Friday 1 December 2017

1917 & other observations


دون الإخلال

for Zerox Quid
είναι όλα ελληνικά για μένα


I

in the cotton picking moment
in the long pause before foreign wars
laid waste the international banking laws
his mission was piped in ochre balls

we're not asking you to steal the crown jewels
go East young sport & sow yr oats ferret out
some hydra-harried rose for comfort camouflage
yourself in that pack of confidence tricks
yr grandpa perfected from the pulpit

play hard & duplicate yr monthly report
tucked between the lines of a poetry mart
not under the counter just so darned smart
those Limey dicks'll die puzzling out

quoth his mentor over Harvard lunch
now be a good sort and pass the port


he took his trusty plume in hand
he took his wolfram wand of the purple end
in no time caught the minxsome foal with eyes
so swart she blacked his name
while boosting his fame in the views
of other ex-pats on the parlour game

Quid of the 'baccy swoon balling
zeroxed banknotes down the vales
of maidens & fielding Pinkerton Man
to Winston Churchill's Cousin Sam
stroked his early white beard & spoke
in onion seller's antic cant

you've gone straight native Uncle Tom pipped
by your own lip truly rabbit holed tant pis
well enjoy this dead end pier I'm off on me hols
leave you to tinker with the mother ship


II

snot on an old man's lapel is all
the watch & chain he could pocket
laid off forty years before retirement

his rack-a-hoo trailing off into that sunset smile
where all who snout & snifter lie down the while

yet shield your eyes sonny man and see
surf breaking on The Strand
driftwood of wrecks coming in to land

bald head on the shoulder-block of youth
antiquated thought dolled-up as youth
become the latest high falutin' fad
as off-course tipster to the owl gang
if lucky you'll twit one last ignoble
Iscariot hanging out at Uttoxeter
or failing that bag yrslf a spying Helot


III


a game of cheese


my hair is bad tonight
she says to me
I say the wind is up

she prays
what the devil

I repeat my dear
the wind the yellow wind

put your teeth in she snores
so that I may hear

& I reflect
it's up again

you jealous creep
don't bother me

with that she groans
& goes back to sleep


IV

here's a good 'un overheard at Margate Metropole
as we were sate next to Willie Maugham & Co

that German naval attaché in Geneva
tall green yacht fella on lake whatchamacallit
six inch shells concealed i'the fo'c'sle
his great uncle Heimie lost a leg at Gettysburg

says that if Amerikar came into the war
would treat every table at the casino
to a bottle of Bollinger a politician
mind you neglects to tell on which side

so our British coz by his ma & in-laws
related to THREE US presidents
not to be outdone orders champagne all round
which Fritz Whathisface disdains to swallow
proving thereby no sausage-eater was ever a sportsman

cabled this to Chicago for the Spring edition
in hopes to be on time for once


V

render unto Caesar I say unto Quid

can't blame a fellow for being a snipcock
went to school with one his pa made millions
out of workwear pour les ouvriers
first rate chap just an accident of birth
even the Great Lord Himself was of the persuasion
till he swept the lizards from The Temple

what sticks in yr craw Zerox old sport is that
while promises on Palestine and the Hejeira
play each other out the war is decided not
on the battlefield but by schnozzled old
Rothsteins & Weitzmans in oak panelled rooms
belching brandy fumes through fat cigars
to the tune of fine young men losing life & limb
for percentage points on a ticker machine

he says sell that to the fishwives of Nantucket


VI

so a poor odd-jobber must suffice
to put a start and an end to the sacrifice

doubtless eats pork'n'beans from a tin
lives alone in a squalid room
parts his rug with a metal comb
& ends each day stinking of resin

the auguries are propitious
if not unpredicted Medusa's
hair so deuced she takes her pill
the helot drunk on dregs of wine
while outside mustard gasses belch & spill

if the deed were done at all
'twere better done i'the East

downstairs supper clatters in the sink
a club foot scrapes in the hall
the blighter puts on a thin coat
& closes the front door


Eliot T Stern plods mutt-infested streets
where the yellowish curls of fat armed matrons
bare to the elbows lean through sash windows
spitting fag-ends from blistered lips

impregnating the quarter of new foreigners
brought in to replace such Latin waiters
as were repatriated for the draft
through this & that back street the neutral man
limps along taking neither bus nor tram

Stern follows into a Jerry-built walk-up
he breathes its camphored air as if to be sick
as if to detect the stench that god forsook
is all his ancient nose were made for

with metre throbbing on the fifth floor
& poor inebriate fumbling at the door

his vorpal wand snickers the Helot's back
a frenzied attack stupid cops to conclude
a jealous tart with heart of wormwood


VII

so let us horse trade you and I in nods and winks
Europe spread out on a billiard table
like a Zeppelin blockading the skylight
follow my finger down these evacuated streets
collaborators' retreats
where the all-night talk is of Swiss Hotels
quayside restaurants with six-inch shells
an argument oblique and of obscure intent
droning on as if oblivious to the question
but do not ask one's humble opinion
step inside and hear them grumble

about the room the Marshals sit and smoke
of Winston Churchill with an Armenian bloke

*

Mr President the revolution will not be cabled
direct though still encoded in modern verse
and passed through conventional channels

the agents sent into the field have both
changed their spots our Whitehall colleagues quoth
to join the very cliques they were sent to spy upon

Mr Quid stakes his talents railing
against Sephardic plots in the salons of the rich
while his replacement Mr Stern a Harvard man
one evening melted into the London fog

yes government property stolen
fake identities all but gone

and therefore begging yr pardon the revolution
while still appearing in a Chicago newsletter
may not be telegraphed direct to this office sir



Notes:

1. دون الإخلال (WITHOUT PREJUDICE)
2. είναι όλα ελληνικά για μένα (It's all Greek to me.)
3. Eliot T Stern & Zerox Quid: TS Eliot and Ezra Pound.
4. Helot: Spartan warriors were expected to have bumped off a slave by their coming of age.
5. "snipcock": an offensive term for a Jewish man, lifted from cartoon strips in “The Eagle” & Private Eye”.
6. The Rothsteins: wealthiest of all the Swiss bankers; (Chaim) Weitzman: a founder of Zionism (later first president of Israel) who handed the British a secret formula for making acetone in exchange for the First - “Balfour's” - Declaration on Palestine.

7. "a jealous tart with heart of wormwood" ie: 'he do the police in different voices'


Never Ends!