December 26, 2005-January 1, 2006: Johnmichael Simon and Anitha Menon

Johnmichael Simon and Anitha Menon

Mundane Working Class Childhood Pennies for ices spied underneath a lollipop shop fridge in Northampton Yummy yum drops Walking home from school and spending the bus fare on donuts Licking sugar off my blazer sleeve Desperate Dan, Popeye and Olive Oyl, Shazam, Over the Rainbow Pennies from Heaven  Literature and Music revealed Twelve sided three penny bits, brassy heavy, comforting slipping with a clunk into a piggy bank Florins were even more satisfying Bashing in my locked money box with a hammer and spending the lot on twenty police whistles Genuine as Bobbies’ helmets My uncle from Argentine who added twenty seven pounds to the two bob I had saved up to buy a record player Picking apricots from a tree in a vacant lot in Johannesburg and selling them for a shilling a bag  Door to door salesman George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Isaac Asimov, Velikovsy’s Worlds in Collision and Madame Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled Time passes, pages turned Feeling Pamela Duckworth through her bra in my Father’s Oldsmobile parked on Northcliff hill She smelled like peanut butter sandwiches Beer, wine, champagne drunk from a tumbler, gin and tonic, brandy and Coke whiskey and water, whiskey on the rocks Being carried home, the humiliation Gate crashing a wedding reception and pretending we were guests, of the groom, of the bride Filching a whole cooked turkey  Milk of Magnesia Collecting my matriculation certificate from our perverted headmaster I, dressed in a flashy sports jacket with a packet of fags peeking out of my breast pocket Retaliation Receiving my first wage envelope.  Goodbye childhood, hello life, courtship, marriage, mortgages, kids and other indiscretions Licorice allsorts Bat Dreams We fly in dreams and urge to roam waken on tepid nights when Christmas beetles crawl, Cicadas sing and vagrant bats vanish and re-appear between the shadows of the mulberry leaves and the diminishing eaves of crouching rooftops We soar into the crescent moon pale as a sleeping brook draw lines of spangles over empty highways spread wings over continents span silver wishes, drink time like a white river rushing to dawns end How thin the membrane that cuts thoughts into what men think exists and what bats sense on their screens a shimmering world of sound and the ache to roam oh the ache to roam through the silken web that ties the sky to the ground And plunge helter-skelter into a well of silence like a black hole of knowing roaming the byways of a bat’s imagination the most exquisite freedom there is Watching Trains A Swiss watch opens itself curiously going round circles against circles teeth against each other an almost silent encyclopedia of dance in little bites, little bites rings inside rings like a toyshop, a train passing a siding again and again and a small body glued to carpet elbows propping chin counting the seconds in hundreds hundreds and thousands until closing time pulls him away

One morning You want the plumber For the motor Theres only air, no water In the tank The taps in the house Hiss empty nothings Kitchen and bathrooms Have the look of Deserted factories Frowning impatience From mother Who has the Bus to catch And, I tangly Unwashed hair Before I read Freud’s “Interpretation Of Dreams” Plumber’s wife Informs that He’s gone for confession But, soon, mercifully, He pedals down Sets to work fervently Gets water flowing Blessed be God!! The motor Purrs contentedly Alls well With my world Again.