(1) and off to scott's (the dockers' restaurant) burly men packed in round solid tables but what the helle (drowned in hellespont) this place for me was rich in its own fables i'll be the lover sunk if that enables an awesome sense of just how deep the spells that put scotts for me beyond the dardanelles
lace-curtained windows (or memory plays me false) no capped odysseus could turn such sirens down or was it a circean slip that shocked the pulse all men are pigs when hunger rips the gown and these men were not there to grace the town service bustling (no time to take caps off) hot steaming food and noses in the trough
i loved it deeply squashed in there with you rough offensive banter bantered back the smells of sweat and cargoes mixed with stew and dumplings lamb chops roast beef - what the fuck these toughened men could outdo friar tuck so ravenous their faith blown off the sea that god lived in the stomach raucously
perhaps cramped into scotts i felt it most that you belonged in a living sea of men who shared the one blood-vision of a coast tides washed you to but washed you off again too much history made the struggle plain but all the time there was this rough-hewn glimmer that truth wore dirty clothes and ate its dinner
at midday - scotts was a parliament of sorts where what was said had not the solid weight of what was felt (or what was eaten) courts bewigged and stuffed with pomp of state were brushed aside in favour of the plate but those who entered hungry came out wise unspoken resolutions mulled like pies
(2) and then the tram ride home (if we were lucky - and nothing during the day had caused despair) trams had a gift about them that was snaky wriggling their straitened ways from lair to lair they hissed upon their wires and flashed the air they swallowed people whole and spewed them out and most engorged in them became devout
you either believed in trams or thought them heathen savage contraptions that shook you to your roots on busy jaunts there was no room for breathing damn dignity - rapt flesh was in cahoots all sexes fused from head-scarves to their boots and somewhere in the melee children pressed shoulders to crotches noses to the rest
and in light-headed periods trams debunked the classier lissome ways of shifting freight emptied of pomp their anarchy instinct they'd rattle down their tracks at such a rate they'd writhe their upper structures like an eight being drawn by revelling legless topers strict rails (they claimed) gave sanction for such capers
trams had this kind of catholic conviction the end ordained their waywardness was blessed if tramways claimed per se this benediction who cared if errant trams at times seemed pissed religions prosper from the hedonist who shags the world by day and prays at night those drunken trams still brim me with delight
to climb the twisted stairs and seek a seat as tram got under way through sozzled rotors and find olympia vacant at my feet (the gods too razzled by the rasping motors - the sharps of life too much for absolutors) would send me skeltering along the aisle king of the upper world for one short while
and all the shaking rolling raucous gait of this metallic serpent sizzling through the maze of shoppy streets (o dizzy state) sprinkled my heart-strings with ambrosial dew (well tell a lie but such a wish will do) and i'd be gloried as if leviathan said hop on nip and sped me to japan
so back to earth - the tram that netley day would be quite sober bumbling through the town the rush-hour gone and night still on its way mum lil and baby (babies) would stay down and we'd be up the top - too tired to clown our bodies glowed (a warm contentment brewed) burnt backs nor aching legs could pop that mood
(3) i lay in bed one day my joints subsiding lost in a day-dream rhythmed by my heart medicine-time (a pleasure not abiding) i did my best to play the sleeping part then at my back a nurse's rustling skirt a bending breeze (all breathing held in check) and then she blew sweet eddies down my neck
the nurse (of all) whose presence turned the winter to summer's morning (cool before the sun) who touched the quick with such exquisite splinter the wince was there but no great hurt was done she moved like silk the finest loom had spun the ward went dark when she was gone or late and i was seven longing to be eight
that whispering down my spine by scented lips threw wants and hopes my way that stewed my mind a draught drunk down in paradisal sips stirred passages in me not then defined at three i'd touched the grail with fingers blind to heart-ache - this nurse though first described the gates to elysium where grown-up love pupates
but soon a cloud knocked pristine sex aback (i had to learn the hard way nothing's easy) i went my own route off the sanctioned track and came distraught - in fact distinctly queasy without permission (both nonchalant and breezy) i sailed from bed to have a pee (or worse) and got locked in - and drew that nurse's curse
not only hers but all the fussing staff's for daring such a voyage in my state whose heart just then was not a bag of laughs did i not understand the fist of fate that waited naughty boys who could not wait thunderous gods glared through the quaking panes a corporate wrath set back my growing pains
forget the scented lips the creeping bliss of such a nurse's presence on my flesh locked in i'd been an hour or more amiss they thought i'd done a bunk or slipped the leash when found i'd gone all blue like frozen fish those scented lips discharged their angry bile and cupid's dart fell short a scornful mile
come christmas day the christmas tree was bright its mothering arms held glittering gifts for all and i was seven longing to be eight and i was given a large pink fluffy ball my spirit shrank into the nearest wall true love reduced to this insulting gimcrack my pumped-up heart was punctured by a tintack