Prose turned into Poetry (x2)

Escaping a Thousand Memories

In that liminal space between life and suicide,

The sun smiles more beautifully than ever.

Past Roses Café and Kay’s Beauty Salon,

Riding the C10 to Meade Mews,

I feel a love for life and for love itself.

His nudge and his freedom pass -

Shake me from my reverie.

A monkey nut taps my foot,

Whilst two lovers kiss at the crossing to Canada Water.

The secret sweetness of sadness is in the pursuit

Of transient glimpses of joy;

Hysteria, madness, and laughter

In this relentless,

Racing world.

At the Listening Place,

Life consoles those acquainted with misery,

Whilst pitying the fools who assume they are happy –

Who listen to forgotten plans of love and life in the UK.

Life is lost at Lunar House

And love grimaces at immigration officers.

Here, listening leads to an obscure osmosis;

The anonymity of the asylum seeker

Permeates into the life of the listener.

The narrator demands disconnection from their narrative –

To detach from flashbacks and nightmares;

The terrors that leave them shaking during the night.

Tales need to be told before

Narrators walk away into the neon secrets of

China town

And disappear dressed in ginger-root oblivion.

There is a supernatural darkness in this city

Of debauched air,

Where people wander

Disillusioned with the drum of the daily grind,

Escaping into the underground,

Where the tiles shine like the finery of the poor.

The same man sits at Pimlico station pleading for change –

Asking for a chance to quash that begging rumble

In the pit of his bargained body.

Destitute and detained.

Then destitute again.

Thrown out onto the streets like yesterday’s debris.

He begs.

A drug addict?

An alcoholic?

You contemplate as you swerve your way into the Pride of Pimlico -

Ordering a pint of Red Stripe.

Jamaican beer consumed by a Brit.

A Jamaican man deported by a Brit.

Deported to a country he does not know.

Windrush.

In that liminal space we see the beauty of humanity.

That bargained body has carried a load,

A load which you could share.

You offer to carry some of that load

And realise that those who simply walk past

Are the ones who are sleepwalking.

Nobody crosses the world without reason.

Cross the street,

Offer a smile or something to eat,

And give him a reason to live in this mad

Mad

World.

Starry Nights & Sunny Days in Paris

‘Time was soft there’,

As it is here –

Sipping on Sumatran spices of organic vin chaud

Poured precisely by hands from Istanbul.

A French wine,

Embracing cultures that compose Paris itself.

A single candle flickers

Within the innocuous shadows of this clandestine brasserie –

Silently tucked away,

Smiling serenely at passers-by

Who do not dare enter such an establishment.

Bamboo panelled cages encase

Dimmed bulbs that drift into a nostalgic state of

Slavery –

Listening to songs from Sierra Leone; Sudan; Senegal; Somalia –

The lands which lie in the sun’s torturous twilight.

Dimmed by Europe’s past,

Yet kept alive by light.

Alternating between reading and writing,

She continues to sip on her vin de rouge,

Awaiting the arrival of chickpea flour frites.

The chapter concludes.

Doors fly open.

The beat endures until

Queen supersedes the strength of simple hostel dwellers –

Intoxicated with the intensity of close proximity.

And yet,

The guitar crumbles into the night,

Becoming lost in the Atlantic copper cloud of

Capitalist carelessness.

Is Chet Baker lost in this crowd?

Tilting, tipsy on one leg in the corner

Boasts the bashful cello –

Giddy with memories of Ginsberg

Squatting in the squalid streets of downtown

Paris.

Meanwhile, a single cymbal dresses the beat

In fictitious attire.

Fingers creep over the piano at alarming speeds –

Sewing the seeds for the sax.

A delightful duo.

The perfect equilibrium.

Hands move autonomously from the pirouetting feet

That flirt with the wistful warmth at Les Paiules –

A refuge from November’s grey and sombre sky.

The sax sleeps and sings into my soul,

Calling me to wake each dawn and endure each dusk –

Just another night for the blues

To bestow the bearable lightness of being.

“Nobody is perfect. Don’t feel bad, you know?”

Says the Russian well frequented with

Ronnie Scott’s in the wild West End of

London.

Whispers of Harlem and

Sepia scorched photos of women in bikinis

Are passed in transience.

A local Parisian.

The antiquated man one might ignore.

The young lady moves when spoken to,

Disconcerted by the gender divide

Or perhaps disillusioned by real time;

People from the past now living in a perpetual

Online present.

She resides in this illusory Instagram,

Whilst he dwells in nebulous nostalgia.

Gin fuels the second half –

Yearning for the arrival of Lester Young,

Billie Holiday,

And Charlie Parker,

Of whom are yet to denounce their demons

In daylight.

The sax summons these souls from bygone days

To a space where alcohol pays for poetic precision.

Hearts injected with heroin.

Arms stabbed due to an insatiable appetite for

Excitement;

A dangerous delirium.

Milking around Montmartre district,

Upon lipstick stained streets,

An aspiring writer wonders -

At the rouge windmill poking out

From behind the busy boulevard De Clichy.

Autumnal leaves dance dramatically

As the curtain closes and winter awaits –

Stealing the show and the chaperones –

Replacing them with shimmers of

Quartz encrusted ice.

Grimbergen glitters golden hues from 1128,

Transporting her back to Epinal 2017 –

Curled up on a cushion aside the ochre house’s log burner,

Scorching her stretched skin with a

Belgium beer in hand.

Pear caresses cardamom in a bold and embracing manner

At the Moulin Rouge –

A debauched drink,

Daubed in indelible sensuality.

Can a heat lamp cure lethargy

In a campaign for comfort

After a sunny day in Paris?

She nods.

Pays the bill.

And wanders out into the starry night.