Stories
The Brass Bed and other Stories by alan gregor.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/alan-gregor/the-brass-bed-and-other-stories/ebook/product-20454926.html
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September.
Across the way beneath the writing on the wall
two lovers sit, having a cigarette in the waning sun.
Their fondness looks relaxed, though they talk
with lively gestures involving arm movements,
bodies turned urgently towards each other
then towards the western sky; hands flutter
the sunlight touches each silent word
touches lip’s impressions kiss the air.
Those lovers, came there, to leave moments
of vivacity, outlined in fragile script against
the night coming down. Those lovers
were there to take the edge off the omens,
to make the dreams of lovers and poets
seem real, though they never would, but,
though they never may be real
illusions are the stuff of irregular torment’s
erosive stripping of the heart and agony
hammering an anvil in the soul. So take away
the words and let me have the lovers in the sun
as a movie without sound, a mime, a painting,
a silhouette: fugitives from life, ‘star- crossed.’
a fashion shoe covered in city grime
lies lost on a bus shelter
next to the kebab shop
i see it’s desolate
colours dissolve under the oily
stains of sludge that are thrust
from the cut-price cars shrugging
their course homeward:
celebrant’s once stylish relic heaved
by barworker on epic drunken sabbatical
inaugural reliquary
for imminent pilgrims
Copper Trees.
Beneath the Copper trees
the black crows cawed
and hopped and skipped
and in Crow thought, they thought
of the dark, dead eyes of Ted –
whose poems I never really read
though urged by you who now have
your own dark, dead eyes,
so you and Ted can look at one
another and think of crows
skipping, hopping, cawing
and Iron men as well.
And in the park with the dancing crows
under the Copper trees,
schoolgirls moved through the grass
dew drop beads with early sun
mirrored on the water curves
clinging to their schoolgirl shoes;
i-pods stuffed inside their cares
and rapper songs stifling ears
life is a walk in the park
a dream in the dark
walk in the park
dream in the dark:
flat black crow
not part of the crew
sailed across the blue heaven
and I wished your eyes were bright with life
so you could tell me all about Ted’s crows,
his Iron men, and as old men we could
remember when our eyes were filled
with teenage schoolgirls rocking, twisting,
moving, dreaming, and crows were just big ugly black birds.
* * *
September, the land flooded with sweet light
and the mellowness of Autumn.
The fields a choir of dark green
with harvest, pale yellow
shapes and the hills curtained
in mist.
As a writer I have used the pseudonym ‘alan gregor’ (lower case) since the early eighties.
Using the name Charles Alexander may be confusing as there are a least two Author Poets, in America and one ex-editor of Time magazine who share this name. A holiday company, a Barrister, a model and several others are also registered in the commercial word with the name ‘Charles Alexander,’ and possibly countless others.
“. . .Oxymoron was ever the bravest figure, and we must not forget that disorderly order is order after all.” G. Gregory Smith.
Antisyzygy:
If you attempt to pronounce the word that heralds this statement you may find your mind in a fankle and tongue in a twist. It is one of those words which are meant to be used in textual form, rather than articulated. A word invented by a 19th, early 20th century Scottish literary critic named G Gregory Smith and you will find a paragraph of his explaining what he means by it on Wiki.
Why have I mentioned antisyzygy? It is a word that I have always thought accorded well with how I feel about life, others, myself, and is the spirit in which I believe the best literature is written, the best pictures are painted, films directed and so on – antisyzygystycal.
Life is polarised, made up of opposites, thesis and antithesis, black and white, God and the Devil. Hegel moved in false philosophical mode when he dreamt up synthesis. In following Hegel’s model, Marx analysed history wrongly and caused the very thing he believed he was curtailing. The workers encircled themselves in chains and embroiled themselves in a despotic theory.
Laurel and Hardy, Peter and Christopher Hitchens (sadly deceased) David and Young Nick. Tony and Gordon. Rest my case.