Ode To Allen (first draft)

Bon voyage bonhomie

We’re bounding out from the shadow of days

sun dialled by the clink of yellow porcelain.

No more, will the fall of sand be

Ushered through by snide remarks.

Where laughter echoes,

And vendettas are ordained

On strangers

From our swelling colony

Just off the mainland

In this regency court of

Caffeine fuelled jesters entertaining

Never

More. Shall we sidle up

To

The wizened omen

That lurches behind the counter.

Here, time is idled with

Alarming precision.

Where endless hours

Have been stolen on a

Kaleidoscopic

Wurlitzer of

Talk.

People arise and are seated

In fitful bursts like the brass valves of trumpet imitation Tuesday, 20 April 2010 (or was it Thursday I forget)

Columbus’s and Walter Scott’s arrive and harbour themselves

But can’t deter us from our headfirst propulsion into the void.

On Salinger’s passing, an elegy I cannot recall,

But still his epitaphs scrolled in affected cool.

The ladies come and go, talking in acronyms.

To those excluded from the eye

(Where sunlight filters through in patches)

Its best to deride.

Shivering beyond the

Reaches of air revolving doors

Into an empty foyer

Stand hordes of taciturn civilians

Wielding pitchforks,

Casting scorn,

On the blood sport still enacted

In our cerebral coliseum.

Subterranean, to wit, (to who?)

A dank yellow habitat for

The Harringtoned Buffoon

Or perfect ping-pong,

The designated

Quarter of the rohypsters,

Pretentious Wanker’s

Bear hair (swoon),

PZ’s, non-descripters,

Our new-conscripters

And the veteran hipsters,

Soon will arrive the midday swarm,

Of plaid and caps

Whirlwind regiments of Leggings and plaid

Soaring golden legs, marching out of step

Bohemia’s lost tourists.

Furrow browed Femme fatales,

Bourgeouis conformists, Sullen

Beauties and aspiring Casanova’s

Facing in opposite directions.

Narcissus sitting, narcissus fixating!

On the quivering reflection in his mug.

All filing habitually from the mouth to the

Gullet to the stomach of Allen,

Then stewing in the broth of searing exclusivity

That haunts the confines

Of this most pedestrian café.

From the epicentre we have heard and have not disclosed

The breach of heart

and stammer of soul.

Final gasps of dropouts

With their fading 60’s rhetoric

Breath held captive as they preach,

Portraits sheltering from a torrent of strokes.

So as you search for your future in

The sediment of this drunken broth

Keep an emblem of our wasted days.

And if it all becomes too much

I’ll amble back to when

We sat out there and basked beneath cloudless sky’s

Spiders jailed in pacing round an enormous empty glass.