21    The music of ‘Streets and Dreams’ part 2

C’n I bum a smoke?

Do be do wa

Hey man, whattsa time? Can I get a bell t’ chime?

Do be do woo

And bam shalam jest like that Valetta is pissed off in the extreme.

“Hey Valetta, calm the fuck down willya!”

Says Viktor Frankenstein, in between slurps of an oversized Negroni

Valetta (bam-shalam) is having none of this

“Fuck you Viktor! Fuck your stupid monster too, in his stupid ass!”

“Fer Chrissakes Valetta, calm down, have a Negroni”

Viktor signals to the monster to prepare the cocktail

But the monster has an eye on Valetta wonderin’ if she really wants it

As everyone knows Valetta has half an eye on the monster too,

Been goin’ on for months

Do be do wap

Is that the time already? Can I get a dime for Freddy?

Lorca and Goethe went into a bard,

Boy was he sore,

Do be do woop

And crazy-malazy there’s one cute little chicken in that coop,

“‘Saw her first!” says Johann

“Ya never did” says Federico, walzin’ over with the big Hispanic eyes,

But Goethe is too tricksy and trips him up with an urplanze-liana,

Federico goes tumblin’ down, into the chicken coop,

Henrietta makes a dash for the door,

But once again the German is too smart,

An organic alchemical device catches the bird at the out-tray

And ladies and gentlemen, it’s good-night Vienna.

Later at dinner (bash-ptempto!),

Reich and the G-Meister are eatin’ chicken schnitzel style,

“You got any left Willy?” peering at the plate from an oblique angle

“Nein” sniggers Wilhelm

“Ich kleide mich rechts!” and they both burst out laughing

Between guffaws, Goethe adds wid a wink

“I wuz only gonna ask…” he pauses for effect

“If it was orl-gone!?”

Sho do wop wop, fa dah!

(Graham   11 May 2023)

22    Jung’s fiery leaves of Pyrite and Salix

Who would comb a mile to your wooden abode

     lock out a tiger to anchor the urban

     meet this old hewn Malaccan ipso facto

     of an ethnic textile atelier… in love with delirium ?

Does ice frost over pearls in the ebbing night

     does the organ seethe for universal inputs

     and in organum sad psycho salutes

     that hurt the newest nom de plume ?

This leery Nereid peers into late cloth air

     now outing outlandish thoughts on the earth

     knowing a far satellite no-one knows reverses

     snowy orphan-powered television… your highness

Call after urgent call I’ll cuff this lack of talent

     to other months… in Midas agony fuck off

     to Salem before the mightiest southern law which

     deposed and poked Athena and shit lava on the earth

José’s strife is woven of slow credits in Psyche’s knapsack

     an alien’s napalm… the charm skirts sea and earth:

     a certain peekaboo De Chirico is deaf to words so nimble

     they would order spirits to merge horsey poo and snaky snow

Oozing such cyphered tack as the lucky machinic groan

     of a naïve town dog… dissimulating the idolum

     Hertz now takes to a nice iron tub with a worthy weapon

     and turtles roughshod over the eight-tower suburb

Ninja may attempt ire in a shabby Derby kitchen but

     listening listlessly to neat ear media they lack the knack

     to read surging millennial signs and morph into

     idle wrecks… necks tinged with the awful urge to doubt

Apropos hogwash England’s glee is a nasty beauty and hard

     a tangy tale in the Iliad and anathema… a girl kills the itch

     obeys key tech of net and path… makes a full fiord scan, O aye

     ousts old laws reaps the ague and knuckle wipes a soapy nose

(Geoffrey Mark Matthews 28 May 2023)