Seasonal Acrostics

So is come the signal of the year;
Proper is our aestival repose-
Round the tow'ring minarets we hear
In the silent bowers of the rose,
Now and then, quite gladly, without fear,
Glowing notes of birdsong in the boughs.

Soon is reached the apex of the day-
Unknown to those who dwell in northern cold,
Memorie'd, significant, honourable, and gay,
Most reverent, ephemeral, and bold,
E'er fragrant, clearing brazen clouds away:
Resplendent weather, florid to behold.

Ah, me! That lion days should pass away
Undreamt of by a crueller age,
Till drifts of dreaming crops betray
Unlooked for signs of silent rage:
Meant in the coming struggle of the day,
Not frowned on by the cunning sage.

When, o, at last, the perfidition comes,
In cruel-bound climes, enamel-cast,
No pow'r stern can beat its brazen drums,
To stem the grimy vengeance of the blast:
Even the joyful fowls are waxen dumb,
Roughly the fulsome branches are downcast.

Lucky is he that sees the beast

Lucky is he that sees the beast
Unknown to most of them that feel-
Celestial rapprochements cease;
Yearly the triumphal arches wheel,
Round vernal chimes the spirits climb
Obversely glooming in retreat;
Bearing overland proud approaching time
Born in oppressive aestival heat-
I dream of love, a commonweal
Emerging like a sensuous feast.

"Done is a battle on the dragon black":
Every schoolboy knows the score:
At noontide the shadowy dragon draws back,
Till dawn comes he prevails no more-
Hatred in every breath he will not lack.
Love, breath'd in response, becomes a trigger
Or motivates responses still obscure-
Verily, the promised spring set to transfigure,
Eternally renewing each renewer.

He is on a bus

- He is on a bus. All the other seats are occupied.
He is riding on a bus somewhere. It is a long journey.
He sleeps. S. is beside him. He can hear her breathing, feel her heartbeat.
The bus runs on through the night. He is in the aisle seat, with S. on his right. It is dark.
The nearby seats are occupied by blonde, young teens.
At one point the seat beside him is empty and he lies back snoozing on both seats.
During the night he hears about a plane that has been shot down.

- Images: The long aisle of the bus in the dark.
The floor of the bus. The blonde young kids chattering.
The ghost of the crashed plane, like a cinder, through the floor of the plane.

Going Along The Road

Going along the road... off to "college"...

I reach at the junction a confluence of lights. Neon glow, etc.
Rain-wet.

An evening class. At say five o'clock I depart into the dusk.
I have with me my bag. I have also brought my duvet with me, an amorphous mass slung on top of the bag.

Off to the western sector of the town, near a backstreet chipshop, before the suburbs peter out into motorways, unlit, near brownbrick streets.

At the "bus stop". How am I to get this cumbersome duvet on the bus. Then again I can't leave it here on the sidewalk.
Banal and self-conscious.

I walk back along Whaleboat Road. Nearing the garage... A busy road, constant streams of traffic.

I see walking before me along the pavement a girl.

Metropolis 9 (conclusion)

Thought to say the truth I begin to disremember the details of that movie, the Neverending-Metropolis movie. It was a long time ago now, or at least it seems so. Like pallid scenes from an unfashionable movie seen five years ago. Was there ever a city where wishes came true, or is that just my conceit, an awkward spin I put on it? Was there a director, and, more importantly, was he anything like I remember him? And, the Neverending Movie? Surely it's an absurdity to even conceive of such a thing, a grand folly. Impossible to make a film about every event that ever happened!  Yet how wonderful if it were true. That scene with the heavy metal band trashing the hotel room, now did that occur, or was it remembered from some other movie or constructed from alternate scenes by my errant mind. My mind which is always dragged back to the wish-city, the Metropolis...
I got so puzzled about it all that I went back to the local cinema. A dirty-grey facade on a little-frequent street, scene of a million dispersed dreams. The usherette seemed unenthusiastic about my excited queries, but showed me wearily up some plush-scarlet steps to a glossy-white door.
Inside was a comfortable brightly-lit office space. Perhaps some sort of show-room for the public. A set of plexi-glass windows up at one end. Rounded corners, soft carpet, unobtrusive decoration, friendly to the eye. Dominant colour is an aqua-blue suggestive of a neutral, compliant efficiency. From out of nowhere looms the salesman. Neat little moustache, telephone voice, kindly-efficient eyes, extremely polite but not in the least indulgent. The merest formality of toadying and "customer is always right" concealing an enormous blank wall of indifference. Wearing a white tuxedo so shiny-pristine it's an offence to the eyes.
"Can I help you sir?". I start to mumble about do you remember old movies from five or more years ago. "Yes sir, I quite understand. Please say no more." He leads me gently but firmly to one side of the room where there is a low magazine rack covered in glossy leaflets. I try to get out an objection, but am interrupted by: "Yes sir, yes sir, quite so sir. If I could just draw your attention to our brochures?" "But..." "Thanks so much. I think you'll find you will be satisfied with our selection".
He takes a selection of these glossy brochures and fans them out skilfully on the big desk. A myriad of colours. Candy for the eye. The guy has obviously got his spiel all worked out and is allowing nothing to spoil it. Like a valet whose job is to stand around in a bathroom seeking tips. Using his automaton-like obsequiousness to express contempt. Interrupting with his large, insincere mouth: "Thankyou sir. Quite so, sir. There's really no need to explain. I feel sure our selection will be of interest to you Sir". Like a malfunctioning robot.
These glossy brochures of his are labelled Forthcoming Attractions. Not what I'm after at all. He is quite intent on selling me some new variant on my warped desire. Like flipping the channel. A New Season of Programming. It seems that my Metropolis or Wish-city was only one of these old fantasies lost among these glossy leaflets, the Upcoming Attractions drowning it out with the fanfare of their newness, with their blaring cheapness.
I guess I entered the wrong room... I'm being sold the holiday-life insurance-virtual wish machine-videogame package when what I wanted was the straight-hit-to-the-vein nostalgia trip, clear and even... though I hesitate to use the word... "authentic".

Metropolis 8

The latest scene to be shot takes place in a large cinder block industrial-grey hotel. Camera-spectator stands unobtrusive in corner. This could be the old-style luxury hotel or mansion if it weren't so grimly stripped of ornament, so processed and bold. Look out the windows and you'll see a receding avenue of identical buildings, like a great main street or city thoroughfare carefully denuded of any individuality, monolithic shapes like banks and department stores, though not cluttered with bright eye-catching signs and displays, but blank-walled and vacant-eyed, uniform, like a row of tombs. Rectangle being the obvious form, and essential to the grid pattern, all constructed from the same dull grey-brown brick, cheap and dense. Oh blessed uniformity. Allows one to concentrate.
Up in the penthouse suite of this hotel are staying the personnel and entourage of a heavy metal band. They are currently partying. It's an interesting process.
They're also going through the formal tradition of a room-wreck, done with celebratory gusto and a sense ot showmanship. What outlandish boys. They bill themselves as the return of Hair Rock, that much-missed genre. Transatlantic accents, "decadence", androgyny, copious amounts of coke. We need more spandex strides and poodle perms in pop music. Shouts of "Rawk n Rawl!", the stoner aesthetic. Mixed with make-up and hellfire, thunder n lightning, flirtations with soft-focus Satanism. They are spraying fire extinguishers, their boots trampling the bedcovers, kicking in doors, sweating to live out the bad boy role. Arcane kiss-curls, curlicues of make-up, sharptongue grimaces.
The lead singer, Izzy, stradles the plush carpet, his lurex pants glistening, and with a fluid yet wildly uncontrolled motion flings his white swallowtail guitar through the window. The band's shouts and leers become louder and more stylised, more violent, as if grasping for something tangible in the rooms they occupy in restless, unstable huddles. Bottle of vodka and nosecandy in the bathtub. Someone already fucking in the hall. From the floor below all you'd hear would be boots trampling broken glass and fixtures being ripped from walls. A big Fender bass takes a long arcing dive from one of the low topfloor windows, followed by assorted debris.

Asteroidea

Like the Asteroidea that circle in the sea,
So the heavenly wanderers that our bourn oversee,
So are the beasts and birds, and so are we.
The starts that glide their course by night
Make fated paths within our sight,
So do the asteroids on deep
Plot careful courses while we sleep,
Turn on turn, insensibly,
Like the turning of the wheel,
That great wheel of the galaxy
That by each movement, will reveal
The spiral and the five-armed star
Marking out a destiny;
Whether in depths of sky or sea,
Or bound by land like mortals are,
Whether peace or frightful war,
Whether death or ecstasy.
That man, four-limbed, one-headed, is
Like the bright comet of the astral fish,
Shown by five points of errant fire;
And tugged by currents and lazy drifts,
Knows not the end of any wish,
Nor yet the author of desire.