Ungalet

Lashings. We see a foetal beggar outside,
Forehead touching
The rain-soaked cobbles of Prague,
His bald patch tipping a copper plate,
Humble to the chink-chink of copper pennies.

More lashings. We use yesterday’s Times
As an umbrella of information.
Golem underfoot chases us to Ungalet,
Stumbling, we enter with ink, black ink

Stained on our hands and sodden paper on our shoulders.
A fog hits our eyes and we squint at little fires
Held, in warm fingers, glowing, lighting
Faceless shapes. We blink and we blink.

Then the noise, seemingly chaotic,
Frenzied shakes, tinkles and toots, the pull of a long trombone,
A skipping beat,
Looseness in the wrists, the gravity
Defying notes willing us to think and to think

About the intricacies.
We’re offered dark froth in glasses
And dumplings on plates, so we sit in scotch-red seating.
An electric-haired enthusiast
In the front row takes a drink, takes a drink.

His partner yawns, black caterpillars
Framing her eyes, as he nods
And applauds hypnotically, robotically. I stare
At the kink, that maddening kink

In the eyes of the players.
A bearded man approaches in an almost-clean
White shirt, tells us, “You two should have been
Here an hour and five minutes ago.”
We look at each other, eyebrows raised.
The trumpets pipe down, the piano plays
Morse code, and the lights, the hue, glows pink, glows pink.



Piccadilly

I met you
at the statue
on the hour
And thought of
the drowning grip
I had on your face.
The onion seeds
of your eyes
were ablaze.
I sighed, watched
the feathered clouds
disconnect above us.
You gave a tug
on my sleeve.
“We’re a clumsy version
of a good idea,
like pterodactyls.”
I freeze-framed,
saw you entwined
in bringing defeat,
deaf to my melancholy.
I stood, and stared
at the chip in
your front tooth.



The Synesthetic Hour Starts With

Learning the alphabet again,
But this time with Richard of York.
Then smelling onion in your name,
Seeing the personality
In your hair’s dense wave of chestnut.

Static from the vinyl throws a
Hundred tiny stars in my eyes.
Overwhelming, the white flashes
Taste a little like fresh monk fish.

You say to take a minute but
As I sit and count to sixty
I hear a symphony start up
And I can’t sit still. I take
Your hand and we dance till noon’s song.