Poem: Nathan, We Don't Live in the Forties

Ziz and Behemoth broke the air

Leviathan churned the waters below

Lo, all the pomp of Welthaupstadt

Was lost amidst the crimson flow.

Cleverly, perceptibly, the contact came

And I looked into a world formally constructed

Beyond logic, acting on concept

As if on concept the fact acted

And perceiving on a grainy reel

The world’s celluloid dream.

I thought ‘careful now’

And went forward beyond it

Back to the dreadnoughts.

The movements broke through

A human work made ‘things’ be

With a ‘realist’ faith.

Her school uniform

Blouse unbuttoned, skirt hitched up

But with a jumper

Popped in a world made of

Matinees, Your Hit Parade

And Captain Marvel.

His drab flannel suit

Collar turned down, kerchief

Perched in breast pocket

Made it very clear

That the home front continued

In roaring increase.

They tell me I’m getting my facts mixed up.

I tell them ‘This I know!’

So let me have my phantastes

And make Heaven’s Garden grow.

Edwardian frocks, Victorian books

Raicho’s moralities

Big band, Jackie Robinson

And freed minorities

Run in my mind like porno books

Run through a reptilian brain.

(The reptilian brain we all have, to be sure.)

The hundredth paper crane

Sits, tissue-thin, desiring touch and stringing

With its fellows,

In a basket on a low table. Below it

An old book with a binding twice broken

And never quite repaired

The book-peddler’s imperfect trade

With impulse-buying paired.

Illusory, the world moves on

Beneath a dull eclipse.

A little plate I’ll trundle out

Stacked high with dried rose-hips.

O will you have that tea?—said Milder to Moulder.

O no herbal tea sucks.—said Festle to Fose.

You take that back bitch!—said Builder to Boulder.

Go bugger yourself.—said John the Red Nose.

O where are the gay girls?—said Milder to Moulder.

Northampton and Portland.—said Festle to Fose.

And what of the Churches?—said Builder to Boulder.

Still stuck in their ruts.—said John the Red Nose.

O where is true romance?—said Milder to Moulder.

In low-budget anime.—said Festle to Fose.

O has it been licenced?—said Builder to Boulder.

Of course it fucking hasn’t.—said John the Red Nose. That industry’s slow as shit and filled with idiots.

What I want in many ways

Was there, but long ago.

And then in many other ways

It’s there beneath the snow.

Desires are empty in still other ways

Through them the North wind doth blow.