Sinister: the monday poem (slight return): espadrille

[A.M. Horne]

      *---*      HAPPY BIRTHDAY SINISTER BABIES    *---*

so, posting to the list again after what has to be a couple of months. and
it feels a little odd. can i remember how you're supposed to do this...?

oh, one thing i _do_ remember is that you have to talk about tapes that
keith's done you, and to say how great they are. 

well, actually, thanks to the wonders of the tape tree, i _can_ do this.
and so i shall. particularly since i should have mailed him personally to
thank him already. but, hell, everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn't
i? (as the cranberries, who _don't_ feature on keith's tape (or actually
cd)) once nearly said. 

so. ok.

thanks keith... for the cd. i suppose i shouldn't actually go into loads
of detail about what's on it, since, unusually, some of you will actually
be hearing this yourselves at some point or other, but i will say that the
notorious b.i.g. track on the cd sounds just like something off the first
snoop doggy dogg lp. thanks again.

oh. and liz daplyn's tape is wonderful. superb.

but anyway, that's enough of that. let's talk about something else before
i get on with my contractual obligation and post the monday poem, which is
why i'm posting the list in the first place (thanks genevieve), after
deciding that i'd be better off on the benedictine-monastery mailing-list
(fairly quiet in terms of the number of mails, but we brew our own beer)

so. thanks to those of you who've mailed me or even the list to ask why i
don't post any more. thanks particularly to james errington for his little
parable at the end of last week, which i can exclusively reveal to
susannah and anyone else who may (or not - please yourself) have been
wondering what it was about, was actually about me and honeypaul. and the
list. this probably isn't the place for a full sunday-school-style
interpretation, but thanks james, anyway

(oh. and don't worry, honeypaul. i won't be making a habit (gosh. can't
stop the wretched puns even when i'm trying to be serious) of posting to
the list. this is a one-off. or counting yesterday's apology, a two-off.
whatever.)

anything else? vh-1's offering a whole day devoted to the beegees fairly
soon, which of course _i_'ll be glued to. 

any gossip i ought to respond to? not really. all quiet on the preston
front. i can, of course, exclusively reveal that the notorious eric
griffiths (the 'disrespectful don' of paper fame) may well be a nasty man,
but he's also very funny, in case any of you daily mail readers are out
there. the chart show's dead, but i'd hate to stir up any trouble about
that in case anyone used to watch live and kicking instead. 

no reviews of the gigs? things _are_ quiet. still, at least the
software'll be happy.

love 'the boy with'. and 'brilliant career'. can't wait for nottingham and
london. 

and wasn't that muck-raking documentary on the carry-on films last night
appalling. so charles hawtry, kenneth williams and frankie howerd were
gay. gosh. and they hid it so well. how long before we get an expose of
oscar bloody wilde. 

(who isn't as funny as any of the above anyway)

anyway, the poem. a day late. but there you go. by frank o'hara. who was a
genius. but you knew that already. and it's called 'the day lady died'.
and it's about billie holiday (not the 'because we want to' billie, tho
i'm sure simon armitage has already written a poem about her, being the
on-the-pulse sort of guy he surely is (and no, stuart g, don't mention
murray lachlan young. don't even think about it)).

so. billie holiday. not billy bragg. or billy mackenzie, who deserved
something like this himself. 

ok. the poem.

'the day lady died'

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and i don't know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets 
in Ghana are doing these days
				I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or _Le Balcon_ or _Les Negres_
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Zeigfield Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing



(oh. and a p.s. a poem by tom raworth. who is also a genius. if anyone's
still reading. after which, bye....

(the-list-exile-formerly-known-as-espadrille))

MY FACE IS MY OWN, I THOUGHT

morning    he had gone
down to the village    a figure
she still recognised from his walk

nothing
        he had explained
is won by arguing       things are changed
only by power
             and cunning          she still sat
meaning to ask what
did you say      ?       echo in her ears

he might just have finished speaking        so
waiting and
           taking the scissors
began to trim off the baby's fingers



(ok. that's the last from me. i choose the lovely and very bright debbie
to do the next one. and nothing from tom stoppard, young lady.

ok. bye. i'm going now. or something like that. to listen to my del
shannon lp.)



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