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)

19    Anna the Witch

“Anna are you worn and hard by your graft?

Anna will you wail and chill like the draft?

Anna will you tell us a tale of your craft?”

“Though spikey lees, behind betray,

I will not tell thee how I play,

I will not tell thee of the cave,

Nor of the silent darkness’ wave.”

“Anna play your tricks on me,

Anna, show your power to see,

Anna, Anna hear my plea!”

“Nay child I will not now bewitch thee,

Neither will I conjure here the sidhe,

To haunt and never let thee free.”

“Anna, with a thong of leather,

Anna, with a lucky heather,

Anna can you bend the weather?”

“Gale and hale, tornadoes of fire,

Flood and muds, deserts and mire,

Rain wash down the fools and all,

Silence follows final call.”

(Graham   27 February 2023)

20    The music of ‘Streets and Dreams’

Tarzan climbs a liana

            from the earth’s tough core

            through Easby’s Abbey tree

            to Valetta’s strait street leak.

Shit man!         And the bay goes, ah!

Ipso facto        too far,

too far to deny

            some horrible foreign tunnel leads

            to a vacant Eel Pie Island,

too far to buy

            a true standard to plant

            some place on the Jazz Ait.

Then    let ten listen   

            to the anchovy sound of an annual

HALLELUJAH           ϋμνος to a royal court planner.

So, no eel pie   to chew on then

nothing           but a boom-time rapper

            in a banana bandana

easing his deadly vowel chains

            into your fitful ocean and

urging nocturnal earthen       seizures.

On a roll          even an eerie eleven

            does not haunt the earth

for hell             gathers sooner

and colours a rather rough Rubicon

bronze             from north to south

rust red           from east to west

And now rife with fossils

            set forth and stressed

            aloof and dumbed

they rhyme

            laid out to Mallaig where

            di Lasso disowns the air

as if Lorca had swallowed     our defence lines

18    Anathemata

n + 1

A pointless question repeated,

a way of peering into the abyss,

it appeals to me, this

crack in the cave wall.

If lost in the event field

of a fallow horizon,

if black sounding strings

see Thuban align again,

a chiasmus of things set apart

will amplify his dreadful heart.

 . . . from Lindum to London

bridges broken down 

Gale, hail, tornadoes of razor wire,

floods, muds, deserts of city and shire,

then moor and fen will wild again

to crack and cook and burn.

See: the omelette… stinks. 

And purple tongued it turns on Tyre

to swallow the whole hollow folktale

up to the head where, it is said,

the universe shrinks to strings of nothing.

0→∞

Now, it’s time to pick up an old guitar,

make it a chicken,

an old house cat,

a gift card,

a bird, a snake,

but no black noise

and without knowing what I’m doing!

(Geoffrey Mark Matthews 3 February 2023)

19    Anna the Witch

“Anna are you worn and hard by your graft?

Anna will you wail and chill like the draft?

Anna will you tell us a tale of your craft?”

“Though spikey lees, behind betray,

I will not tell thee how I play,

I will not tell thee of the cave,

Nor of the silent darkness’ wave.”

“Anna play your tricks on me,

Anna, show your power to see,

Anna, Anna hear my plea!”

“Nay child I will not now bewitch thee,

Neither will I conjure here the sidhe,

To haunt and never let thee free.”

“Anna, with a thong of leather,

Anna, with a lucky heather,

Anna can you bend the weather?”

“Gale and hale, tornadoes of fire,

Flood and muds, deserts and mire,

Rain wash down the fools and all,

Silence follows final call.”

(Graham   27 February 2023)

17    Anno Domini

Ayin, Ayin! Cursed to view through fluted veil:

The lyre plays tastefully,

Ethereal young girls of the fey watch the ox,

Quite by chance the plough struck stone,

And the flint egg broke asunder,

Draco stepped out and spake:

“I am here what wouldst thou have me do?”

Accustomed as he was to the magicians’ circle,

Yet no avaricious sorcerer stood before him,

No gloomy garret greeted him,

No sombre cellar met his eyes,

Lit by candle, book and bell.

Only the soft breeze and gentle sun,

Only the whispering leaves and hedgerow rustle,

Only the timorous, curious murmur of those fair folk,

Who scattered when the egg was cracked.

Realising he was not trapped, Draco looked about in wonder,

And turning to the Ox he addressed it thus:

“I think, my noble beast, thou didst not bring me here,

And that mine release is some chance accident.”

The Ox nodded her consent, yet where the ploughman was,

No one could say.

(Graham   31 January 2023)

18    Anathemata

n + 1

A pointless question repeated,

a way of peering into the abyss,

it appeals to me, this

crack in the cave wall.

If lost in the event field

of a fallow horizon,

if black sounding strings

see Thuban align again,

a chiasmus of things set apart

will amplify his dreadful heart.

 . . . from Lindum to London

bridges broken down 

Gale, hail, tornadoes of razor wire,

floods, muds, deserts of city and shire,

then moor and fen will wild again

to crack and cook and burn.

See: the omelette… stinks. 

And purple tongued it turns on Tyre

to swallow the whole hollow folktale

up to the head where, it is said,

the universe shrinks to strings of nothing.

0→∞

Now, it’s time to pick up an old guitar,

make it a chicken,

an old house cat,

a gift card,

a bird, a snake,

but no black noise

and without knowing what I’m doing!

(Geoffrey Mark Matthews 3 February 2023)