Emporium (3 page)

There was such a truth once.

I remember it. We all shared it

like a candle in the dark.

During the war a piece of bone

got lodged in it, but you

didn’t hear it complaining.

In a cinema after the war

I saw it looking for its hat

under the seats.

It was smaller then, a little hunched.

I don’t recall the last time

we met. I think it was in Berlin.

I’d just been to the lavatory

when I came out

to find a girl in blue jeans

staring at a patch of oil in the corridor.

Something moved in the darkness

and I stamped on it.

When Gypsies first appeared in Europe

ordinary people began to sit

on chairs and hallmarks were

required for silver objects. I intended to go

to Geneva to fetch my wife, but then

playing cards became popular,

and opera and privacy were

invented, as well as the

mechanical clock. Midnight struck

in a domestic interior.

Upstairs two of them were

posing in states of rhapsodic

abandon, their skin rough and

blemished, not like

those good-looking girls, genteel

sisters, standing against

Chinese tapestries in

Vienna. They squeeze

the hearts of men, are

sardonic, flippant and intense and

for their heads the season weaves

spring flowers

into a crown. A greyhound,

a mandolin, a fruit dish with

pears, two figs

on a table. 

When Venus is covered by the sun

a broken nose will break its heart

and a question mark will hover over

a futon in Finsbury Park.

In February a man named Pixon or Pixer

will grow a beard in a disputed region.

Conversations will be interrupted, disconnected,

leading to the degeneration of knowledge.

A vixen will be lost in Leicester Square

and two peacocks will suffer paroxysms

in Hyde Park, near a cinema complex.

A woman with small feet will eat

salted squid in Chinatown

and strawberries, a prelude to sex.

In June the instincts will go

backwards, dragging the economy. Riches

will turn to rags and winos will be sober, ushering in

an era of Total Responsibility.

A man who fears his madness but rebels

against psychoanalysis

will leave his umbrella behind

in an area known as Luxor.

Late summer will bear witness to the erection of

stone fences, howls and ghastly cries near

London, New York, Paris.

Oh what abominable executions will occur

before the planets realign, and a boy shot and killed

in Colorado will be found working in a pizza parlour. 

He is unique, like everyone else.

There is no second chance, no afterlife.

All he wants is to be a real Casanova,

give his partner complete satisfaction,

clear his existing credit,

amaze his friends with his feats of memory,

save money on a lawnmower.

He can go neither forwards nor back.

They mock his accent, astonish him with their predictions.

He tries to kill his adopted son.

The walls of the room fall away to reveal

a cement horizon. He waits for his connection.

Many wanderers and Brahmans who haunt

the silent and remote recesses of

the forest say: when the body dissolves

after death they who break the precepts of

morality are reborn in the Waste,

the Woeful Way, the Fallen Place, the Pit.

Don't believe it. There is no other world,

no merit or demerit, no rebirth,

no karma. Nor is there heaven or hell

or fruit or result of deeds good or ill.

Trust only in things: hard things and soft things,

things that can be eaten and cannot,

fragrant things and things with an evil smell,

things movable and things immovable:

earth, trees, mountains and the lotus flower,

beasts, people and the music of the flute. 

If I had a window for every

dead plant I’d have a

balcony too,

jutting out like a statement of

fact and leaning on that balcony

           in springtime

a redhead in designer shades

           and nothing else

surveying with a smile

the dazzled traffic.

When workmen in yellow

jackets shelter from the

rain sharing cigarettes

a statue without a hand points to

the sky and the green lawn that would

            like to be

taller envies the ivy which

            curls and peeps in

at the cute redhead with

the stammer selling

couscous in the café

to a cus-cus-cus-

tomer. Where rooftops grow

green moss there is height and an ancient

tree shedding orange matter over

           everything.

The barber snips and trims and it

           is quiet in

this street, but last night a

window was broken.

the consort of the god of water is sometimes shown pouring Him

          into different-shaped vessels

but is usually depicted drinking alone or feeding her four-headed

          cat who sits on the rooftops and stares at the moon.

is often shown shopping or wandering through a shopping arcade

          enhaloed in black flames of longing and dread.

Half her body is living human flesh but the rest is decayed and

          swollen like dead livestock floating down the Ganges.

In her six hands she holds a cellphone, a cellphone, a cellphone, a

          cellphone, a cellphone, a cellphone, and she talks all night

          and all day.

is often depicted as a coil of wire or a magnetic field exerting

          a force on others.

He is generally (but not invariably) EVIL and is associated with

          leukaemia and other haematological neoplasms.

is represented in ancient paintings with his sacred animals the

          mongoose and the cobra

(the mongoose hates the cobra and the cobra hates the

          mongoose so they get into all kinds of madcap capers).

He is frequently depicted upright in an electric chair saying a

          prayer while the hair on his head and legs is shaved

by four muscular sailors, or sitting alone on a rented sofa in a

          Manhattan apartment quietly masturbating.

The ancient legends make much of his appetite for pornography

          and every new moon offerings of old copies of Playboy are left

in his tomb, but in midsummer he departs for the Underworld

          where his heart is divided into five pieces and consumed by

          five unforgiving females.

are the ruthless invisible forces of Capital, spirits of profit and

          wealth and market domination.

They live abroad for tax purposes, but at summer solstice they

          return to influence the economy,

symbolised by the appearance of cardboard cities under

          freeways and lunatics ranting in public parks.

          The travel god travels home again, to eat and sleep

          and fuck and found a future he has cursed,

          flying over the heads of his children.

          The first child coughs up curses, the second

          nurses a bruise inside the shape of her father.

After birth.

After all this flesh

power of action

poem of the flesh: farewell!

Junkyard bones some corpses some

images of corpses some

old documentary

looking at corpses big corpses

little corpses corpses in the field

corpses in the street.

Can’t remember

words. Can’t walk

in the garden. Can’t smell

the roses. Can’t drink

a glass of water. Small

corpse on the water

floating

drifting

back to before

birth. Before all this

flesh, power of action,

poem of the flesh. Farewell!

‘We are not concerned,’ he said, ‘with long-winded creations, with long-term beings. Our creatures will not be heroes of romances in many volumes.’

B
RUNO
S
CHULZ,
T
HE
S
TREET OF
C
ROCODILES

Love laughs at locksmiths.

H
ARRY
H
OUDINI
 

In a Christian house

In a Christian town

Lived a Christian man

With a little dog

That greeted him every day after work.

If Big Bumperton

(For that was his name)

Seemed a happy man

Then it only seemed

For he was alone since his mother died.

& in love, it’s true,

He had little luck

For the girls he loved

Never did love him

& saw him as an object of pity.

Still he carried on

Hoping that the girl

Of his fevered dreams

Might one day appear

& love him & kiss him with her cherry-red lips.

But until that time

He would persevere,

For he had a shop

& his mongrel dog

To keep him company on winter nights.

Sitting by the fire

In his night attire

Bumperton was sure

That the Lord was there

Somewhere, glowing in the embers.

Gloomy solitude

With a mongrel dog

Sleeping on his lap,

So he spent his nights

& by day he was a locksmith.

& he had knowledge

Of every kind of lock,

Deadlock & padlock

& mortice & bolt,

But he lacked the key to a woman’s heart.

Now our time is up.

Put another coin

In the poet’s cap

& he’ll tell you all

About Big Bumperton on the Sabbath.

On that Sabbath day

Bumperton was out

On his bicycle

Riding through the town

Doffing his hat to all the lovely ladie
s

& he wobbled past

A poster on the wall

Of high-kicking chorus girls

With cherry-red lips

& endless layers of petticoats.

& he cycled on

Past a frozen lake

& a one-armed man

With a twisted mouth

Hurling pumpernickel across the sullen ice

(Which the geese ignored,

Having all flown south)

& a gaggle of girls

Skating on thin ice.

‘What if one fell through?’ he thought. ‘Would I help?’

& he cycled on

Up a winding path

& the path was steep

But he peddled fast

& arrived at the snowy summit of a hill

Where he could look down

On the little town

& the chimney smoke

Curling to the sky

& Big Bumperton saw that it was good.

So he cycled on

Past the ruined house

Where an ancient crone

Cursed her final days

Before she was cast down the witches’ tower.

Pausing by a sign

For another town

He took out his watch

& wrote down the time

In a pocket book, for he always liked to know

When he reached this point

In his weekly ride

On that holy day

When our Lord rested,

Before cycling home again for lunch.

& he pedalled on

Coming to a place

Where he hit a root

Hidden in the snow

& went flying over the handlebars.

Opening his eyes

After travelling

Far into his mind

For what seemed like days

(But was only a matter of minutes)

There in front of him,

Leaning over him,

In a milk-white dress

& with golden plaits

Was a girl with cherry-red lips.

‘Fair queen of my heart,’

Sighed Big Bumperton.

‘What was that?’ she said.

‘Please don’t try to move,

You might have broken something in the fall.’

& with expert hands

She inspected him

For suspected breaks

In his arms & legs,

But Big Bumperton bore his pain within.

Then she sat him up

Lying in her lap

& she stroked his brow

& he bit his lip,

Fearing she might disappear if he spoke.

Gretchen was her name

& within a year

She became his wife

& he sold his dog

To the one-armed man, never shedding a tear.

Gretchen swept the house

& she filled the pot

With good things to eat

& he swelled with pride

That she had consented to be his bride.

On the Sabbath day

Bumperton was out

On his bicycle

& he cycled deep

Into a forest where the birds around him sang cheep-cheep.

& anon a bird

Flew out of a tree

Making merry noise

Joyful melody

& each pleasant note became a word:

Sometime were we blessed,

Angels heavenly,

But our Master fell

For his wicked pride

& we fell with him for our offence.

But our trespass small,

God was merciful

& out of all pain

Set us here to sing

& to serve Him again, after His pleasing.

Down upon his knees

Fell Big Bumperton

& the bird said this

To him in that place,

Even as Big Bumperton trembled there:

Now have twelve months passed

That you have been wed,

But you still have not

Taken your delight

In the marriage bed, though it be your right.

In the second year

You shall see the place

That you so desire

Come to be usurped

& you shall enter the land of Bedlam.

Holy lightning struck

In his mortal brain

& the hills around

Cried aloud in pain

& holy storm clouds gathered, bringing rain.

Voices in the dark

Pleading to be free.

One of them is low,

One of them is shrill –

Big Bumperton is talking to himself

‘Hungry will I be

& cold showers take –

Holy punishment!

Punishment divine!

Spare me no humiliation!

O Lord, forgive them all,

These your ministers,

Of your purpose high

Ignorant entire.

I am punished for their disbelief.

Wisely did you send

Her into my bed

That my senses rent,

For without her sin

I would not have known innocence divine!

Divine innocence!

& I’ll keep thy laws

Hallow thy Sabbath

Walk in the spirit

& make a new Heaven & a new Earth!’

Big Bumperton is charged with electricity

Like a landscape

An abstraction

A magnified pupil.

After the electroshocks

He no longer understands locks

Or answers to his name or remembers

His late wife.

‘Gentlemen, by means of this X-ray you can see

The patient has swallowed his front-door key

& a small pocket knife

With which he did the wicked deed.’

O Big Bumperton! Let others hurl insults – ‘Madman!’ ‘Murderer!’ –

While you ascend on your invisible bicycle

Ever closer to the cherry-red lips of your star,

A bright smiling star like a chorus girl.