Before I Was Old

I went out with Julie Christie,

before she was famous, before I was old.

We went for a drink in Clapham,

when I was in London, at the Foreign Office

- undercover - in the paper clip department:

not quite in Whitehall, more like Whitechapel.

Undercover?

Yes!

I was a spy:

for The KGB.

Didn’t you know paper clips were important,

before the computers, before I was old?

The number of clips, the amount of paper,

the number of shiny-arsed clerks at desks

gave the number of operatives in Minsk,

back in the good old, bad old days.

Double Agent?

Yes!

I told Philby

- and Nicholas.

I drank in Denmark Street with David Jones,

before he was Bowie, before I was old,

and we shouted bits of Dada poetry

over the sound of guitars and badly-played bongos,

drinking absinthe or raki or something

before it was fashionable or drinkable.

A beatnik?

No,

a smart-suit mod

newl(e)y-published.

I did all manner of marvellous things;

before I was washed up, before I was old.