, Savoy, Claridge’s, hotels full of peacock words,
Were beaten white by Boreas; and as
Electric frosts scratched the windows
Fitting in their awkward childish pane of glowing stone,
We – copied the foaming
with our souls
!
The same ode tore the streets inside us. And lit
Catwalks, sofas, taxis in that city with a light
So bright, even the blind could see by it.
Done for!
Take care whom you mix with in life, irresponsible one,
For if you mix with the wrong people
– And you yourself may be one of the wrong people –
If you make love to the wrong person,
In some old building with its fabric of dirt,
As clouds of witchcraft, nitro-glycerine, and cake,
Brush by (one autumn night) still green
From our green sunsets…and then let hundreds pass, unlit,
They will do you ferocious, indelible harm!
Far beyond anything you can imagine, jazzy sneering one,
And afterwards you’ll live in no man’s land,
You’ll lose your identity, and never get yourself back, diablotin,
It may have happened already, and as you read this…
Ah, it
has
happened already. I remember, in an old building;
Clouds which had cut themselves on a sharp winter sunset
(With its smoking stove of frosts to keep it cold) went by, bleeding.
Orpheus in Soho
His search is desperate!
And the little night-shops of the Underworld
With their kiosks…they know it,
The little bars as full of dust as a stale cake,
None of these places would exist without Orpheus
And how well they know it.
…when the word goes ahead to the next city,
An underworld is hastily constructed,
With bitch-clubs, with cellars and passages,
So that he can go on searching, desperately!
As the brim of the world is lit,
And breath pours softly over the Earth,
And as Heaven moves ahead to the next city
With deep airs, and with lights and rains,
He plunges into Hades, for his search is desperate!
And there is so little risk…down there,
That is the benefit of searching frenziedly
Among the dust-shops and blind-alleys
…there is so little risk of finding her
In Europe’s old blue Kasbah, and he knows it.
Dressing-gown Olympian
I
insist
on vegetating here
In motheaten grandeur. Haven’t I plotted
Like a madman to get here? Well then.
These free days, these side-streets,
Mouldy or shiny, with their octoroon light;
Also, I have grudges, enemies, a religion,
Politics, a new morality – everything!
Kept awake by alcohol and coffee,
Inside her oriental dressing-gown of dust
My soul is always thinking things over, thoroughly.
No wonder my life has grandeur, depth, and crust.
Ah, to desire a certain way of life,
And then to gain it!
What a mockery, what absolute misery,
Dressing-gown hours the tint of alcohol or coffee.
Am I an imbecile of the first water after all?
Yes, I think I can claim – now that all this
Song of the October Wind
A mighty air-sea, fierce and very clean,
Was gliding in across the city.
Oxygenating gusts swept down and
Chloroformed us, in a light too bright to see by.
On pavements – china and milk pages
In a good book, freshly iced by the printing press –
October flash-floated. And you and I were moving
With alert, sane, and possessive steps. At home,
My sofa wrote her creaking, narcoleptic’s Iliad.
My bathroom drank the Styx (bathwater
Of the Underworld). My telephone took all its voices
And gave them to the Furies, to practise with.
While slowly – to gigantic, muddy blows of music
From a pestle and mortar – roof, floor, walls, doors,
My London, stuffed with whisky-dark hotels,
Began to pant like a great ode!
And threw, carelessly, into our veins
Information – all the things we needed to know,
For which there are no words,
not even thoughts.
And this was an ode shaken from a box of rats.
The first sky from October’s aviary
Of bone-dry, thudding skies, joyful, free, and young,
With its wings lifted our souls, heavy as cities,
Effortlessly. We were trustworthy again.
Ritz, Savoy, Claridge’s, hotels full of peacock words,
Were beaten white by Boreas; and as
Electric frosts scratched the windows
Fitting in their awkward childish pane of glowing stone,
We – copied the foaming
with our souls
!
The same ode tore the streets inside us. And lit
Catwalks, sofas, taxis in that city with a light
So bright, even the blind could see by it.
Done for!
Take care whom you mix with in life, irresponsible one,
For if you mix with the wrong people
– And you yourself may be one of the wrong people –
If you make love to the wrong person,
In some old building with its fabric of dirt,
As clouds of witchcraft, nitro-glycerine, and cake,
Brush by (one autumn night) still green
From our green sunsets…and then let hundreds pass, unlit,
They will do you ferocious, indelible harm!
Far beyond anything you can imagine, jazzy sneering one,
And afterwards you’ll live in no man’s land,
You’ll lose your identity, and never get yourself back, diablotin,
It may have happened already, and as you read this…
Ah, it
has
happened already. I remember, in an old building;
Clouds which had cut themselves on a sharp winter sunset
(With its smoking stove of frosts to keep it cold) went by, bleeding.
Orpheus in Soho
His search is desperate!
And the little night-shops of the Underworld
With their kiosks…they know it,
The little bars as full of dust as a stale cake,
None of these places would exist without Orpheus
And how well they know it.
…when the word goes ahead to the next city,
An underworld is hastily constructed,
With bitch-clubs, with cellars and passages,
So that he can go on searching, desperately!
As the brim of the world is lit,
And breath pours softly over the Earth,
And as Heaven moves ahead to the next city
With deep airs, and with lights and rains,
He plunges into Hades, for his search is desperate!
And there is so little risk…down there,
That is the benefit of searching frenziedly
Among the dust-shops and blind-alleys
…there is so little risk of finding her
In Europe’s old blue Kasbah, and he knows it.
Dressing-gown Olympian
I
insist
on vegetating here
In motheaten grandeur. Haven’t I plotted
Like a madman to get here? Well then.
These free days, these side-streets,
Mouldy or shiny, with their octoroon light;
Also, I have grudges, enemies, a religion,
Politics, a new morality – everything!
Kept awake by alcohol and coffee,
Inside her oriental dressing-gown of dust
My soul is always thinking things over, thoroughly.
No wonder my life has grandeur, depth, and crust.
Ah, to desire a certain way of life,
And then to gain it!
What a mockery, what absolute misery,
Dressing-gown hours the tint of alcohol or coffee.
Am I an imbecile of the first water after all?
Yes, I think I can claim – now that all this
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