Evening Walk in a Seaside Town

Cherry

By Ewan

Sat, 26 Aug 2017
  • 4859 reads
15 comments
 

Prufrock's Companion

 

Strewn behind us, I can see the skins of former lives,

trousers pin-striped, soldier's parade-serge

and even battle dress, though I fought

at far remove from blood and bullets.

 

Let us go then, you and I

to where the future surely lies

at the foot of the hill;

where the tombstone milestone

reads our three score and ten,

or the hundred-and-one

of some unlucky men.

 

And if we'd asked,

looked beyond the gypsy's curtain,

passed the silver to gnarling knuckles,

for crystal-scrying most uncertain?

 

Imagine, the crone's tent or pier-end

poster-paint clap-board booth.

“Fortunes told, enquire within”

We'd feel the goosebumps on our skin.

 

Madame Blandini

 

A corvid figure, crouched in her chair,

her pitch-black scarf covers her hair,

she chooses her words with consummate care,

with the aid of a pin and La Dictionnaire.

 

No matter her speaking makes no sense,

she writhes with passion, her words intense.

For nothing “begins”- it must commence,

for nonsense predictions, small recompense.

 

“Woe betide the poetry man,

who writes what he knows,

who writes what he can.”

 

The palm opens, the coin is gone

“I'll need another to carry on.”

 

And she tells it all,

such a bitter truth,

looks back at the mis-steps,

the folly of youth.

Of foolish, unrequired love,

still less than unrequited.

 

We give her unkind, parting words:

 

“Light a candle, cast a spell,

speak in runes, you might as well”.

 

Twilight Time

 

But we did not go,

we passed the pier by

and made our promenade

along the sea-front

as the sun drowned

in flat grey water

off Margate or Brighton Beach.

 

And if we'd gone,

down the dingy dungeon stairs

into that other world,

of secret, sequinned, he who dares?

 

 

Stearns in Clubland

 

Watchful eyes, used to the dark,

welcome us together,

how can they not?

You and I: we are as inseperable

as Castor and Pollux,

Hermes and Aphrodite,

ego and id.

 

There are hands linked

across single-candled tables,

they disconnect briefly,

then reconnect as we pass by

and “sit-ye-down”

anent a whispered

request or permission

at an ill-lit table

of our own.

 

My one drink is cheap

for freedom comes gratis

with it, though there are

no hands across this table.

 

Coda

 

And in that bar a mermaid sang

to other mermaids and

-for once, just this once-

for you and me.

 

 

Certificate U
Poem
Miscellaneous
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)

Comments

Submitted by airyfairy on

Beautiful interpretation of the IP, Ewan.  A really rewarding read.

Submitted by Ewan on

very much Mme. Farfelu.

Ewan

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

I like your own angles on Eliot, Ewan. Did the man ever realise how funny he must have looked? Going to Margate on the bank holiday and walking into the pub where the cockney family were drinking and chatting. What did Eliot wear for his day down the seaside? Did he know how to order a pint of beer at the bar? And then going to the clairvoyant. Yes, clairvoyants and medium were serious stuff, people used them to contact their dead relatives and where I live people still go to clairvoyant nights in the Moose Hall. But even amongst believers I am sure there is a remnant of balanced scepticism.

And then the isolation of the man

'On Margate Sands I can connect

Nothing with nothing..'

 

Eliot was often arrogant and ignorant of people who were not like himself but there is a real pathos to some of his work.

Submitted by Ewan on

I think he was a product of his time. Snobbery would have been in his blood I think. An interesting character, more English than any Englishman by the end. I know he is out of fashion now, but Four Quartets would be my Desert Island Discs "book", as it were.

Personally, I find the whole spiritualist thing both contemptible and pitiable, although who am I to prevent people finding comfort where they can?

As for "Prufrock", I've always thought the "You and I" who proposed going were only Prufrock talking to himself.
Anyway, thanks for reading and giving me something to think about

Ewan.

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

I would like to see him back on the National Curriculum . The Waste Land, the themes about fresh roots growing 'out of this stony rubbish'. That was then, postwar bombsites, it's now when global warming is trashing everywhere that's away from the world's centres of power. Eliot's search for faith and peace, his discovery of Buddha, that was creative then, these days mindfulness meditation is becoming an everyone thing, that the NHS promotes because it's good.

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

It's the Bank Holiday and I have spare time so I am going to yakk on a bit.

When a writer or musician is good and they have something to say my own view is sometimes 'never trust the singer, trust the song' By all means recognise the personal shortcomings of the creator but it seems foolish to discard the work.

For me when I ws 24 and 'got into feminism' the real test case was Pete Townshend and Quadrophenia which I still love and identify with.

The song Dr Jimmy has the lines

'what is it, I'll take it

who is she, I'll rape her'

IMO this simply the state of mind of the central character at that given moment. Jimmy is 16. It is improbable that he has had sexual intercourse as when he is not gadding around with his pals and getting smashed out his nut on booze and speed he is back at home with mum and dad who take him back again and again provided he finds work. Girls his age would prefer young men a couple of years older. So Pete passed my feminist censorship testsmiley

Submitted by Ewan on

like to think I am capable of separating the art from the artist.

Years and years ago I did A101 Arts Foundation course with the OU (it would have been about '83). At summer school in Hounslow (!) we trashed a whole afternoon with the hoary old debate about the point at which an artist's misdeeds - moral, sexual or criminal - meant that his art became invalid. I was (and still am) firmly on the side of the artist being irrelevant if the art is good enough. Of course, the reason the programmed tutorial was "trashed" was that the corollary to this was "who decides what is good enough art" to allow us to forgive Murder (Caravaggio), Incest (Eric Gill) or (the accusation of) Paedophilia, (Pete Townshend)?

I don't count Tommy as The Who's finest hour, myself, but all musical/artistic/literary taste is utterly subjective. The world would be a much poorer place without Anyhow, Anyway, Anywhere, in fact all of Sell Out and most of A Quick One and most definitely all of Who's Next. If there's a better song to describe the situation now than "Won't Get Fooled Again" then I don't know what it is. So despite the (unproven) allegations of paedophilia (he said the photos were for research), the Who's music reaches my standard. It may not reach others'. We'll never hear Rolf Harris or Gary Glitter on mainstream radio again, I can't say I'm heartbroken about that, but should it be banned?

You may have guessed, the philosophy module was the ostensible subject for that tutorial all those years ago.
best

Ewan.
NB Townshend didn't come up in '83, I forget who did.

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Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

I don't believe Pete was looking at the child pornography 'just for research.' However he also claimed that he had been abused as a child and I am as sure as I can be that this is true.

BTW Your studies are on a parallel timeline to mine. 1981 Stirling Uni I did a Philosophy and Literature option.smiley

Creative people and horrible behaviour, who knows what goes on in their head? I don't think that when Rolf Harris wrote 'Two little boys' he was dreaming of sodomy at the moment of inspiration and the song works very well in Trainspotting when Spud sings it at his friend's funeral. However Rolf's behaviour to children is inexcusable.

As for Pete let's stick with the music...

Submitted by Ewan on

don't think that there's much doubt that he was abused as a child. Even so... he should be on the register, shouldn't he?

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Submitted by Parson Thru on

Great thread. Yes. It's this topic. A column in this week's TLS got me going. Proscribed reading.

Parson Thru

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Great poem, too. You really are very literary. I feel like I'm playing at it. I've read some of those works by Eliot over and over and never got all that. Do you need to formally study pieces to get it?

Parson Thru

Submitted by Ewan on

 because by the time I started with OU Eliot and Pound were no longer "suitable". I bought Eliot's poetry with annotations. I was lucky that I'd studied Latin and French to to A-Level along with English. No Eliot there either! I love the Modernists and there'd have been no Beat poetry without them.

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Submitted by Parson Thru on

I'm glad I came back to read this again.

Rereading is sometimes not a bad thing.

Your "no hands across this table" cued-in "hands across the water". Funny old things, we humans.

Parson Thru

Submitted by Parson Thru on

How did this never get a POD?

Parson Thru

Submitted by Ewan on

happy about that. John Wilks always has a rule of thumb about stuff like this. If it doesn't stand up as poetry without prior knowledge of the allusions, it's no go, Jacamo... And I'm not sure whether this does. Mind you, I'm the worst judge of my own writing.

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